Home Depot's Compensation Plan

Introduction 

A sales company’s success is highly dependent on its achievement of sales objectives for short-and long-term periods. Organization programs, such as training, employees’ motivation, and sales force recruitment, are costly. However, the sales force's compensation deals with the salespeople's performance management to generate income for the organization. Sales operations in an organization are highly dependent on the efficacy of the salespeople. Salespeople tend to improve and regulate their operations by connecting them to their compensation from the sales they make. Developing a proper compensation plan helps inspire and motivate the salespeople to enhance the operations and attain high targets for the company's betterment. I would wish to have a job at Home Depot as a sales specialist. I wish to help the company realize its larger sales and attain sales stability while controlling its salespeople. This paper focuses on developing the necessary components of an attractive compensation plan for Home Depot company. 

Dream Job Description 

My dream would be to get a job at Home Depot company as a sales specialist. Home Depot is a US-based incorporation that offers home improvement services. The company offers services such as assortments of building materials to its customers, improving the home products, garden, décor and lawn products, and other home services. As a sales representative at Home Depot, the responsibilities would be searching for potential customers. The specialist actively seeks new customers into the company to help it increase its income. A sales process requires innovative, flexible, and more organic specialists while approaching customers (Andris et al., 2020). Prospecting the customers would major on various sources like the existing ones, trade directories, press, inquiries, and cold canvassing. As a specialist, one has the responsibility for maintaining the information and customer feedback. Information from customers is vital for the planning and organization process and helps in decision-making (Milos et al., 2019). Maintaining customer data is very crucial is very vital in for finer nuances of the clients’ behavior and requirements. 

The sales specialist can meet with the many identifying problems affecting their customers and develop solutions. They help provide after-sale services to the company's clients, such as equipment installation, warranties, and maintenance, improving customer satisfaction. As sales specialists, it is their responsibility to handle customer complaints. They help in handling the customer grievances immediately they occur and offer efficient solutions. Being empathetic and showing sympathy to the customer develops goodwill and makes them spread the good news to other people on how they have been treated. The company's sales specialist makes frequent visits to their potential customers as they contribute greater revenue to the company. A specialist also has a major responsibility to manage relationships with potential customers, building the company's testimony. The sales specialists develop trust through a high frequency of contact and ensuring the organization policies are maintained, and responding fast and effectively to problems. 

Rewards and Compensation Package 

A compensation package for the sales specialists sets standards for their performance which leads to their better compensation. Cash is not king in compensation plans as employees understand other benefits other than money (Viswanathan et al., 2018). The compensation package helps specialists work accordingly and maximize their rewards in a way that benefits the company. A compensational package determines the workers' willingness to stay on a job (Michael et al., 2016). The compensation package for Home Depot would be providing better salaries, bonuses, commissions, providing territory volumes, incentives, and giving profit margins. Home Depot would provide straight salaries to the sales specialists by paying them straight like any other employees. Straight payment would be important in simplifying the organization’s expenses and offering sales specialists consistent payments. The salespeople would be motivated with bonuses as they exceed the company sales target. The company can provide them either semi-annually or yearly, either in cash, vacation packages to motivate their employees. The company would provide the sales specialists with a commission-only plan to sales specialists to motivate them on their performance. When they make sales, they will earn a commission that would be a percentage of that sale. It would help inspire the sales specialists and give them the sales freedom to regulate the amount they make and depending on the quantity they sell. Offering commission only to the salespeople motivates them and builds a good relationship with the customers, which is vital for the business's growth. 

The company would also provide territory commission by calculating the sales volume within a specific territory. It would help the sales personnel build a culture of collaboration and relieve them of some pressures of personal selling. Incentives are very crucial in maintaining the morale of employees and ensures they put more effort. Giving incentives to the salespeople would help in improving their productivity that is important for business success. Incentives would motivate then employees to work towards achieving the organization's goals. Incentives would also help in reducing the workers' turnovers and instead keep them longer in the company. If the company gives the employees incentives, it will enable them to blow off steam and be happy while working for the company. Finally, offering profit margins would help the company compensate the sales specialist depending on its performance. It helps a company to shift its focus income to profit, which is important for business growth. 

Benefits Package 

Acknowledging the impact on employees is one of the most rewarding aspects of organizational management. Offering the employees benefits keeps them more resourceful, engaged, and healthy (Tracy, 2020) . One benefit package for the sales specialist would be providing health insurance that would comprise medical and dental cover. The company would select health care befits for the employees whose minimum requirements like providing preventative medical care eligible for all salespersons. The company would give the salespeople the options to choose their primary physicians and insurance companies to cover them. The company would then provide the employees with flexible spending accounts to cover their basic medical expenses. The company would provide workers with medical insurance that offers them preventive care leading to healthy lives. 

Home Depot would also provide employees with dental insurance, which would be annual dental care such as cleanings and cavity fillings. Financial aid would help the salespeople to care for their health while in the field. The company would then provide them with mechanisms for their retirement savings. It would help in reducing the employees’ turnover and recruit more salespersons. The plan helps the workers contribute a portion of their pre-tax earnings and have financial independence. The company would also provide them with vacation time and paid off times. Providing vacation time helps the employees in relieving stress and burnout due to work pressures. Also, they can have enough time to take care of themselves and their spouses and dependents. Vacations and paid off time are usually an excellent way of showing commitment and commitment to the employees' work-life and well-being balance. The package would also include the stock option in which the sales specialists are reimbursed in exchange for the years of service to the company. The stock benefit enables the workers to buy a stock at a preferred price at a predefined time. Employees would be made flexible to work remotely by using their personal computers to work from home. It would greatly help them save on transport time and attain a greater work-life balance. By applying for the above benefits, Home Depot would become highly competitive and appeal to many workers. 

Collective Bargaining 

Collective bargaining is very vital for a company in developing relationships between workers and the management. A good relationship in an organization leads to a successful working environment. When the company management and salespeople interact and agree, it is thus said to be collective bargaining. It helps the organization management and salespeople conclude their wages, working hours, and the working conditions within the company. It helps in developing a strategic process of determining the terms and conditions for the employees. The employees can develop policies towards organization sales; thus, creating a stable relationship within the organization. Labor administration is a critical factor for an organization's success as it contains processes, attitudes, and behaviors that underpin how employees, unions, and employers would relate at the workplace. There would be collective negotiations and consultation frameworks in the organization to help in the events of conflicts. The framework would help in creating respect and understanding while dealing with issues in the organization like lockouts. The organization would issue a legal process to the salespeople to stimulate collective bargaining to ensure the organization has peace, harmony, and discipline on its social development and economic growth. Collective bargaining bridges the gap between the major and minor issues affecting the organization by promoting discussions, interactions, and dialogues. Collective bargaining is crucial in developing a good working environment. 

Conclusion 

In conclusion, the compensating plan enables an organization to be stable and have control over its performance. I would wish to work at Home Depot as a sales specialist. A sales specialist's duty involves prospecting the company's customers, maintaining information feedback from the customers, and providing the after-sale services. Home Depot would provide a compensation package that comprises the employees' salaries, commissions on goods sold, territorial incomes, and profit margins. The package would help in attracting more salespeople and controlling costs. The company would provide the sales specialist with health insurance benefits, paid-off times, vacations, stock options, and remote working benefits. The package would help Home Depot remain competitive and appealing. Home Depot would develop collective bargaining to improve the relationship between management and the sales specialists. Home Depot would utilize the compensation plan to improve its economic growth. 

References 

Andris, Z., Sinha, P. K., & Sally, L. (2020). 4 Questions Sales Leaders Should Be Asking Right Now. Harvard Business Review Digital Articles , 2-5. https://eds-a-ebscohost-com.libdatab.strayer.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=9e9678ff-ce32-479e-a82e-b27179934827%40sdc-v-sessmgr03https://eds-a-ebscohost-com.libdatab.strayer.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=9e9678ff-ce32-479e-a82e-b2717993482 

Michael, B., Prince, A. F., & Chacko, A. (2016). Impact of compensation package on employee retention. CLEAR International Journal of Research in Commerce & Management, 7 (10), 36-40. https://eds-a-ebscohost-com.libdatab.strayer.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=896836b5-d20f-4528-baf7-f0a94fa7fc8a%40sessionmgr4007 

Milos, N., Tamara, V., & Milan, G. (2019). Authors: The importance of modern information technology for making business decisions, 7 (1), 31-36. https://doaj.org/article/9b0e6194f8a14c0b90dcfddea1c13f72 

Tracy, B. (2020). The Whole Package: Companies use unique employee benefits to keep staff healthier and happier. Alaska Business Monthly, 37 (9), 24-30. 

Viswanathan, M., Li, X., John, G., & Narasiman, O. (2018). Is cash king for sales compensation plans? Evidence from a large-scale field intervention. Journal of Marketing Research (JMR)., 55 (3), 368-381. https://eds-a-ebscohost-com.libdatab.strayer.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=7&sid=5156a398-2d43-49f3-97a7-6fcea7016050%40pdc-v-sessmgr01