Summary of the Core Content
A company originally had an unlimited sales bonus system, but after a new employee received a bonus of 350,000 yuan, it changed the policy to a maximum monthly bonus of 50,000 yuan. As a result, employees began to delay orders (pushing them to the next month) or transfer them to competitors. Although the company seemed to save on bonuses, it actually lost a significant number of deals. The problem lay in the company’s failure to consider how employees and competitors would adjust their behavior, leading to a situation where they “picked up sesame seeds but lost watermelons.”
Detailed Analysis
1. The Company’s “Money-Saving Strategy”: Short-Sighted and Ignoring Human Behavior
The company’s rationale for changing the policy was straightforward: if new employees could earn 350,000 yuan, setting a limit of 50,000 yuan would save them 300,000 yuan per month. They assumed that “the products, customers, and employees remained the same, so performance would remain unchanged.” However, they overlooked the fact that employees are not machines. Bonuses serve as a motivation for employees; once the limit was imposed, their enthusiasm to work hard diminished.
For example, if you help your boss sell products and earn 100,000 yuan for every 1 million yuan sold, would you still put in the same effort if you could only earn 50,000 yuan for sales over 500,000 yuan? Definitely not. The company’s mistake was in focusing solely on the amount of bonuses saved without considering the loss of business due to reduced employee motivation.
2. Employees’ Responses: Delaying and Transferring Orders to Get More Money
When bonuses were below 50,000 yuan, it was a win-win situation for both employees and the company—more sales meant more earnings. But once the bonus limit was reached, employees started to act strategically:
- Delaying orders: They would push completed orders to the next month to ensure they still received the full 50,000 yuan.
- Transferring orders: If competitors offered a higher commission (for example, 10,000 yuan compared to the company’s 5,000 yuan), it was more profitable to transfer the orders there.
Employees’ logic was simple: “I work to earn money, not to work for free.”
3. Why Would Competitors Be Willing to Accept Transferred Orders?
Competitors saw this as a low-risk opportunity:
- They didn’t need to pay employees or invest in acquiring new customers (the deals were already made).
- Even if they offered higher commissions (e.g., 10,000 yuan from the customer profit of 150,000 yuan), they still made a 5,000 yuan profit, which was more profitable than developing the customers themselves.
It’s like running a restaurant: if someone brings customers who have already placed orders, you only need to share some of the revenue with them, and you make extra money—any business owner would welcome this.
4. Once the Transfer Strategy Works, It Becomes an Employee’s Default Method
After the first successful transfer, employees might worry about the reliability of their competitors or whether they would get paid. However, if the first attempt was successful, these concerns disappeared. Subsequently, they would毫不犹豫ly transfer orders to competitors whenever the limit was reached. Over time, employees even started to actively send orders to them instead of the original company.
5. The Overall Outcome for All Three Parties
- Company: They hoped to save 300,000 yuan in bonuses but lost a large number of potential deals and had to support employees who received salaries without producing any value.
- Employees: They earned more than they could have with the original policy’s bonus limit.
- Competitors: They acquired orders at minimal cost, effectively expanding their business.
In the end, the company saved a small amount in bonuses but lost significant long-term customers and profits. It’s like trying to save 10 yuan on parking fees only to receive a 200 yuan fine by parking illegally on the side of the road—a loss outweighing the potential savings.
Final Conclusion
When designing a system, one must consider how people will react. If you want employees to work harder, offer them more incentives; if you want to save money, you might end up losing more in terms of business outcomes.