Struggling with Sales Team Turnover in PAN India: How Can We Hire Better?

We have recently started developing our sales team for PAN India. We are into frozen foods manufacturing. My serious concern is that the team members we hire either leave in a short period of time or, due to lack of performance, we terminate them. It's becoming a challenge for me to recruit many candidates. I want to understand what measures we need to take while hiring sales personnel. Need your professional and experienced advice.

Training is the key to better performance. Spend time and resources on acquiring qualified staff and then observe the difference. Implement good policies for remuneration and incentives to witness how staff remain loyal. The job of sales is challenging, but employees will be motivated when they see that the company cares and provides adequate incentives. Conducting exit interviews with employees can provide insights into the reasons for their departure.

Dear Sankalp, after going through your post, I feel that this could be the recruitment problem. "For every job there is a person and for every person there is a job." Early exits or terminations show that there could be a mismatch between the person selected and the job requirements.

Organization's Culture

The second question is about your organization's culture. There could be a fit between the job and the candidate, and your selection could be right also, but what if the selected person is unable to conform to the company's culture? Therefore, the question arises, what kind of culture does your company have, and what efforts does your company make to give a specific shape to the company's culture?

Departmental Attrition

Thirdly, if there is heavy attrition in a particular department, have you spoken with the Head of the sales department? What are his views?

Feedback and Exit Interviews

Lastly, have you taken feedback from the sales personnel? What are their job challenges? Have you conducted exit interviews? What is the outcome of such interviews? How does the Head of Department treat the newly joined employees? How are the sales targets set? Do salespersons perceive that the targets are unreachable?

Note of Caution

In these days where social media is quite active, you need to curb these early employee exits. There are so many forums or portals available wherein ex-employees might express their negative views about the company. If this starts happening, then it could work contrary to the company's image, and problems could aggravate further.

Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar