How to solve the conflict between my salesman?

Question

I have a small clothing shop and two saleswomen. Because the opening hour is long so I divided it into two shifts and one for each. But because I have an attractive commision plan based on their sales, the girl in the morning shift would rather stay in the shop after her shift and work in the other's. Although they take the morning shift alternately, one still works more (and possibly sales more) than the other. Now the girl who works less (but still more than required) feels unfair and believes the other girl steals her business. Although as the shop owner I'd like to see this competation but the conflict will hurt the business in the long term. So is there any way to still keep their enthusiasm but turn the conflict into a not malignant one? Many thanks.

Answer 1

Dear Si_Wayne,

Keep track of the hours that each girl works. Let's say "Cindy" works 20 and "Lu" works 10. This totals 30.

Revamp your commission plan where all commissions are pooled instead of earned individually. Let's say that the weekly total commission that you would pay is $500.

Pay Cindy 2/3 of the $500 and Lu 1/3 of the commission based on the hours that they work.

This will enourage them to work together to satisfy your customers rather than squabble. Because they both benefit at the same time in the same proportional amounts they will be inclined to work with one another. It will also encourage them to work equal hours if they want equal pay, yet it will still require that product gets sold before any commissions get paid.

You are going to need to effectively communicate this plan to them or they will revolt before you get the second sentence out of your mouth. Focus on what the goals are and then communicate the plan as a response to accomplishing the goals.

Good Luck,
Dana B.
www.thebarfieldgoup.com

Answer 2

Even with your description, it is difficult to know what the entire situation here is but the following may help:

First, since it is such a small shop do you work there as well? If so, your monitoring of their activity may contribute to a solution. Perhaps you could mandate that their defined shifts be adhered to -- something you could enforce directly if you are also in the shop.

If you don't work there but do track the timing of sales, you can still compensate them as you are but only for scheduled shifts. The rest of the time you could use a reduced-commission structure or perhaps use a profit-sharing structure as I suggest below.

It's probably the case that you don't work there (or atleast most of the time). In that case, you may wish to consider a profit-sharing structure in place of a commission-based compensation. Doing so would make each saleswoman's compensation dependent on the other woman's efforts/sales. This is, in my opinion, a good solution IF their competency/performance is similar. If not, this might actually serve to deepen the rift between them.

Lastly, you could go the completely opposite direction with regard to schedules: mandate shifts but allow both employees to come in at any other time, as well. If one or both *chooses* to work outside their scheduled shifts (or does not) there should be no animosity as a direct result of this since both are making a choice.

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

Have them stay to their shifts, regardless of what they want.
To offer an incentive to the one who sells less have a monthly premium if they make a sales quota. In other words they have to stick to their shift and not cross over to another shift. At the end of the month if they meet a set sales quota give them a bonus. This may motivate the sales peson with the lower sales numbers to get her a** in gear and sell.

Answer 4

It sounds like you have a fair program alternating shifts. Don't allow them to break the rules. The woman who is staying late into the other's shift is stealing her business.