Week 11 by Andrew - Motivating Onboard Sales Managers

To gain insight into how rewards and motivation are handled in one area of a business I support, I spoke with Garrett Ford, sales director for Disney Cruise Line. In addition to overseeing group sales for DCL, Garrett is responsible for the team of onboard sales managers, those crew members whose goal is to drive future cruise bookings while guests are enjoying a cruise vacation.

Can you briefly describe the way onboard sales managers are incentivized?

For onboard sales, the way we incentivize them is based on total volume in a quarter. It’s a cash compensation reward. The view in a company like ours is that their compensation should mainly be held in their fixed compensation weekly, and the variable’s not much. The reason for that is that we want them to be exhibiting the right behaviors. We pay them a salary to exhibit the right behaviors and then based on volume of sales that they have, they can earn a small bonus for each week.

How do you align the individual incentives with the company’s objectives?

You start at the top and figure out what the overall goal is. Sometimes there’s a disconnect as you move further down the ladder, but what you truly want to do is make sure the overall goals are being satisfied at each level of the company. You’re also evaluating that what they’re doing is that which is in their control. You don’t want to be paying them for something they don’t have an influence on.

How do you balance developing a culture where employees are intrinsically motivated with the extrinsic motivation found in compensation?

That’s a great question. The first thing you want to do is find people who are intrinsically motivated by their core beliefs and then when you add the second factor to it, it should give you a great return. On the flip side, if you miss that alignment and have people who are motivated by the extrinsic factors, that’s when you start to see the wrong behaviors delivered.

What other forms of motivation do you use for the onboard sales managers?

The more important thing is figuring out what it is that motivates them individually. It’s been my experience that cash compensation will only take you to a certain point. I’m not exactly sure what that number is, but once that point is hit, there are other factors. I think Maslow’s hierarchy of needs explains a lot of this. Factors like days off, work-life balance, respect and dignity, these are huge. You have to figure out what this individual wants and then cater your style to that as a leader.

What changes do you see in terms of incentives and motivation as the workforce gets younger?

You’ve got to look at what their wants, needs and desires are, and when you look toward the millennial generation, respect seems to play a big role; individual choice; allowing them to be who they are in the workplace. They’re not necessarily defined by cash compensation. They desire mentoring, tutoring and attention. They are driven less by money and more by total experience.

This was just a brief conversation, one of many Garrett and I have had (he was one of my leaders when I worked in sales for a different Disney division), but the message he conveyed falls in line with the definition of employee engagement Heymann and Barrera (2010) espoused, of determining how best to connect the employee’s individual goals with the company. With the growth of Disney’s cruise business and the increased needs for effective sales, alignment of leadership to these personal and company objectives will continue to be crucial.

Heymann, J. & Barrera, M. (2010). Engaging employees in the company’s profits and their own, Harvard Business School, 1-28.