Dealer Comp Survey Results Underscore Importance of Competitive Strategy
The report on Solomon Coyle’s YE2018 Compensation and Practices Survey, released in November, indicates “strong dealer awareness of the importance of a competitive compensation and benefits strategy,” according to David Solomon, the managing principal of the research, consulting, education and peer group management firm.
Solomon Coyle’s webinar series covering the compensation survey report continues with sessions scheduled for December 10 at 11:30 AM EST and December 11 at 1:00 PM. Like the report itself, the webinars are intended primarily for participating dealers. Solomon Coyle has been emailing invitations to download the report and attend the webinars since mid-November.
John Joseph, the head of Business Analytics at Solomon Coyle, said the 219 valid responses received from companies across 6 major dealer networks, 46 states and 6 provinces represent a 6% increase in dealer participation over the previous survey.
Participating dealers aligned with the sponsoring manufacturers—Allsteel, Haworth, Herman Miller, Knoll, Steelcase and Teknion LLC—contributed detailed salary information on more than 15,100 employees (approximately 353 Sales Management employees, 2,700 Sales employees and more than 12,900 Non-Sales employees). This historically high response enabled the Solomon Coyle research team to provide a broad range of reliable compensation data for more than 60 typical Sales Management, Sales and Non-Sales positions and 29 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (nearly double the number in the previous report). The research team expanded previous coverage of Sales positions by including Specialty Sales roles.
“With personnel costs representing 70% or more of the typical dealer’s expenses, an ongoing focus on the correlation between pay and performance is essential to keeping the dealer business profitable and sustainable,” Solomon said. “We were delighted to see that changes we made in methodology and reporting for the YE2018 comp survey have enabled us to provide even more actionable data to support that focus.”
Non-participating dealers and others interested in obtaining the YE2018 Compensation and Practices Survey Report can contact researchsupport@solomoncoyle.com for pricing and other details.
