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Whether for manufacturing or distribution enterprises, only by uniting everyone's efforts and building a highly stable workforce can a company achieve sustainable and rapid development. So, how can employee loyalty be enhanced or improved?

Improving employee loyalty can be divided into three progressive levels, each requiring corresponding measures:

Material. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a person can only develop toward higher needs after satisfying their most basic survival conditions. Distributor bosses who want their employees to work with peace of mind must first ensure their material security without worries. This requires attention to the following aspects:

  • Provide a challenging compensation and assessment system. As old sayings go, "People strive to move upward, water flows downward," "A good bird chooses a high branch to perch on," and "People die for wealth, birds die for food." These all illustrate a truth: people are first material beings. Whether we admit it or not, to make employees loyal, we must satisfy their material conditions, build a compensation platform not lower than competitors', and meet their needs for a higher quality of life. This is the core reason why Huawei employees work overtime even to the point of sudden death—because Huawei offers a compensation standard far exceeding competitors'.
  • Ensure fairness, justice, and transparency in compensation assessment. Let everyone calculate their own salary based on their work performance. At the same time, the company's performance management should reflect "more work, more pay," allowing those with better performance to become prosperous first. A boss who lets employees "eat from the same big pot" cannot retain excellent professional managers, let alone foster loyalty to the company.
  • Act according to regulations, demonstrating clear rewards and punishments. As the ancients said, "People don't worry about scarcity but about inequality." Only with clear rewards and punishments can a company maintain credibility and a boss establish authority. As a distributor boss, you must be consistent in words and deeds, not being a boss who says one thing but does another. Only by promptly fulfilling rewards and punishments can everyone consciously abide by company rules and protect the company's core interests.

In fact, the primary duty of a boss is to replicate people who care as much as he does. How to do this? Under the premise of material conditions, align the interests of the company and employees, satisfying their basic needs through salary and other benefits.

Here is a case: In Xuchang, Henan, there is a Pangdonglai supermarket. Its cleaners kneel on the ground with towels to wipe the floor, while another uses a fan to dry it. They chat and laugh, very happy. No one forces them to do this; they do it voluntarily and consciously. In fact, customers who have visited Pangdonglai can feel that not only these cleaners but almost all employees work in this state. How did Pangdonglai achieve this level, not only ranking first in the region but also replicating and developing rapidly? Look at the company's salary and benefits: store managers earn an annual salary of 1 million yuan; deputy general managers and directors, 500,000–800,000; department heads for general merchandise and purchasing, 300,000–500,000; section chiefs, 100,000–300,000; security guards and cleaners, 2,200 yuan per month, plus three insurances and one housing fund. In a prefecture-level city in Henan, this is quite good. This is the fundamental factor why Pangdonglai can defeat competitors and maintain strong performance growth.

Jack Welch said, "When wages are highest, costs are lowest." Why? Because we only consider accounting costs, not opportunity costs or human costs. Therefore, to maintain employee loyalty, material interests must be the first consideration.

Sense of Belonging. Many distributor bosses complain that employees don't work hard, have a serious "punch the clock" mentality, are lazy, arrive late and leave early, etc. Little do they know that perhaps it is their own lack of measures to increase employees' sense of belonging that causes this. There are many ways to enhance employees' sense of belonging:

  1. Set lofty goals. Distributor bosses should formulate strategic goals for their companies for three, five, ten years, or even longer. Through their grand ideals and high goals, they can attract more excellent employees to join and follow the boss wholeheartedly. It is hard to imagine that a boss like Adou (a weak ruler) could retain core employees and make everyone strive forward.
  2. Establish smooth communication mechanisms. Distributors should regularly communicate and exchange with employees, not only for work reports and checks but more importantly for heart-to-heart talks. This doesn't cost much but makes employees feel valued. In reality, some distributor bosses always use business as an excuse and refuse to take time for effective communication with employees, causing employees to misunderstand or insufficiently understand the company's strategy and tactics, while the boss complains about poor execution and employees wanting to change jobs. Even if a distributor boss takes just a little time each day—say, ten or twenty minutes—employees can feel the boss's care and affection, moving them deeply.
  3. Regularly raise salaries. The author has come into contact with some distributor employees, including those who left, who complained about years without salary increases. But out of embarrassment or fear of challenging the boss's authority, they kept it to themselves. Once external better opportunities arise, they quickly "defect." To better enhance their loyalty, you can raise salaries annually according to different positions, following the principle of "high positions, small increases; low positions, medium increases." That is, higher positions get smaller increases, lower positions get medium increases, balancing company and employee interests, and forming a system that attracts employees.
  4. Provide more security. Many distributor bosses, for various reasons—such as worrying about employee turnover or reducing labor costs—do not or do not fully pay for employees' social insurances like pension, medical, unemployment, maternity, work injury, and housing fund, resulting in a weak sense of security. When an employee is always anxious and worried, can they fully devote themselves to work? Therefore, for the long term, distributor bosses should gradually handle these social security matters for employees, allowing them to work with peace of mind.
  5. Consider special factors to enhance loyalty. For example, special pay for special positions, or seniority wages. Distributors often fail to retain people, including old employees. Actually, it's not that these employees are fickle; perhaps it's that the distributor boss lacks a reason for them to stay and be loyal to the company. Some distributor bosses, when designing salary plans, do not fully consider new vs. old employees or contributions to the company. New and old employees receive the same treatment, even with unequal pay for equal work or same positions, and those with greater contributions earn less, making old or excellent employees feel unfair. In light of this, it is suggested that distributor bosses set up seniority wages or special subsidies, even if it's just an extra 30 or 50 yuan per month. These can make employees feel the company's recognition of their past or excellent performance, motivating them to work harder in their own positions.

Honor. Using honor to stimulate and enhance employee loyalty is the highest level. During China's revolutionary war period or after liberation, many heroic organizations or groups emerged, such as the famous Red Second Division, Ye Ting Independent Regiment, and Lei Feng Squad. Everyone was proud to fight or live there, which subtly formed cohesion, centripetal force, and combat effectiveness. As a distributor boss, you should also use honor incentives to make everyone feel the charm and tension of the organization. How to do it?

  • Build an incentive-oriented organization. An incentive-oriented organization means not only the boss is good at motivating employees, but every manager becomes a motivation expert, stimulating everyone's personal honor, professional honor, and collective honor, creating a positive and uplifting atmosphere where everyone motivates each other, making the team full of vitality and more willing to contribute. For example, you can hold sales competitions, departmental or regional evaluations, sports competitions, and other forms to enhance collective honor.
  • Use more positive incentives and create stars. Use more positive incentives and fewer negative ones. You can set up advanced models or examples by awarding titles like "advanced group" or "advanced individual" to departments, regions, or employees with outstanding performance, issuing mobile red flags, or through internal publications, bulletin boards, or exceptional promotions, to stimulate a wave of catching-up enthusiasm, cherish hard-earned personal and organizational honors, enhance collective awareness, actively maintain honor, and fight for honor.
  • Classify employees into star levels to stimulate ambition. Distributors can classify employees into star levels, such as five-star, four-star, three-star, two-star, and one-star. According to standards set by the company, excellent employees get promoted in star level and wear corresponding star badges, thereby promoting the advanced, urging the backward, and stimulating everyone's pride, achievement, and sense of value.
  • Corporatize the company and share with employees. As a distributor boss, to develop the company into a big company, you must first make it everyone's company, not just one person's company. Only then can there be a foundation for becoming stronger and bigger. Therefore, distributor bosses must have a big vision and broad perspective. They can corporatize the company, allocate shares to employees, or reward or sell shares, allowing everyone to participate and have a sense of ownership. The world's largest enterprise, Walmart, motivates everyone to participate through employee stock ownership.

To improve employee loyalty, distributor bosses must first solve employees' survival problems. Once this is solved, they can use incentive measures like sense of belonging and honor to let employees fully integrate into the company family, unleash their initiative, and enable the company to develop healthily, soundly, and sustainably.