Sales Force Compensation

Progressive Insurance is among the top organizations with a large salesforce and with top sales range from $3.2 billion. Progressive Insurance compensation plan consist of Career Development, Health, Money, Work/Life Balance (www. Progressive.com, 2014). Career development offer training, training and development and tuition assistance; Health consists of medical benefits, dental, vision, they offer fitness centers with equipment and services, classes, studio training and health incentives; Money rewards are base pay, bonus and 401k; Work/Life Balance consists of time-off which is 17 days given the 1st year of employment, family assistance consisting of adoption assistance, childcare subsidy, maternity services are all a part of Progressive Total rewards program.

The six features of an effective total reward program are 1) Compensation, 2) Benefits 3) Work/Life, 4) Performance and Recognition, 5) Career Development, and 6) Culture. Compensation is the pay an employee receive for providing a service to their employer base on their skill sets, experience, time of employment (The WorldatWork Handbook of Compensation, Benefits & Total Rewards, 2007, pg.7). According to H. M. Friedman and S. E. Gross (2004):

Compensation (including base pay, short-term incentives and long-term incentives). Many human resource and business leaders once believed that pay was the whole story with respect to attracting talent, motivating high performance, reducing turnover and a host of other human resource challenges. Turns out, it’s just part of the story. Other reward program elements can be just as important, if not more important, to employees. (p.8) Benefits as part of the total rewards program includes health benefits which includes medical insurance and other benefits such as social security and retirement. Compensation and Benefits are just two parts of an organization total rewards program.

Work/Life are the programs employers offer to their employees do their job effectively. Most organizations offer flexible scheduling, telecommuting, child-care programs, adoption assistant, fitness membership’s discounts, on-site fitness center, maternity assistance. Performance and Recognition are other component of the total rewards program. According to (“WorldatWork Handbook”, 2007):

Performance involves the alignment and subsequent assessment of organizational, team, and individual effort toward the achievement of business goals and organizational success. Organization, team, and individual performances are assessed in order to identify what was accomplished and how it was accomplished. Recognition acknowledges or gives special attention to employee actions, efforts, behaviors, or performance. (p.69) Performance and Recognition in the total rewards program. Employees feel that base on the how well they perform they will receive recognition in a form that is pleasing to them and will keep them from leaving the company to go to the competitor.

Career development provides employees with the chances to future their careers with the company. Employees are provide with on-site and off-site training and education programs that will help them to move up in the company. Some organization have training at universities just for their employees who wants to go into management. There is also tuition assistant for employees who want to further their education in order to get promotions within the company. Culture of an organization is very important to employees. Employees are looking for companies that fit their lifestyle and share the values. Organizations that are involve in the community, support certain lifestyles and/or offer certain incentives will gain employees with those same values as the company. Value Proposition

Value proposition is just another way of talking about total rewards. In talking about value proposition for current and future employees HR has to think about what the organization has to offer to future and current employees in the means of total rewards in order to keep them from going with the competitor. HR must communicate to current and future employees’ value proposition and know the importance of given this information to current and future employees as a part of the organization recruitment message (Gowan, M. A., 2004, pg. 688). To ensure that employees are satisfied with the company current total rewards program, we must assess the current program. Communicate is the key to assess the current program for employees.

Communicate to the current employee’s value of the total rewards plan and how the plan was selected with them in mind. The plan includes career development for those employees who want to better themselves to more up in the company. It also provides the option for childcare assistant and adoption for those employees with children or those thinking about having a family. Future employees looking for a company that value their employees as feel has their home life with consider working for an organization with those values. Current employees are more willing to stay on with the company base on the current rewards program because it fits into their current life style and they know the organization also value them as a person as well as an employee. Retaining and recruiting well qualified employees’ base on the organization total rewards program speaks volume about an organization business practice. Future Employees

The current total rewards program will attract salespeople with great skills, knowledgeable, years of experience and a wiliness to learn. Salespeople coming from a small organization that was unable to offer as many total rewards to their sales staff with jump at the ideal to work for a larger organization, with great total rewards. Salespeople knowing that they have the chance to develop their career with on-site and off-site training at the organization expense will be attracted to working for the organization. Knowing they could work for a company that support their
family life outside of providing them with a paycheck is another great feature of working for a larger organization. The total rewards also focus on the employee health and education development.

They have the chance to pursue a degree that will help to promote them within the company and have the chance to do other things within the company besides sales. Future employees with children receive help with childcare as well as been able to adoption with the assistance of the organization. There is the chance to attract great salespeople from other larger organization with good total rewards program, but could be missing one element that the competitor total rewards program has to offer.

Total rewards program for some employees and employers is the difference of getting great employees and just good employees. Some people are looking for total rewards programs that fit into their current situation and some are looking for how it will benefit later down the road. You might find organizations that offer similar total rewards programs but it will be something about that company as to why they were chosen by that future employee.

References
Friedman, H. M. & Gross, S.E, (2004). Creating an Effective Total Reward
Strategy: Holistic Approach Better Supports Business Success. Benefits
Quarterly, 20(3), 7-12.
Gowan, M. A. (2004). Development of the Recruitment Value Proposition for Geocentric
Staffing. Thunderbird International Business Review, 46(6), 687-708.
http://www.progressive.com

The WorldatWork Handbook of Compensation, Benefits & Total Rewards. (2007). New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.