How your benefits offering can bring in top sales talent

Top sales professionals know their worth in today’s market, and they are well aware of the demand for talent. Therefore, it can be difficult to stand out from your competition and attract the top sales candidates, especially if your benefits offering isn’t up to scratch. A good benefits package is expected by sales professionals today, so if you don’t offer more than the tools to do the job then you could miss out on top candidates looking for a new challenge. 

So, how can you improve your benefits offering in a way that attracts and retains top salespeople in today’s market?

Why benefits packages are becoming more complex in sales

The Millennial Generation has redefined the way employers engage with their employees, through the greater emphasis on work-life balance. This has meant that employers have needed to adapt their approach to benefits packages in order to accommodate the flexibility craved by the majority.

Breaking traditional work practices can be difficult for some organisations to do, but it is imperative in order to attract the modern workforce. Part of this challenge is knowing where to start and how to accommodate such varying individual needs. 

A company car or car allowance has always been a contentious issue amongst sales professionals. There is an age-old debate on whether it is a perk or a necessity to fulfil role requirements. Traditionally, organisations have taken a hard-line approach and offered employees limited choice based on what suited the business best. This approach doesn’t work for the modern sales professional, as they need to consider their lifestyle when committing to a company car or car allowance. For example, if they have a family they may need an estate vehicle or not be able to sustain leasing their own vehicle for work. Sales professionals are unlikely to accept a role based on the car list on offer, but they absolutely will turn one down if the company car list doesn’t suit their needs. 

What does a competitive benefits package look like?

A basic benefits package might consist of a company car, which would usually be limited in options and have little or no flexibility around a car allowance. Low holiday entitlement and a state pension. However, top salespeople will be looking for more than that and that will weigh into their decision-making process when choosing to accept an offer. 

Here are some of the key things that some organisations are now choosing to offer their employees:

• Flexibility to select benefits that are most applicable to them, given their specific circumstances. This could be as simple as allowing someone the option to buy/sell holiday days or take a sabbatical.
• Prioritising wellbeing by offering their employees access to mental health charities / partners to support an ongoing / occurring issue. 
• Discounts at high-street retailers 
• Subsidised gym memberships
• Increased pension contributions 
• Access to financial advisors
• Cycle to work schemes
   

Although a good benefits package may not be the number one focus for a top professional making a move, or accepting an offer, they now have much greater pull than ever before. The notion that a new employer is going above and beyond to show they care about their employees’ wellbeing will appeal to potential candidates. To keep hold of your top sales talent, you need to make them feel rewarded, empowered, engaged, and looked after. Staff retention and employee engagement are intrinsically linked, if you can offer your employees more benefits, the more engaged they will be. 

How to attract and retain top salespeople

To top sales professionals, the most appealing organisations are those that have a clear business plan, which ultimately leads to a robust recruitment strategy. Culture should be the starting point for any new hire as opposed to identifying a skill set. If you build a team that embraces differences and your workplace culture is one that is inclusive and supportive, you will create an environment in which everyone feels as though they belong and can truly make a difference.

Hiring based purely on skill set means you will create an organisation of individuals rather than an inclusive, empowered team. The most successful organisations are the ones that have each employee pushing the business in the right direction. The easiest way to assess the culture you have and define the culture you want, is to review your organisation’s D&I strategy. If you strip the organisation back and ascertain what you want to be and where you want to get to, you can then find the right people to take on that journey. Therefore you will be focusing on the people, not what has worked in the past. 

How to build a better benefits offering

The best place to start when looking to improve your benefits offering is to talk to your current employees. Gain insights into how they feel about the existing offering and what they think could be improved. Not only would this create a more inclusive organisation by allowing your employees to have a voice about what they want, but you will also start to build a view of what is important to your people.

Most of the important benefits to individuals can be achieved by taking the smallest steps and often that simply comes down to having the option to pick and choose which benefits they want. Be that buying and selling extra holiday, choosing car allowances, private medical, or a private healthcare policy that focuses on wellbeing. Benefits aren’t always costly to your business, giving people choice can arguably be the biggest benefit you can give.

If you are interested in hiring top talent to your sales business, get in touch with one of our specialist recruitment consultants today.  Alternatively, if you are looking for a new opportunity, create a MyPage account to make the most of our Job Match tool and find the jobs that are best suited to your unique skill set.

Jack Chambers
Senior Manager, Michael Page Sales