Conversation (SalesGlobe Sage + Michelle) summarizing a 2022 survey readout: hybrid sales roles emerged strongly post-pandemic and are now the fastest-growing sales job category, with about 54% of companies increasing hybrid headcount. At the pandemic height ~60% of people were fully remote. Retail/brick-and-mortar sales hiring is also rising (52% increasing retail headcount). Firms are adjusting compensation — ~52% increasing base pay and ~33% offering sign-on bonuses — amid a tight labor market; historically (2019) hiring favored inside sales (15 inside hires per field sales hire). Hybrid roles typically split time ~50/50 between face-to-face and virtual, and organizations should update sales capacity models (estimated capacity uplift conservatively ~30–50%). Schema Explanation: Format: YouTube/video transcript. Sections seen: Intro, pandemic context, hybrid role definition, hiring trends & compensation, sales capacity implications, recommendations on measuring time-allocation.
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All right, so let's talk about what we're seeing ahead here. And some of these things, guys, we like to put together as storylines, visuals, because it makes a little easier to grasp the idea. But like you said, Michelle, the future of sales is hybrid. And there was a big question a while back of is field sales dead right? Is field sales gone?
Right.
And what we found about a year ago is field sales is not gone. Field sales actually was coming back strong and. And there were some other categories that were coming back even stronger. So let's take a look at that. At the height of the pandemic, we had about 60% of people working from home.
Oh, I just got.
Honey, I shrunk. The presenters. We had about 60% of people working from home working remotely full time. And we saw about a year ago, hybrid sales roles come onto the scene. Now, you mentioned before, hybrid sales roles are not just like regular hybrid roles where people are working half time at home, but we're really seeing they're spending about half their time working face to face with customers, about half their time on video or connecting in some virtual way. Right. And hybrid's a little different here too, because they're really trying to match up to what their customer does. So if their customer's working hybrid or their customers are working remote, the salesperson is probably going to work remote as well because they're not going to show up to an office with nobody there.
Right, Right. Yeah.
Okay. So big, big reveal of hybrid about a year ago. So we've seen that as the fastest growing sales job category. About 54% of companies are increasing hybrid sales role headcount. So that one is in the lead. It used to be Michelle, inside sales to point number three there. Right. So inside sales was the fastest growing up until the pandemic, but it's still second fastest now.
So, you know, Mark, and we go back to 2019, it was the hiring rate was 15 to 1 for every sales role. So our field sales role. So 15 inside to every field sales role that was hired.
Yeah. So. So you can see these are growing in a big way. They're projected to continue to grow as well. And then you mentioned brick and mortar, Michelle. You can see 52% of companies increasing retail sales headcount. Okay. That. That is a net increase. That's not just accounting for a lot of high turnover in retail, but it's a net sale. Net increase in retail sales headcount. So that's big. So what we're starting to see here, and we'll talk about this, we go along is Omni Channel is getting stronger. Right. So people want to buy in different ways. We talked about the clothing. People want to buy in different ways and companies are outfitting to do that. Right. So getting ready to do.
Very clever.
So, so brick and mortar strong. And then let's continue on to see where else this story leads the, the organization hiring though. And again we'll call this with some recent news. The hiring has not been to the level that they predicted last year. So you see that these are big increases in headcount. They had actually projected faster increases in headcount. I think some of that's due to the whole war for talent that, that things have been tight in terms of hiring. We're now seeing it swing around the other way, which is more layoffs. And, and I will say like every time we talk about this. It was about a year and a half ago when we were doing our predictions. We said this was going to happen. We said this is a short run phenomenon and we're going to start to see a swing back around and we're going to find a new equilibrium which we are starting to already see.
Yeah, I don't think we've reached it yet, have we?
We haven't reached it yet. No. No. So it's been, you know, in short, without going into my whole economic speech, it's been a, it's been a short one disequilibrium where you've got a shortage in supply of, of, of from the sellers, the sellers being people that are selling their labor. And, and you've got a, and then you've got a short run increase in demand from the buyers that's going to drive price up. So we're seeing that war for talent. So point number six, we'll go deeper into this in a few minutes. But companies are doing certain things to get people. So about 52% of organizations are increasing base pay and we'll talk about that and some of the variables around that. So to reduce turnover and to get new people and about a third of organizations are offering things like sign on bonuses to get new talent. So they're taking some drastic measures and we'll dip into that in a few minutes. But the big question here, and we're dealing with this with a lot of clients, is what do you do in terms of getting your organization ready for where things are going from an omnichannel standpoint? So how do you design the right coverage model and the right roles? And then from a talent standpoint, what, what's your value proposition, how are you going to hold on to the people that you need and how are you going to get new people without just throwing more base pay at them? And we have to start to look at how do we strengthen our messaging and our value proposition to our people about, about what we offer. So really, really important point and I want to take a look at a question here. Is the move to hybrid increasing sales rep capacity, in other words, with less travel, can they cover more accounts as from Steve. Yes, Steve, I mean I think I agree with you and I, I, I think that you're getting more efficiency because you can obviously make more video calls than you can make individual sales calls. So that I think that's a big input to how do we calculate sales capacity. So when you're doing your sales capacity model, you should have probably higher frequency or higher velocity for those hybrid roles. Is a great point. Yeah.
And we ask people though not don't make it a one for one. So if you believe you've saved, I'm going to make up 20 hours a week in travel time, let's say that's what it was. Right. Being on a plane or driving or whatever, you're not going to get a 20 hour a week capacity change. So just remember that. Right. It's not really going to be a one for one. Conservatively mark, we usually put in about 50% depending on other activities or other things you have the reps doing. We talked about they need to be better problem solvers and some companies are still ramping their so we've gone as low as 30% but you should see an uplift in capacity. Yes.
Yeah. And I think you gotta take a real measurement on that to that point which is do your sales time allocation. We use sales time optimizer or whatever tool you use. But make sure you understand what kind of call volume or visit volume you're getting in those hybrid roles. Don't just guess at it.
Right.
And then update your capacity model for that.
Understand where your people are spending spending their time. Yeah.
