Hausser Food Products: Assignment Questions

Hausser Food Products: Assignment Questions

1. What is currently motivating the sales managers and how does this benefit/limit the company?

The major motivating reason for the sales managers is the sales benefit plan. Most of sales managers’ income is combined by a large portion of bonus based on sales performance and a low portion of base salary. This incentive program benefits the company because it encourages salesman to sale more in order to get more bonuses, but it also limits the company such as Florida’s example, district manager were not willing to share their secret of success because the intensive competition in the company. Obviously, the more successful district will receive more resources.

2. What connections do you see between the circumstances in the case and the motivation principles covered in the readings?

In the case, the directors of sales and marketing planning set up the sales plan, which include the budget, expenses, and projections, and send it to regional managers. Then regional managers send allocate the targets and expense budget to district managers. Finally, district managers distribute these to salespeople individually. In the reading, there is a motivation principle called Goal Setting Theory. It is very important for leaders to set up purposeful goals to motivate and direct actions for teams. The goals have a lot of functions helping on focused attention, effort, persistence, and strategy development, and then contribute to performance.

Another principle in reading is Reward Principles. In the case, company designs incentive program rewards high performance employees. Most of district managers and salespeople’s income is from bonuses based on sales performances. According to the Reward Principles, the rewards are contingent on performance and should be designed based on well articulated desired outcomes