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So I read my work email and I get a message from my manager with an excel sheet attached with our sales/productivity. In the body of the message he asks the question: "How can we increase this?"
It's always befuddled me why they ask this in the first place. They know we are going to say more money or more incentives...and they never listen. I'm not dogging on my direct manager who sent the letter, because he does everything he can like giving us little gift cards, buying us lunch, providing energy drinks, etc. But the upper management and home office people are dolts. Anyway, since this is just a secondary job I decided to speak up because I, frankly, don't give a rat's ass about this job. I try my best and work hard but I don't care if the management doesn't like what they read.
"You and/or upper management might not like the answer but...incentives. Now I'm not trying to be argumentative or anything but just giving an honest point of view. Also, anything I say isn't because I am unhappy or anything. This is just my general comment from my past work experiences where managers try to get increased performance from their workers.
From what I hear, raises are hard to come by. Even if we were to get certifications that 1/hr bump probably won't happen because of budget concerns. I also hear that the bonus structure is hard to obtain. If it's anything like my past retail jobs, if one person screws up once then no one gets their bonus. There is no incentive to try harder. Sure, an encouraging word is nice to hear but that's not what people, ultimately, want. We are being asked to help the bottom-line of the company and the management but get nothing in return. You told us that if technicians sell service plans that we get a percentage of that...now some of us will probably end up pushing that more because it helps OUR bottom-line. We need to have a vested interest in the company and/or our work. My current company does this by letting the lowliest of people have input from the ground up on the development of our product so that it isn't just the company's product, but OURS as well.
I know the reply is going to be that there is a bonus structure...but that, to a degree, is unrealistic. I've had plenty of times where we go the entire month or quarter fulfilling the requirements to meet some bonus goal but on the last few days of the cycle one person makes one mistake in the paperwork, or something stupid, and that entire cycle's effort is thrown away. The company enjoyed our efforts up to that mistake but we get our entire bonus erased because of that one mistake. It's like they were trying to set us up to fail.
Again, I'm not saying I am unhappy I'm just throwing in my 2 cents on what it would take, in general, to get most people to increase productivity. Give attainable incentives."
I doubt they will care but...MEH. F them.
It's always befuddled me why they ask this in the first place. They know we are going to say more money or more incentives...and they never listen. I'm not dogging on my direct manager who sent the letter, because he does everything he can like giving us little gift cards, buying us lunch, providing energy drinks, etc. But the upper management and home office people are dolts. Anyway, since this is just a secondary job I decided to speak up because I, frankly, don't give a rat's ass about this job. I try my best and work hard but I don't care if the management doesn't like what they read.
"You and/or upper management might not like the answer but...incentives. Now I'm not trying to be argumentative or anything but just giving an honest point of view. Also, anything I say isn't because I am unhappy or anything. This is just my general comment from my past work experiences where managers try to get increased performance from their workers.
From what I hear, raises are hard to come by. Even if we were to get certifications that 1/hr bump probably won't happen because of budget concerns. I also hear that the bonus structure is hard to obtain. If it's anything like my past retail jobs, if one person screws up once then no one gets their bonus. There is no incentive to try harder. Sure, an encouraging word is nice to hear but that's not what people, ultimately, want. We are being asked to help the bottom-line of the company and the management but get nothing in return. You told us that if technicians sell service plans that we get a percentage of that...now some of us will probably end up pushing that more because it helps OUR bottom-line. We need to have a vested interest in the company and/or our work. My current company does this by letting the lowliest of people have input from the ground up on the development of our product so that it isn't just the company's product, but OURS as well.
I know the reply is going to be that there is a bonus structure...but that, to a degree, is unrealistic. I've had plenty of times where we go the entire month or quarter fulfilling the requirements to meet some bonus goal but on the last few days of the cycle one person makes one mistake in the paperwork, or something stupid, and that entire cycle's effort is thrown away. The company enjoyed our efforts up to that mistake but we get our entire bonus erased because of that one mistake. It's like they were trying to set us up to fail.
Again, I'm not saying I am unhappy I'm just throwing in my 2 cents on what it would take, in general, to get most people to increase productivity. Give attainable incentives."
I doubt they will care but...MEH. F them.
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