Top billers are inherently competitive – that’s what’s got them to where they are, and it’s probably what got you to where you are too. Competitiveness gets a bad rap in some industries, but in reality, it breeds innovation, improves work quality and inspires your recruiters to do their best.
But striking a good balance within your team where there’s a healthy amount of competition without sacrificing the team mentality isn’t easy.
Here’s some strategies that will help you promote healthy competition and build a high-performance team at your recruitment agency.
Learn what motivates them
If you really care about supporting your team towards reaching their targets, you need to take the time to learn what really matters to them.
What is it that’s motivating them towards their commission cheque – are they saving towards a holiday? A new car? Do they have a family they need to support?
Whatever their motivators are, take the time to understand them and mention them frequently in your conversations to keep their eye on the prize.
When one of your recruiters achieves something personal that they’ve been working towards with their commission cheque, celebrate this in the office so the rest of the team recognises their achievement and are motivated to do the same.
Reward your top billers
Rewarding your top billers is a bit of a no-brainer, but it’s important to highlight why rewarding them is so crucial for team motivation.
Rewarding your top billers has a two-step knock-on effect within a team:
Step 1: Your top biller will feel valued and be motivated to continue to smash their targets every month.
Step 2: The rest of the team will want the same recognition and imitate (or even improve upon) your top biller’s behaviour, which will lead to better performance trickling through the whole team.
If your top biller is the same recruiter every month, mix things up a bit by also rewarding recruiters who achieve big personal milestones (for example, if they’ve significantly increased their revenue but still haven’t made top-biller status). That way, success and recognition still feels achievable for the whole team.
Encourage them to compete against themselves
Your recruiters should be trying to outrun their past selves even more than they should any members of their team.
To smash their personal bests, your recruiters need to take self-development seriously. So think about what you can do to support their self-development and even target them on it.
Recommend tools that’ll encourage them to take charge of their self-development, whether it’s an insightful recruitment blog, a great sales book or even an educational YouTube channel.
Download eBook: How to Set Personal Recruitment KPIs to Become a Top Biller
Keep it light-hearted
It’s really easy for a competitive environment to turn stressful, or even worse – toxic. With this in mind, it’s important to keep an eye on things and try to ensure any competitive banter stays light-hearted.
Gamifying the sales process is a good way to inject some fun into your recruiters’ daily work routines and get the sales floor buzzing.
For example, you could offer a prize to the first person to bag an interview or spec in the most candidates in an hour.
Recruitment is a tough job, so making some effort to make things a bit more fun can increase productivity, promote healthy competition and improve team spirit.
Give regular feedback
For some people, confirmation that they’re doing a good job is more rewarding than anything. Therefore, it’s important to give regular feedback to everyone on your team.
If you’re a larger agency, get everyone together once or twice a year for a company strategy day (what we call ‘focus day’ here at Firefish) to celebrate success stories and let your team see what other consultants are able to achieve (and what they can learn from them).
This will make your team feel part of the wider company culture and push them to be a success story at the next focus day.
Download the eBook below to find out how to build a high-performance culture at your recruitment agency.
