Directing Sales Team in sales Organization.

 Directing Sales Team in the Sales Organization

‘Directing as communicating to others what their responsibilities are achieving the company plan, as well as providing an organizational environment in which employees can become motivated to perform well’(Pearce  and Robinson Jr - 1989).

‘ Directing as getting people to focus their attention on achieving the objectives of the organization’ (Haynes and Mukherjee-2001).

Directing is a managerial function , setting  Norms,  Customs,  disciplines  and  works  attitudes  for behaving in organization Base on the quality and effectiveness of direction. organization  achieved success as well as personal satisfaction of employees. Directing is a process where sales team, train, motivates and communicates right instruction to get the desired outcome .Directing is critical management function where it’s has direct impact on Planning,  organizing,  coordination  and  control  the  resource  as  well  as effort. Instructions follows from hierarchy and start directing towards one common objective. Directing is a Leadership function. Leadership add visionary element to the directing process.

Communication   is   central   link   in   directing.   In   sales   management communication is a Two-way process. Direction also have a element of Motivation. Inspiring stimulate the sales force to release maximum effort to do their job. Directing should be auto reactive. Need sound full skills to perform on this and need good decision making ability. Directing is a Leadership function. Leadership add visionary element to the directing process.

Figure 1

https://www.google.com/search?q=directing+process+in+management+image&tbm

‘Leadership is ability to influence a group towards the achievement of a goal’(Robbins-1996).

‘ Leadership as a special case of interpersonal influence that gets an individual or group to do a what the leader want to do’ (Schermerhorn Jr. 2005).

The effectiveness or the success of the sales organization define as a summary of the  sales volume. Target vs actual ,Growth over the last year and Return on investment. It  will be considered for evaluating the regions, Sales persons ,Districts, products, or the  entire organization. Sales organization effectiveness is depend on the skills and efforts of the sales people. Top management (Sales Manager) should  direct them to achieve the company vision and mission through Training, Motivating , communicates right instruction to get the desired outcome.

References

Haynes, W., Mukherjee (2001). Twenty First Century Management: Central Educational Enterprises, 54, pp.3-30.

Piercy, N.F., Cravens, D.W. and Morgan, N.A., 1999. Relationships between sales management control, territory design, salesforce performance and sales organization effectiveness. British Journal of Management, 10(2), pp.95-111.

 Covin, J.G. and Slevin, D.P., 1990. New venture strategic posture, structure, and performance: An industry life cycle analysis. Journal of business venturing, 5(2), pp.123-135.

Taulman, J.F. and Robbins, L.W., 2014. Range expansion and distributional limits of the nine‐banded armadillo in the United States: an update of Taulman & Robbins (1996). Journal of Biogeography, 41(8), pp.1626-1630.

Haynes, W., Mukherjee (2001). Twenty First Century Management: Central Educational Enterprises, 54, pp.3-30.

Schermerhorn Jr, J.R., 2005. Management (eigth edition).

Sales Force Compensation

Sales Force Compensation.

Flippo(1984)defined compensation as the payment of adequate and equitable remuneration of personnel for their contributions to the organizational goals.

Any type of sales organization can reward sales performance in three fundamental and interrelated ways Direct financial rewards ,Non financial compensation ,Career advancement and personal development opportunities.

PURPOSES OF COMPENSATION.

Connect individual with organization ,Influence work behavior ,Organizational choice / cutting edge of Competition ,Influence satisfaction, Built in Long term vision ,Reinforcement ,Total well being of employers.

FEATURES OF GOOD COMPENSATION PLAN.

Management ,Fairness Motivation ,Flexible ,Competitiveness, Cost .

STEPS IN COMPENSATION .

FIGURE 1

REVIEW COMPENSATION PLAN.

Compensation plan should thoroughly review ( Legal aspect and complexity terms) ,Check Financial resource that facilitate to implement plan and continue in longer run ,Plan should able to absorb the shocks-( Inflation, sales drop and recession and competition) ,Make budgetary provision for accommodate annual increment of salaries, allowance and bonus, Check Sales volume met the ROI of compensation plan ,Plan should met the Sales and profits of the organization.

 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PLAN.

Make the Crucial decision on what level they go live on plan.( set of group or national ) ,Compensation plan is basically aim welfare of sales people and gain achieved company objective ,Must need to proper plan and control that should never over run the allocated budget.

STRATEGIC COMPENSATION SYSTEM (SCS)

SCS is another tool for effective human resource management, SCS has greater influenced on employee Motivation and Control ,SCS must fit with the resource capability and compensation objective of the firm, Manage compensation equitably ,Design and develop compensation package align with the firm’s objectives ,Drive Performance while boosting Motivation in Salespeople's ,SCS need to analyze/measure performance- act as a control tool.

METHODS OF COMPENSATION.

Straight salary, Straight Commission, Combination (Salary and commission, Salary and Bonus, Salary and bonus/commission).

Many sales organizations use the combination compensation plan to their sales force.(Salary+ Commission+ Bonus).Set sales target to the  Sales force  and the commissions will be paid for the achievements and the Bonus will be paid at the end of year for the cumulative achievements. Sales people can have higher income through achieving  their targets and they will engaged with the Job and highly engaged employee will leads the organizations forward.

REFERENCES.

Flippo, R.F. and Foster, C.R., 1984. Teacher competency testing and its impact on educators. Journal of Teacher Education, 35(2), pp.10-13.

Coughlan, A.T. and Narasimhan, C., 1992. An empirical analysis of sales-force compensation plans. Journal of Business, pp.93-121.

Basu, A.K., Lal, R., Srinivasan, V. and Staelin, R., 1985. Salesforce compensation plans: An agency theoretic perspective. Marketing science, 4(4), pp.267-291.

John, G. and Weitz, B., 1989. Salesforce compensation: an empirical investigation of factors related to use of salary versus incentive compensation. Journal of Marketing Research, 26(1), pp.1-14.

Lal, R. and Srinivasan, V., 1993. Compensation plans for single-and multi-product salesforces: An application of the Holmstrom-Milgrom model. Management Science, 39(7), pp.777-793.

Coughlan, A.T. and Sen, S.K., 1989. Salesforce compensation: Theory and managerial implications. Marketing Science, 8(4), pp.324-342.

Performance Appraisal Of Sales Organization..

Performance  Appraisal  Of Sales  Organization.

 PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL - DEFINITION.

Performance Appraisal as a continuous process of giving feedback to the subordinates about how well they are doing their work for the organizations - Stoner and Wankel(1986)

PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL [PA].

Performance appraisal is a integral part of the sales force management and  It’s gives clear indication of sales force performance.  Performance appraisal is a periodic evaluation process, that consists Setting predetermined standards – Planning Stage/Setting goals , Comparing actual performance against the set standards – Post-Performance evaluation  ,Performance appraisal gives the results efficiencies and Identifies the gap’s  Explore the efficient areas and suggest the suitable actions. Path to revamp sales force and reach to the desired performance stranded.

PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL [PA].

Evaluation is Base On,

Measure the Productivity – Effectiveness and Efficiency of sales force and Control Sales force when deviating from plan  - Corrective action to revert to original plan.

PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL - BENEFIT.

For promotion, selection, training, transfer and HR program. ,To assess the need of  T&D ,To improve the communication, understanding the goals ,To identify individual strengths & weaknesses ,Identification of poor performers ,To remove work alienation ,To help develop inter-personal relationships.

Figure 1

Source : https://www.google.com/search?q=steps+in+performance+appraisal

PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL – IN DETAILS.

Compare Actual results against set Standard.

 Compare actual outcome with the set standard ( Monthly Target Vs Actual )

Two Factor will come out – Remedial measures if actual is lower than the expectation or Further improvement for future benefits to the firm. Take Corrective Action

Performance Appraisal Methods.

TRADITIONAL METHODS

Ranking Method ,Paired Comparison Method ,Graphic Rating Scale ,Checklist Method , Critical Incidents Method  ,Forced Distribution Method  ,Field Review Method.

MODERN METHODS Management by Objective (MBO) , Behaviourally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS)  ,360º Appraisal.

Traditional Methods – Mainly focus on how sales peoples Traits or Characteristics contributes to the sales performance.

Modern Methods – Sales people become the part of the appraisal system and then evaluate their performance. Also they can suggestion to developed further on system.

References.

Stoner, J., 1986. AF dan Wankel, Charles. Management.

Bernardin, H.J. and Beatty, R.W., 1984. Performance appraisal: Assessing human behavior at work (p. 212). Boston: Kent Publishing Company.

Meyer, H.H., Kay, E. and French Jr, J.R., 1965. Split roles in performance appraisal. Harvard Business Review.

Mayer, R.C. and Davis, J.H., 1999. The effect of the performance appraisal system on trust for management: A field quasi-experiment. Journal of applied psychology, 84(1), p.123.

Pattanayak, S.K., 2004. Valuing watershed services: concepts and empirics from southeast Asia. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 104(1), pp.171

Performance Management.

Performance Management.

Define as the continuous process of improving performances by setting individual teams and goals which are aligned to the strategic goals of the organization. Planning performance to achieve the goals, reviewing progress, and developing the knowledge ,skills and abilities of the people(Armstrong,2017 p.391).

Performances is the out come of three determinants. Facts and things, how things are done, motivation to do them (Arms,2017 p.392).

Worlds economic environmental is changing rapidly. The demands of the customers and the investors are changing and product market competition is increasing. To compete in this competitive market they must improve their performance by reducing cost, Innovations, improving quality ,improving productivity . HRM has crucial role In performance management. 

Components of Performance management are Planning for performance, Supporting performances, Assessing performance.

Much of the research on the link between HR and frim performance has looked at single HR practices such as compensation (e,g.,Terpstra & Rozell,1993).

As far as sales organizations are  concerned ,performance = Productive calls.(closed sales).Sales organizations follow  this compensation policy (Basic + Commission  )to get the sales force motivated to higher productive calls. Company productivity and the income of s ales force are gradually increased due to this norm.

Goals help employees to define priorities consider what skills apply and serve to motivate (Lathnam and locke 1999).

All the organizations as well as Sales organizations set short term and long term goals for the sustainability and growth of the organization. Cooperate management set that goals which directly linked to vision and mission of the organizations. Operational  level is bringing revenue to the organization they don’t care about the organizational goals but about their personnel goals. Middle management should know the goals of each and every employee. Spam of control use there for allocating employee to line managers. They  should link their goals to company goals and  motivate employees to achieve their personnel goals .Then employees are eager to accomplish their goals and automatically organizational goals are achieved.

References.

Ferreira, A. and Otley, D., 2009. The design and use of performance management systems: An extended framework for analysis. Management accounting research, 20(4), pp.263-282.

Ferreira, A. and Otley, D., 2009. The design and use of performance management systems: An extended framework for analysis. Management accounting research, 20(4), pp.263-282.

Kaplan, R.S. and Norton, D.P., 2007. Balanced scorecard. In Das Summa Summarum des Management (pp. 137-148). Gabler.

Malmi, T. and Brown, D.A., 2008. Management control systems as a package—Opportunities, challenges and research directions. Management accounting research, 19(4), pp.287-300.

White, M., Hill, S., McGovern, P., Mills, C. and Smeaton, D., 2003. ‘High‐performance’management practices, working hours and work–life balance. British journal of industrial Relations, 41(2), pp.175-195.

Employee Engagement.

Employee  Engagement.

Employee engagement is a positive attitude held by the employee towards the organization and its value. Engaged people  are aware of business context and work with others to improve performance with in the job for the benefit of Organization. The organization must work to develop the  engagement between employee and employer.

Why Employee  Engagement is  Important.

Reduce level of  Employee churn, Higher  productivity, Improved attendance, Higher customer satisfaction.

Organizations need to keep the employee engagement in  higher level to achieve organizations goals because engaged employee willing to do their best in their job role. Leadership style effects to the employee engagement and  there is a relationship between leadership style  and employee engagement.

Engagement as a psychological factor including attachment and enthusiasm. According to this attachment and enthusiasm following feathers  of engagement are improved . Job Satisfaction, Organizational commitment ,psychological empowerment and Job involvement.

Engagement as satisfaction Engagement and satisfaction are direct link. Employer always try to upgrade the satisfaction of employees to maintain the engagement for getting hi performance. “Individual satisfaction and involvement will leads to enthusiasm for work” Harter et al (2002).Employees are satisfied with Opportunities for development, recourse  availability ,Compensation packages, Organizational  vision /mission and its benefits to society.

Organizations need highly engaged employee with passion and feel a profound  connection to their work and company. They  drive innovation and move the organization forward. The employers have challenge to identify the how  each and every employee got engaged .

References.

Harter, J.K., Schmidt, F.L. and Hayes, T.L., 2002. Business-unit-level relationship between employee satisfaction, employee engagement, and business outcomes: A meta-analysis. Journal of applied psychology, 87(2), p.268

Macey, W.H. and Schneider, B., 2008. The meaning of employee engagement. Industrial and organizational Psychology, 1(1), pp.3-30.

Markos, S. and Sridevi, M.S., 2010. Employee engagement: The key to improving performance. International journal of business and management, 5(12), p.89.

MacLeod, D. and Clarke, N., 2009. Engaging for success: enhancing performance through employee engagement: a report to government. London: Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Xu, J. and Cooper Thomas, H., 2011. How can leaders achieve high employee engagement?. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 32(4), pp.399-416.

Albdour, A.A. and Altarawneh, I.I., 2014. Employee engagement and organizational commitment: Evidence from Jordan. International journal of business, 19(2), p.192.s

Employee Relationship.

Contemporary Employee Relationship.

'The approaches and methods adopted by employers either collectively through their trade unions or Individually’(Armstrong,2017).

Why need a relationship between employer and employee.

Both employer and employee have expectations , legal rights and responsibilities .Employees expect that Employers will treat them reasonably ,fairly, and consistently .Security of employment, good working condition, healthy and safe work environment ,terms and conditions of employment are considered by the employees and if these expectations are not met they have a right to pursue  grievance .Employer  expect that employees will perform their tasks and duties in satisfactory manner and also expect they ‘will do what they are told without costing too much’(Armstrong ,2017). ‘If an employees performance is not satisfactory employer have right to take appropriate action’(Henderson,2017).

The impact of management styles on employee relations.

Most researches highlighted that there is a significant impact that management style can have on employee relations and critically influenced  work place relation of the organization and also it influence the human resource development ,particular recruitment ,training ,pay bargaining and interpersonal relationship at the work place.

How to build employee relation at the work place.

01.Voice of employees.

Employees should have freedom to express their ideas on the organizational culture, changes and issues to the employer. when they have a way to communicate their issues and innovations to the management it will help to improve  employee engagement  and psychological contract with the employment. Employer can implement the most innovative ideas for the betterment of the organization.

02.Rewarding and Recognition.

There should be a rewarding and recognition system to the organizations .it will enhance employees motivation and they engage with their duties and responsibilities ,Due to this motivation and engagement  efficiencies will increase ,performance gradually increased and organization will be more profitable .Employee relations will improve and employee turn over will decreased.

03.Employee development.

Employee training and development policy is  future of the organization. Through a proper training and evolution program employees’  personnel life as well as carrier life should be developed. According to  maslows’s  theory There should be hierarchy of the organization and it should be open and achievable to all qualifiers to improve employee revelations organizational development.    

References

 Timo, N. and Davidson, M., 2005. A survey of employee relations practices and demographics of MNC chain and domestic luxury hotels in Australia. Employee Relations, 27(2), pp.175-192.

MacMahon, J., 1996. Employee relations in small firms in Ireland: an exploratory study of small manufacturing firms. Employee Relations, 18(5), pp.66-80.

Gaertner, K.N. and Nollen, S.D., 1989. Career experiences, perceptions of employment practices, and psychological commitment to the organization. Human relations, 42(11), pp.975-991.

Agarwala, T., 2003. Innovative human resource practices and organizational commitment: An empirical investigation. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 14(2), pp.175-197.

Ramsay, H., Scholarios, D. and Harley, B., 2000. Employees and high‐performance work systems: testing inside the black box. British Journal of industrial relations, 38(4), pp.501-531.

Armstrong, M., 1980. Human resource management practice.

Staffing Process and Challenges in HRM

Staffing Process and Challenges in HRM.

  

Staffing       

Staffing is broadly defined as the process of attracting, selecting, and retaining competent individuals to achieve organizational goals. Every organization uses some form of a staffing procedure, and staffing is the primary way an organization influences its diversity and human capital.

Staffing positions is the most important human resource management Function in organization. There are three functions . Hiring people from out side , moving people internally to another job or moved people out from the organization.

A Number of recent contributions to HRM field have noted the significant of the changing nature of careers for MNCs( See Stahl et al.,2002Dickman and Harris,2005;Thomas et al.,2005;Collings et al., 2007)

AmajorChallenge  facing  in  emerging  markets  is  the  difficulty  in  recruiting  and  retainingmanagerial  talent  with  the  requisite  skills  to  operate  in  these environment and future persuade qualified candidates to transfer to these locations(Bjorkman and Xiucheng.2002.collings and Scullion.2006).

Another Challenge will be falling supply of qualified candidates in future .There will be lots of vacancies in job market but qualified candidates will not be available for this jobs(Scullion  and  Collings,  2006;  Collings  et al.,  2007). 

As far as world population is concerned women percentage is going up  but women’s participation in the labor market is marginal and that their career prospects are limited Specially in Islamic societies. So it will be serious issue.

Staffing Process.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=recruitment+process&oq=recruit.

 Modern organizations struggle with staffing challenges stemming from increased knowledge work, labor shortages, competition for applicants, and workforce diversity. Yet, despite such critical needs for effective staffing practice, staffing research continues to be neglected or misunderstood by many organizational decision makers. Solving these challenges requires staffing scholars to expand their focus from individual-level recruitment and selection research to multilevel research demonstrating the business unit/organizational-level impact of staffing.

 References.

Bajic, V.B., Veronika, M., Veladandi, P.S., Meka, A., Heng, M.W., Rajaraman, K., Pan, H. and Swarup, S., 2005. Dragon Plant Biology Explorer. A text-mining tool for integrating associations between genetic and biochemical entities with genome annotation and biochemical terms lists. Plant physiology, 138(4), pp.1914-1925.

Scullion, H., Collings, D.G. and Gunnigle, P., 2007. International human resource management in the 21st century: emerging themes and contemporary debates. Human Resource management journal, 17(4), pp.309-319.

Judge, T.A. and Ferris, G.R., 1992. The Elusive Criterion of Fit in Human Resources Staffing Decisions. Human Resource Planning, 15(4).

Ployhart, R.E., 2006. Staffing in the 21st century: New challenges and strategic opportunities. Journal of management, 32(6), pp.868-897.

Schneider, B. and Schmitt, N., 1976. Staffing organizations. Goodyear Publishing Company.