This summary of the career development plan for Company X is developed in the backdrop of the restructuring in the sales department to take on new roles in marketing and customer relations. The new roles will not only require more and improved skills among the existing employees but also the hiring of five new employees. This report summarizes the overall activities to take place in ensuring the expanded sales department is adequately staffed to handle the emerging roles.
New job Descriptions
The expansion of the sales department to incorporate customer relations and marketing will require five more committed staff members for the department. Since the introduced roles are not much developed in the company, only one of the five new employees will be at the top level. Others will be assigned duties at the lower level to help create a base and entrench the departments into the working processes of the company. After thorough considerations of the new roles being introduced and the existing workforce capacities, I propose that the job descriptions and qualifications be as follows:
Public Relations Manager
This is the top level post which I propose should be introduced at the management level. The roles of the office holder will be mainly to establish friendly correspondence with all external parties dealing with the company. These parties include customers, potential customers, suppliers, creditors and other public members including the media. He will oversee the establishment and development of the company’s brand as well as engage in defining the marketing strategies to be executed by the company to improve sales revenues.
He or she will be charged with the responsibility of building the image of the company, generating higher sales revenues for the company through proper selection of marketing techniques. He will also advise the company’s management on the best customer care practices applicable to the retail business in which the company engages in.
The qualifications for anyone applying for the post will include:
- A masters degree in marketing or public relations.
- A bachelor’s degree in commerce, sales and marketing or any business related degree.
- A diploma in sales and marketing for those holding masters in public relations is desirable.
Other important skills include:
- Great interpersonal and communication skills.
- Ability to lead a team towards achieving set goals.
- Ability to develop own ideas and implement them.
- At least two years experience in customer relations or marketing.
Customer Relationship Officer (2 posts)
This post is at the implementation level. The office holder will be in charge of customer relations. Duties for the post will include:
- Liaising with the sales staff to ensure customer satisfaction.
- Receiving complains and comments from customers.
- Coordinating all departments in responding to customer complains.
The office holder will be required to posses the following qualifications:
- A bachelors degree in public relations.
- A diploma in sales and marketing will be an added advantage.
The required skills for the job include:
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
- Developed customer care skills.
- Ease of identifying and solving problems.
Marketing executive
This post is meant to boost the marketing role of the department. The office holder should be a creative marketer with a proven ability to market retail businesses.
He should have the following qualifications:
- A bachelor’s degree in a business related course.
- A diploma in sales and marketing.
- Other skills required include:
- Creative thinking.
- Aggressiveness and commitment towards work related issues.
In identifying the best office holders to employ a comprehensive multistage recruitment process will be conducted to assess the abilities of short listed applicants.
Training program
The new roles assigned to the sales department are more intensive and different from those already existing. Since both the new and the existing employees will be undertaking the roles jointly there is the need to carry out a training program which incorporates both the new and the old staff members in a bid to rationalize operations and achieve optimal results (Business performance, 2009, Par 4).
In conducting the training program, identifying the training needs is always a priority. In the Company, the most important areas identified as lacking are customer relations and marketing. In this regard the training program should largely be geared towards inducting the employees in the sales department to the basic skills in marketing and customer care. More intensive training will be on the interdependence of the sales, marketing and customer relations in improving the overall performance of the company (Jeffery, 2009, Par 5).
The training program should be conducted through two main methods. First, there should be a series of workshops to be attended by all the department’s employees. Experts in customer relations, marketing and sales should be hired to expressly take the workers through the basic issues in customer care and marketing.
Each session will be end with an exploration of ways through which the three functions carried out by the department interact and support each other. This way each employee will be able to identify areas where they best fit and the roles associated with those areas. Secondly, specific practical tasks should be assigned to the employees during the training to help acquaint them even better with the roles being introduced. The program should take a month (Action For Enterprise, 2006, Par 5).
Employee evaluation
On ending the training program, a continuous evaluation process should be adopted to ensure the program is successful. Data should be collected on customer satisfaction as well as changes in sales revenues attributable to the introduction of the new roles. The team appraisal will help asses the entire team’s uptake of the skills taught. Also assessments of the individual’s effort and understanding of the new roles will be assessed through random checks on customer satisfaction levels. This could be done through questionnaires to be filled by customers.
The major difference between the team appraisal method and the individual assessment is that the team appraisal method evaluates the entire team’s performance and leads to equal reward to all the members. Again, it motivates workers towards achieving commonly defined goals. In the case of the sales team at company X, the overall effect on the sales revenue as well as customer satisfaction is assessed and all the rewards shared among all the workers in the department (Schumacker, 1998, par 4).
Individual assessments of the performances evaluate individual efforts applied towards the achievement of certain goals. In the case of company X random forms can be filled by customers served or dealing with certain employees. Of greater importance is the fact that the two measurements complement each other and assist in getting the best assessment results.
The challenges with performance evaluation are mainly due to difficulty in measuring certain aspects such as customer satisfaction and marketing effect on sales. Again mistakes can happen on assigning evaluations. It is also difficult to estimate optimal productivity especially due to inherent differences in various job processes. It may be difficult for one employee dealing with direct sales to be evaluated alongside a customer care officer based on the amount of sales they are able to generate.
The team appraisal system has several unique needs. First, it requires that management be focused more on the unit rather than the individual. Team goals in this context will be much broader and complex than individual goals. Therefore, the entire sales team goals will not only be to improve the sales volumes of the company but also the conditions at work reward schemes and the target results of the organization.
Motivational element s will also be incorporated to improve the performance of the team. The goals and objectives of the entire team will be crafted to take to consideration the aspirations of the organization in restructuring the sales department. Improving revenues and customer satisfaction will be the core defining aspects of the team’s goals for motivation. Again, opportunities will be created targeting high achievers among the group.
In designing the motivational strategies, special focus will be given to individual equity. Individual equity ensures fairness in the reward systems for employees undertaking similar roles. Whether financial or otherwise, the compensation should reflect fairness for the employees to remain motivated. In the company, a compensation plan will apply to all the sales team members but will be adopted to take care of the differences in the roles undertaken by different employees in the sales department.
Still social loafing, a situation where an employee’s share of the workload is handled by others will be dealt with. All sales team members will be required to fully undertake their duties and not rely on others. This will require close supervision and the setting of individual targets. This way individual reward will result from individual effort.
Managing employee’s career development
A critical aspect of ensuring that the hired and the existing employees remain at work is the prospect of development. Interested team members will be encouraged to join scholarly institutions to pursue various relevant educational qualifications which can be financed by the company. Again promotion in the department will be done in consideration of both academic qualifications as well as performance indicators. This will give challenge and more meaning to the workers. The stage will always be set to explore ideas from different employees at any given time. This way advancement will be earned through the ability to be creative (Robbins, 2007, Par 5).
Compensation Plan
In order to achieve target sales volumes, the staff in the sales department should apply individual energies as well as team energies. A viable compensation program will focus on rewarding team effort as well as individual efforts. A collaborative model is thus applicable. It views the sales team members as equals as far as the component of team reward is concerned. It also supports individual efforts incorporating a scheme for rewarding personal efforts. A shared matrix will be developed to determine what portion of the sales volume will be attributed to group reward system and what portion will be attributed to the individuals in the group.
The three basic compensation packages to be implemented for the sales teamwork force is a basic salary, commission, and sales bonuses. The basic salary will be based on the weight of qualification as well as the experience the staff member has.
Commissions on the sales volume generated will be paid according to a percentage. The commission should then be split into two. The first portion should be attributed to the entire sales team with special considerations of the roles played by each team member in generating sales.. The second portion will be apportioned to the team members in accordance with their registered ability to generate sales for the company. Commissions will be paid out on a monthly basis.
Bonuses will be availed to any team member who reaches a specific goal. They will be calculated semi annually. For a staff member with experience in selling cleaning products, the requirements for achievement of the bonus will be lower in the sale of cleaning services and vice versa. This is in order to take care of differences in expertise and encourage everyone (Cichelli, 2003, Par 6).
Conclusion
Applying the reported strategies in the retail business will undoubtedly lead to a massive growth in the revenues of the company, better customer satisfaction which breeds loyalty among customers. It is however important to note that the entire program involves significant amounts of expenditure for the firm. Hiring experts, paying for educational advancements and even the lost time used in training can significantly increase the costs of the company. However the long-term benefits are numerous.
References
Action For Enterprise. (2006). AFE Training Workshops In. Web.
Business performance. (2009). Training management and administration. Web.
Cichelli, D., (2003). Compensating the Sales Force: A Practical Guide to Designing Winning Sales.
Jeffery B. (2009). Use Training and Development to Motivate Staff. About.Com: Human Resources. Web.
Robbins, S.P. (2007). Organizational Behavior. Motivation: From Concepts to Application, Chapter 7, 237.
Schumacker, A. (1998). Team assessment utilizing a many-facet Rasch model. Web.