Retaining sales & marketers

Sales and marketing professionals in Hong Kong are often keen to move on to a new role once they have gained sufficient experience.

While areas such as FMCG and retail luxury tend to be more stringent and prefer professionals with prior experience in the same industry, it has become an increasingly common trend for sales and marketing professionals to job-hop.

With competition for experienced professionals and a candidate-driven market, what can organisation do to keep their sales and marketing professionals?

Remember to give awards and incentives

Sales professionals are usually motivated when they have reached their sales targets; but for professionals working in marketing, they may not see immediate monetary rewards. Therefore organisations should remember to implement awards and incentives for their staff.

Awards and incentives that could appeal to employees include constant development and career progression; overseas development opportunities; travel leave; job rotation opportunities as well as providing more creative challenges and ‘freedom’ e.g. flexible working hours.

Organisations should acknowledge good work done through providing recognition for employees. When your staff feel that their hard work is acknowledged, they are more likely to stay.

Communication is key

Clear communication paths are important especially with today’s busy pace of life where we are inundated by information.

In order to roll out a suitable strategic retention plan for their organisation, sales and marketing professionals should remain aware about current market trends. If your organisation permits, sales and marketing managers should sit in with major stakeholders during business meetings to understand the demands of the business.

Career path planning as talent retention

In order to retain talent, many companies have already rolled out talent management programmes that include strategies such as internal training, job rotation and retention incentives (i.e. salary increments).

Most importantly, management should provide a clear indication of the employee’s career progression within the organisation. A talent management programme is not limited to simply maintaining existing talent.

It also includes talent-sourcing (for good talents who are a good organisational fit); developing skill-sets for current top performers; as well as developing your current sales and marketing talent to take on senior management roles as part of a career succession plan.