如何利用獎金機制提高銷售團隊積極性？

Companies typically compensate their sales force by using some combination of salary, commission, and bonuses, but executives are often unsure of which incentives provide the best motivation. For example, should bonuses be tied to quotas or should they be given unconditionally? For a quota system, would it be better to use bonuses as a reward (giving them to those who meet or surpass their quotas) or as punishment (taking them away from those who fail to meet their quotas)?

公司通常通過使用薪金、佣金和獎金的組合來調動銷售隊伍的積極性，但高管往往不確定哪些激勵措施是最佳的。例如，獎金應與配額掛鉤還是應無條件給予？就配額制度而言，使用獎金作爲獎勵（給予滿足或超過配額的人）還是作爲懲罰（將他們從那些不符合配額的人帶走）效果更好？

To investigate these questions, we conducted a randomized field experiment at a large Indian company that manufactures and sells consumer durable goods. The firm’s sales force consists of over 5,000 people who are responsible for selling multiple product lines, including water and air purifiers, vacuum cleaners, security systems, and ancillary services. In the experiment, conducted over a six-month period in four urban cities (Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, and Hyderabad), we assigned different weekly bonus schemes to 80 full-time salespeople. These bonuses were substantial, representing about 27% of the monthly wage of an average salesperson at this company, and they were awarded either conditionally, according to performance, or unconditionally.

爲了調查這些問題，我們在印度一家大型製造和銷售耐用消費品的公司進行了一項隨機實地實驗。該公司的銷售團隊有5000多人，負責銷售多種產品線，包括水、空氣淨化器、吸塵器、安全系統和輔助服務。我們在四個城市（德里，班加羅爾，孟買和海得拉巴）進行了爲期六個月的實驗，對80名全職銷售人員實行不同的周獎金計劃。 獎金非常豐厚，約佔該公司平均銷售人員月工資的27％，根據業績等條件獎勵給銷售人員或者無條件獎勵給員工。

We assigned the salespeople to different bonus treatment groups. Some received conditional bonuses, which we tied to sales quotas under three different treatments: standard, punitive, and real-punitive. In the standard treatment, we gave a bonus payment after a salesperson achieved a weekly sales quota that was set 20% higher than what that individual had previously sold. The punitive treatment was identical except for the framing: We told salespeople that failing to receive a bonus was a penalty for failing to achieve their quotas. And in the real-punitive treatment, bonuses were awarded at the start of the week but then withdrawn for those who didn’t meet their quotas.

我們根據不同的獎勵措施將銷售人員分成多個小組。有些採用有條件獎金髮放方式，我們以三種不同的方式將獎金與銷售配額掛鉤：標準、懲罰和實際懲罰。在標準處理中，我們在銷售人員實現了每週銷售配額比（比個人上一階段銷售額高20％）後發放獎金。 懲罰性處理的方式有些不同：我們告訴銷售人員，沒有獲得獎金是對未能實現配額的懲罰。在實際處罰中，獎金在本週開始時頒發，但是若銷售人員未能達到銷售配額，獎金將被撤回。

Some people received unconditional bonuses, which were given irrespective of their sales performance. The goal was to encourage reciprocity, whereby salespeople would increase their work efforts in appreciation for the firm rewarding them with extra monetary compensation. These bonuses were awarded under two different treatments: delayed and immediate. In the delayed treatment the bonuses were communicated to the salespeople at the beginning of the week, and payment was made at the end of the week. In the immediate treatment salespeople were simultaneously informed of and awarded the bonus at the start of the week.

有些人獲得了無條件獎金，不論銷售業績如何都能獲得獎金。這種機制的目標是鼓勵互惠原則，銷售人員將更加努力地工作，以感謝企業爲他們提供獎金。 這些獎金由兩種不同的方式發放：延遲發放和即時發放。延遲發放指的是，每週開始時告訴員工即將發放獎金，但實際在一週結束時發放；即時發放則指銷售人員在每週開始時得到發放獎金的通知、同時能夠領取獎金。

Analyzing the resulting data, we found that the conditional bonuses were, on average, more than twice as effective as the unconditional bonuses. In fact, such conditional compensation resulted in a sales increase of approximately 24%. But, interestingly, we found little evidence of a difference between the standard and punitive treatments. This finding runs counter to loss-aversion theory, which stipulates that people’s desire to avoid a loss will be stronger than their desire to attain an equivalent gain. Our results also indicated that a conditional bonus could potentially demotivate salespeople over time: Salespeople’s performance was higher during weeks of a bonus treatment but lower in weeks after a bonus treatment. This result is consistent with past behavioral research that has found that too much extrinsic motivation may actually lead to a decrease in intrinsic motivation.

分析結果數據後，我們發現有條件獎金的效果比無條件獎金平均高出一倍多。實際上，有條件獎金促使銷售額增加約24％，但有趣的是，我們發現標準和懲罰性措施之間差異很小。 這一發現與損失規避理論背道而馳，這一理論認爲人們避免損失的願望強於取得等價收益的願望。我們還發現，有條件的獎金可能會隨着時間推移降低銷售人員的積極性：銷售人員的表現在發放獎金的幾周裏比較好，但在獎金髮放後的幾周內明顯下降。 這個結果與過去的行爲研究一致，發現過多的外在動機實際上可能導致內在動機的減少。

For the unconditional bonuses, we found that they were effective only when they were distributed as a delayed reward. Awarding salespeople with bonuses at the start of a sales period had no significant effect on their performance. It could be that, even though they were told otherwise, the salespeople considered the immediate bonus to be compensation for their past performance, instead of a reward for their future performance. Another interesting result was that the effectiveness of the delayed bonuses appeared to decay when such a reward scheme was repeated over time: The effect size became marginal toward the end of the field experiment.

就無條件獎金而言，我們發現只有延遲發放時才能起到作用。在銷售期開始時授予銷售人員獎金對其業績沒有顯著影響。原因可能是銷售人員認爲即時獎金是爲了獎勵他們過去的業績，而非未來的業績。另一個有趣的發現是延遲獎金的作用似乎會隨着使用次數的增加而減小：實驗結束時，這種獎金的效果已經趨近於零了。

We also investigated how the various types of bonuses might affect people differently. We found, for example, that the unconditional bonuses tended to be more effective for salespeople with a higher base performance, which supports the idea that high performers generally have more goodwill toward the company and thus are more likely to reciprocate by increasing their selling effort. In contrast, the conditional bonuses were equally effective across all types of performers.

我們還調查了各種類型獎金對銷售人員的影響。例如，我們發現，無條件獎金往往對績效較高的銷售人員更爲有效，這表明，高績效者普遍對公司有更多的善意，從而更有可能通過加倍努力來回報公司。 相比之下，有條件獎金對所有員工的影響基本相同。

Our results have implications for companies trying to more effectively manage their salespeople. In general, sales force costs often represent the single largest investment for an organization, averaging about 10% of sales revenues, and up to 40% in B2B markets. As such, companies would do well to understand how best to motivate their salespeople, and to that end, judicious bonuses can be an effective tool.

我們的實驗結果對於試圖更有效地管理銷售人員的公司有重要影響。一般來說，銷售人員成本通常是企業的最大投資，平均佔銷售總收入的10％，而在B2B市場則高達40％。因此，公司會更好地瞭解如何最有效地激勵他們的銷售人員，明智的獎金政策是一種有效的工具。

Sales force compensation is a tricky issue, requiring decisions based less on intuition and conventional “wisdom,” and more on hard, quantitative data. We encourage companies to periodically experiment with their compensation systems, as there is no clear-cut, magic rule for an optimal scheme. Firm and national culture are different, and so are people.

銷售隊伍的獎勵機制是一個複雜的問題，在進行相關決策時應避免過度依賴直覺，多參考量化數據。世上沒有魔法可以讓我們制定出完美的獎勵機制，所以企業應該定期對自己的薪酬體系進行檢測。公司和國家文化各不相同，人們也各有各的特點。