ybody. A one size fits all approach is impossible. How do you reward the tea lady? And how do you reward the CEO and everyone in between? Invariably people in sales are top of mind in designing a system, while people in cost centres such as administration are the least likely to be considered. So let’s start with the sales folk. It is easy to put them on to a commission system but there are traps. Staff can tend towards being pushy and customers don’t appreciate this. Many systems create not competition, but arch rivalry among staff, and again, the customer can sense this.  As one enters a store, sales staff make a dive for the hapless customer and rather like nippers on the beach, only one can win. It is for these reasons among others that we do not favour individual staff commissions in retail unless there is only one sales person in a department. I once asked the best and most outstanding commission incentivised salesperson responsible for all sales in a department how much she had taken so far that month. She said that she didn’t know. I was astounded. She said she only added up at the end of the month because otherwise “the customers can see the dollar signs in my eyes”. I thought this was profound and it explained why she was so good, but she was a rarity. As you move up the hierarchy, the incentive scheme has to change. For example, a scheme based on net profit for managers is favourable because it focuses their attention on: Margin and discounting Expenses – especially wages Sales As far as sales people go, individual incentives (as mentioned above) are not favourable for another reason. Sometimes one person puts in the hard yakka and then has a day off. The customer returns on the day off and buys the item. This is clearly unfair and can only create animosity between staff. Team-based incentives for the sales staff seems to be the way to go, and it need not necessarily be big or even monetary. For example, time off is a great incentive. The other challenge is timing. As one moves up the hierarchy, people accept annualised incentives, but at the grass roots level people want instant reward for instant success. The discussions and debates will never end and emotions will run high. That is why some companies employ outside third parties to design and review these schemes. Stuart Bennie is a retail consultant at Impact Retailing www.impactretailing.com.au and can be contacted at stuart@impactretailing.com.au or 0414 631 702