Gartner Survey Shows Inside Sales Organizations Risk Losing 24% of Employees This Year

New Research Reveals the Top Factors for Both Attracting and Retaining Inside Sales Representative According to findings from the Global Labor Market Survey from Gartner, Inc., 24% of inside sellers are actively looking for a new job right now. The top three, most common factors behind their intent to seek other jobs include dissatisfaction with the competitiveness of compensation package, manager quality and the degree of respect the organization shows employees.

The survey also highlights factors that would pull sales representatives to similar jobs in other organizations. These include a 15% increase in compensation and a more comprehensive benefits package, work-life balance, more engaging work, more development opportunities, a friendlier work environment, and highly skilled managers.

“Leaders responsible for inside sales face a high turnover risk with reps today,” said Matt Dudek, vice president in Gartner’s sales practice. “To avoid this, sales leaders not only need to craft a compelling employee value proposition to attract high-quality candidates to inside sales roles, they must make sure they are delivering on the proposition to retain talent in a competitive labor market.”

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Gartner recommends that inside sales leaders looking to improve attraction and retention for their organizations follow two key steps:

• Address turnover and retention concerns with strategies that boost job satisfaction. A competitive compensation package is a major factor for inside sales representative retention, but sales leaders need not overinvest in compensation to retain talent. Gartner research shows that nearly 60% of inside sellers sampled did not select the competitiveness of their compensation as a top five source of dissatisfaction at their previous employers.

• Focus on more interpersonal factors that motivate inside sales representatives by improving work-life balance, ensuring more engaging work, demonstrating development opportunities, creating a friendlier work environment and employing highly skilled managers. These nonmonetary factors matter and should be emphasized in job postings, as inside sales representatives have identified these as reasons they would leave their current position for another.

“While competitive compensation is an obvious lever for attracting and retaining inside sales talent, it is often an expensive and temporary fix that covers more fundamental issues with a role. By focusing on the most common reasons inside sales staff quit beyond compensation, sales leaders can decrease turnover and potentially realize efficiency and effectiveness gains as a result,” added Dudek.

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