Managers in Sales

from the gut decisions to professional choices

Mission

Restructuring the sales department – reappointment of sales functions

Client

Trade/approx. 1,500 employees

Target group

Executives in the sales department: 6 Sales managers (SM), 14 district managers (DM)

Question/Issue

How do we ensure that the right employees occupy the key positions after the restructuring of the sales?

Activities (with timeline, if required)

  1. Workshops to communicate the new structure and the role changes associated with it in order to deal with the employees’ own responsibility and their new fields of action
    …This gave the district managers a chance to deal with the new requirements before an assessment centre (AC) and to position themselves accordingly
  2. AC with every district manager
  3. Processing of the AC results by the personnel development in order to make the appropriate development offers

Factors for success

  • Top-down process: The SMs had to go through an AC themselves before their BMs had to do this
  • Preparation of the BMs (see above) and thereby a fair process
  • …trust in the implementing external consultant

Duration of the project

6 months

Particular aspects during the course of the project

  • At the same time, a structured employee assessment process was introduced in the company.
  • Of course there was some uncertainty among the existing managers as to whether they would keep their functions that could be “softened”, but not fully eliminated through discussions.

Result

  • On an individual level: The district managers perceived the entire process as very transparent and fair and mostly embraced the procedure as personal position determination. The current group of BMs has gained security to act (a better standing in the advisory process).
  • On a structural level: Job replacements and reappointments are made with a higher degree of professionalism. If necessary, a new job holder will receive support at an early stage in a targeted way and, therefore, they will achieve the required capacity much quicker.
  • A new culture of recruitment decisions: away from gut decisions – to professional and transparent standards instead