Abstract
Most organisations depend on their sales consultants to generate revenue. Sales consultants across industries normally work for commission, determined by the amount of business they bring in.
A group of security companies are currently spending a considerable amount of money and other resources on the recruitment, selection and development of sales consultants. In the past 18 months, 39 sales consultants left the company after being employed on average for no longer than five months.
Keeping the above in mind, it was necessary to establish exactly what caused the high turnover rate among sales consultants. By identifying these factors it would be possible for the organisation to eliminate the causes for high employee turnover and work towards promoting factors which would retain the sales consultants.
An overview of different motivation theories was considered. Most of the theories consider motivation from a personal need satisfaction perspective, while Herzberg also considers the motivation through restructuring of the work environment. For this reason, Herzberg’s theory was found to be the more appropriate one for this study
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Herzberg’s Motivation Hygiene (MH) Theory and other current literature on employee retention were used as a basis to investigate the high turnover rate of sales consultants at a group of security companies. ii
The nominal group technique was used to determine whether certain intrinsic and extrinsic factors are influencing the retention of sales consultants.
A study of the relevant literature revealed that employee motivation is at the heart of retention. Literature on employee retention state that retention should be seen as a process, which starts even before an employee joins the organisation. Organisations need to focus on scientific recruitment and selection in order to employ the right person for the position. Retention should then be managed by developing employees and by introducing the intrinsic and extrinsic factors as formulated in the Herzberg MH theory. The outcome of such an employee retention process will result in cost savings over a wide spectrum. The literature on retention is summarised in an employee retention model, which was used to make recommendations to the organisation.
The findings indicate that various factors such as company policies on remuneration, and administration, remuneration structure, working conditions and job security are playing a role in the retention of the sales consultant.
Based on the results of the empirical study, recommendations are made to the organisation in terms of retaining their sales consultants. This includes a commitment to retention from top management, creating attractive sales positions; improve opportunities for training and development and a revised remuneration structure for sales consultants. The problem areas were identified and should be addressed satisfactorily by following the proposed recommendations.
Prof. W. Backer