“Th
e new compensation plan is only as good as the sales representative’s understanding and acceptance of the plan.”
This quote is from the December 2010 issue of World at Work’s Workspan journal. I found it very familiar as we’ve been using the following line in our proposals since 2003 “You can have the best incentive plan in the world, but it doesn’t make a difference if your people don’t understand it or buy into it.”
I believe this with all my heart.
In fact, much of our business is built around this belief. We work with many of our clients creating communications campaigns that drive understanding and help build buy-in to their incentive plans. We tend to think about this in a holistic way with many touch points along the way. We don’t just craft a cool looking brochure and leave it at that. Our ideal process involves upfront analysis with interviews of participants and managers to better understand how the current plan is perceived and used. This analysis also provides us with much needed information as to some of the barriers that we will face in trying to communicate the plan. Then we need to think about how to break through the deluge of information that a typical sales representative is bombarded with. We also work very hard at trying to craft words and visuals that explain the incentive plan in a very easy to understand manner – crafting multiple messages, charts and images. The overall flow needs to be right or the impact is lost. It is important to understand what medium the message is going to be presented in and where it comes in the continuum of communication touch points – is it the first message that is intended to generate excitement in a flash e-mail; the main presentation at the National meeting that needs to show how a sales rep can maximize their payout with this plan; or the detailed plan books that are the legal documents that contain all the minutia that an incentive plan has? We then look at follow-up interviews and focus groups to make sure the message got through and that we didn’t miss anything. Throughout the year we want to communicate to the field using quick reminders and little teasers to keep the plan top of mind.
It is both an art and a science.
Which gets us to the title of this post.
