Perception of British American Insurance Company Sales Agents on the Influence of Financial Incentives on Their Performance

Abstract

Monetary benefits are offered to consumers, employees and organizations to encourage behavior or actions which otherwise would not take place. The purpose of this study was to establish the perception of the sales executives on the influence of financial incentives on their performance at British American Insurance Company. Remunerative incentives (or financial incentives) are said to exist where an agent can expect some form of material reward especially money in exchange for acting in a particular way. The research design adopted was descriptive survey. The main population for this research was all the sales executives at British Insurance Company. The study adopted systematic sampling in which the researcher obtained the list of the population and then took a sample in which every 10th event was picked for the research; this resulted in 120 respondents being selected for the study. The study used primary data which was collected using self-administered questionnaires. The data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The study found out that the incentives influencing the performance of sales agents at britam were fringe benefits such as holidays with pay, pensions and time off, adequate pay to meet the requirements of life and bonuses for workers according to their post and which was consistent with their level of performance. The study found out that the medical scheme of the company, rewards offered to the employees and the existence of fairness and equity was not comparable with what the market offers and this will result in low performance of the employees and turnover. The study established that the sales agents of the company are faced by challenges emanating from poor pay as a result of difficulties faced on the job and lack of customers to purchase products. It was concluded that Commission salaried sales executive are motivated to work harder when there are financial and non financial incentives. It is recommended that, the organization should find a workable design of an incentive system which may be group or individual based.