As a lifelong salesperson, I have always contended that all employees should be on some variable, performance-based pay. This article from CareerJournal indicates that a trend is forming in this direction.

Employers are making employees work harder for their money.Most workers will receive modest raises this year and next, as employers reward employees with performance-linked bonuses rather than broad salary increases, according to a survey by consulting company Hewitt Associates Inc.

That first sentence is bunk. I’m guessing the author has not worked in sales. The better lead would be to state Employees now have a chance to earn far more money for their efforts.

“More companies are relying on bonuses as the basis for pay for performance than they are on merit increases,” says Hewitt consultant Ken Abosch. Bonuses can help employers manage costs and are “very effective around creating focus” on business objectives, Mr. Abosch says. Hewitt’s annual survey included about 1,000 large and midsize U.S. organizations this year.

Amen to that. The article continues by raising typical questions – unattainable goals, poor manager reviews and undefined goals. These are all valid concerns, but the strategy of performance pay trumps them all.

The article closes with this gem:

Last year, the approximately 60% to 70% of employees who fell within the satisfactory range received merit raises between 2% and 3.5%; they also were eligible for bonuses. The mentality, Ms. Weinstein says, has gone “from entitlement to meritocracy.”

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Good post here from MN Headhunter regarding hiring and retaining top-level talent.

There is nothing I can add so here is a tease:

Let me bust this down to the simplest of levels: If you are bringing employees in the front door make sure you have the back door blocked with proper pay, work conditions, and job satisfaction. Retain your current talent and recruit your hard drive off and you can have one of the best staffs around.

Fail to do so and you will be lucky to maintain staffing levels and at best average talent.

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Uncommon to most of our Labor Day weekends, we relaxed and visited with family instead of the usual getting kids ready to start school on Tuesday. So with that enjoyable break, I am finally catching up on my reading. One of my RSS feeds is from Keith Rosen, author of Complete Idiot’s Guide to Cold Calling. His post on The Best Managers Are Fully Accountable For Their Communication is definitely worth reading, but let me share his 7 Tips to Strengthen Communication with you.

1. Am I taking full responsibility for the message being heard by the other person? (Remember that it doesn’t matter what you say, it only matters what the other person hears.)
2. Did I respect the other person’s point of view or did I have a reaction (disagreement) to what they were saying that prevented me from listening to their full message?
3. If I was asking someone to take a specific action (delegating), did I make my request clear & check to see if the conversation worked/was successful? (Did I receive feedback to ensure that I was understood?)
4. Did I receive value from the conversation? (Did I allow the other person to contribute to me?)
5. If the outcome of the conversation did not meet my expectations, what did I learn that would enable me to better communicate with that person? (Did I open up a new and greater possibility that I didn’t notice before?)
6. Did I give the person the gift of my listening?
7. When delegating a task or having a conversation, was I cognizant of the common sense trap?

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If you have read us for any length of time, you know we are suckers for lists. I just caught up to this one from the CareerJournal website:

The following are the top 50 employers for workers over age 50, according to AARP.

1. Mercy Health System, Janesville, Wis.
2. Lee Memorial Health System, Fort Myers, Fla.
3. Bon Secours Richmond Health System, Richmond, Va.
4. Leesburg Regional Medical Center and The Villages Regional Hospital, Leesburg, Fla.
5. Yale-New Haven Hospital, New Haven, Conn.
6. Volkswagen of America Inc., Auburn Hills, Mich.
7. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
8. Oakwood Healthcare System Inc., Dearborn, Mich.
9. First Horizon National Corp., Memphis, Tenn.
10. Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. (Roche), Nutley, N.J.
11. Centegra Health System, Woodstock, Ill.
12. Stanley Consultants, Muscatine, Iowa
13. Scripps Health, San Diego, Calif.
14. Brevard Public Schools, Viera, Fla.
15. Beaumont Hospitals, Southfield, Mich.
16. Principal Financial Group, Des Moines, Iowa
17. The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, Calif.
18. Inova Health System, Falls Church, Va.
19. The YMCA of Greater Rochester, Rochester, N.Y.
20. Saint Barnabas Health Care Organization, West Orange, N.J.
21. SC Johnson, Racine, Wis.
22. Atlantic Health System, Florham Park, N.J.
23. St. Mary’s Medical Center, Huntington, W. Va.
24. Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Va.
25. Carondelet Health Network, Tucson, Ariz.
26. SSM Health Care, St. Louis, Mo.
27. Busch Entertainment Corp., Clayton, Mo.
28. Bon Secours St. Francis Health System, Greenville, S.C.
29. Pinnacle Health System, Harrisburg, Penn.
30. University of Kentucky, Lexington, Ky.
31. St. Mary’s Medical Center, Evansville, Ind.
32. Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
33. Yuma Regional Medical Center, Yuma, Ariz.
34. MidMichigan Health, Midland, Mich.
35. West Virginia University Hospitals, Morgantown, W. Va.
36. Pinnacol Assurance, Denver, Colo.
37. ACUITY, Sheboygan, Wis.
38. Hospice of Marion County & Affiliated Companies, Ocala, Fla.
39. Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Mass.
40. Florida Hospital Waterman, Tavares, Fla.
41. University of Colorado Hospital, Denver, Colo.
42. Scottsdale Healthcare, Scottsdale, Ariz.
43. L.L.Bean Inc., Freeport, Maine
44. Mitretek Systems Inc., Falls Church, Va.
45. Ochsner Clinic Foundation, New Orleans, La.
46. UNM Hospitals, Albuquerque, N.M.
47. Cabell Huntington Hospital, Huntington, W. Va.
48. University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas
49. Adecco, Melville, N.Y.
50. John Deere, Moline, Ill.

I’m disappointed there are no Minnesota companies on the list, but it looks like our cheesehead neighbors to the East are well represented. This topic is going to continue to be at the forefront of hiring for the next decade or so. Companies that embrace the aging Boomer generation will have a competitive advantage in the short term. Our sourcing activities are already being taxed in finding strong Gen X candidates. There are so few of them, they almost seem to be a missing generation.

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Another CareerJournal article – When It Comes to Job Offers,It Pays to Ask for More Money – that discusses strategies for negotiating pay in the interview process. The short article has good suggestions for candidates but I want to take a myopic view of the article for sales candidates.

First, from the article (my emphasis):

CareerBuilder.com’s survey of 875 hiring managers revealed that about 60% leave room in the first offer for salary negotiations, 30% say their first offer is final, and 10% say it depends on the candidate.

Meanwhile, four out of five corporate recruiters said they are willing to negotiate compensation, according to a study conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management.

Yet few job-seekers actually ask for more, says Randall Hansen, a career advice writer for Quintessential Careers.

There is a subtle yet permeating weakness in many salespeople that is somewhat difficult to root out in the interview process. The weakness involves a salesperson’s ability to discuss money with a prospect. Many salespeople simply crater when it comes to defending their price while a prospect attempts to gain discounts.

Closing a deal is the ultimate reward for any salesperson, but especially for those who prospect to find their own leads, qualify them through a long sales cycle and receive a handsome commission for their efforts. Prospects know that dangling the chance that they may go elsewhere for a better price starts many salespeople down the discount path.

This discount behavior needs to be discovered in the interview process. We constantly delve into sales candidate’s selling systems to determine how they utilize their company’s value proposition and how they maintain their margins. This information is further measured by our assessments.

One last opportunity to measure their money strength is to observe them in the final interview and offer stage. The difference between a skilled, strong money-qualifying salesperson and the opposite is never more observable than at that moment.

Avoid the salespeople who stumble over money discussions.

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Great post from Seth Godin this morning that makes a not-so-subtle point about typical interview techniques. Here is the post in its entirety:

Omer sends in this riff from Peopleware:

Juggler Interview

Circus Manager: How long have you been juggling?
Candidate: Oh, about six years.

Manager: Can you handle three balls, four balls, and five balls?
Candidate: Yes, yes, and yes.

Manager: Do you work with flaming objects?
Candidate: Sure.

Manager: …knives, axes, open cigar boxes, floppy hats?
Candidate: I can juggle anything.

Manager: Do you have a line of funny patter that goes with your juggling?
Candidate: It’s hilarious.

Manager: Well, that sounds fine. I guess you’re hired.
Candidate: Umm…Don’t you want to see me juggle?

“Juggler Interview” may have to enter our vernacular here at The Hire Sense. We have sat through plenty of interviews and observed leading questions similar in nature to the Circus Manager’s approach in the above anecdotal example. The purpose of the interview should be to confirm what has already been discovered in the phone screen and assessment stage of your hiring process.

Often, companies over-value the interview while asking leading questions that usually elicit an affirmative answer without substance. Far better to use a phone screen to make the first pass on the applicants and to get a preliminary view of their skills.

A quick excerpt from one of our previous newsletter articles regarding an effective phone screen:

The key point in this step is to ensure that the call is not too easy for the applicant. The purpose is to make the applicant reveal their selling skills as they attempt to persuade you that they are the best candidate for the position. The call will be unsuccessful if you allow them to regurgitate their pre-canned interview responses. Get them off their game with your abrupt style and make sure you are the one asking the questions.

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I am probably naive about this topic, but I found this Inc.com article to be surprising regarding theft:

While only one in 10 workers admit stealing from their employers, close to 40% of hiring managers say they have fired an employee for theft at the office, according to a recent survey.

The survey, conducted by CareerBuilder.com, found that the most commonly purloined items were office supplies (15%), money (14%), and merchandise (11%).

40% just seems incredibly high. However, this motivation does not surprise me:

“One of the biggest reasons employees steal from the companies they work for is they feel the company owes them,” Marasco said.

Much of this does come down to proper hiring. Surely some bad apples will get through, but verifying information through a third party will positively impact this problem. We recommend Verified Credentials if you are looking for a provider of these services.

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The most important sales management action may be to hold your salespeople accountable. We constantly preach this responsibility to sales managers with whom we work. Salespeople are independed animals but they still need to answer to their manager in regards to their activities. The remarkable thing here is that sales managers don’t have to be good at holding their salespeople accountable, they just have to do it.

I caught up to this quick post from What Would Dad Say and got quite a kick out of it. Some times exaggeration is the best method for making a clear point.

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From the Justsell.com daily email:

The first U.S. Labor Day was celebrated September 5, 1882, when the Central Labor Union organized a demonstration and picnic in New York City, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Eleven years later, more than 30 states had passed bills to adopt the Labor Day holiday, and in 1894, Congress passed a bill establishing Labor Day as a federal holiday celebrated on the first Monday in September.

A few labor statistics:

I had a coach years ago who would run us through 2 long football practices on Labor Day. He used to tell us, “It is Labor Day and you will labor.”

I always hated that line.

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Oh to dream. I would truly enjoy Michigan footbal on that thing.

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