Attracting and Retaining Talent in 2022

Foreign. Sales roles. Headcount figures are continuing to increase in 2022. They did not meet projected hiring levels in 2021. Organizations are taking action to retain current talent and acquire new talent that continues to be in short supply. Pay leads the way as companies top actions to stem turnover and acquire new talent. This includes increases to base pay and incentive opportunities followed by work flexibility. 52% of organizations have increased base pay for sales and 42% have increased incentive opportunity with 24% of organizations doing both. Work flexibility followed with 37% of organizations offering hybrid opportunities and 26% offering 100% remote work. One time signing bonuses followed with 34% of companies offering them enhanced reward and recognition and one time retention bonuses were used by only 25% and 23% of organizations respectively. 24% are looking at filling roles with candidates outside their primary industry. 13% of organizations took no action to reduce voluntary turnover. We caution companies that may be overpaying on salary within the sales organization to attract new talent. Pay compression continues to be on the rise with little difference between unproven new hires and top performers that we believe contributes to higher than normal attrition and is a short term fix that will create longer term business problems. Companies that are increasing pay should place their bets on incentive pay. Incentive pay is better aligned to performance than base salary and you have a better chance of getting what you pay for in the war for talent. This also allows you to level the playing field with your top performers by creating a more lucrative incentive program that differentiates low expected and high performers incrementally based on their sales results.