Dive Brief:
- HR needs to involve itself in sales quota management, according to Radford, an Aon subsidiary. According to the company, quotas shape the employee value proposition within a sales team and impact cost-of-sale measures and competitive earnings. Therefore, HR's expertise in performance management, compensation and employee engagement can help organizations better mitigate high turnover.
- In the Radford Global Sales survey, data collected from 75 SaaS companies showed that companies with high voluntary salesperson turnover were 80% more likely to have a bigger share of low-performing sales reps. Radford cited a Harvard Business Review study that backed its findings; the study found that lower-performing salespeople were less likely to leave their companies than mediocre performers, who, in turn, were more likely to leave than high performers. Lower-performing salespeople also cost companies more because their compensation can exceed what they bring in from their sales, Radford said.
- Radford recommended HR leaders get involved in sales quota management by: 1) measuring the impact of their company's cost of sale against sales quota achievement; 2) assess how sales quota achievement contributes to turnover and disengagement; 3) assess factors that lead to high achievement; 4) mitigate quota achievement's negative impact on pay; and 5) use more predictive data to change goal-setting methodology.
Dive Insight:
HR professionals might be reluctant to enter the debate between sales leaders pushing for reasonable quotas and finance prioritizing better compensation management. But HR has expertise in the human aspect of business, which can help raise performance and retention rates — both through engagement and with innovative strategies to combat the ever-widening talent gap in an employee-driven labor market.
The need for HR leaders to step into sales quota management signals how critical their input is to the success of their organizations. HR leadership has long understood the need to engage in the so-called "business" or "finance" side of its company's operations. With finding top talent still the greatest challenge for HR leaders in 2019 and CEOs identifying the talent shortage as an emerging business risk, the time for HR's involvement in areas beyond its traditional functions — especially those that merge matters of revenue and employee experience — is more crucial than ever.