Watson Pharmaceutical's incentive compensation plan and employee motivation strategy

Incentive Plan at Watson Pharmaceutical

Watson Pharmaceutical Company is located in Corona, California and is a leading company worldwide for pharmaceutical products. The organization develops, manufactures, markets and distributes generic pharmaceutical drugs specialized in women's health and urology, in the United States and throughout the world ("About Watson," 2010). Watson utilizes an incentive plan to motivate their employees to work harder and achieve their sales goal. The incentive plan motivates the employees to achieve their individual goals, allowing the organization to accomplish the organization goals. This is a strategy that is utilized by many organizations in pharmaceutical industry, as well as other sales agents. In this paper I will discuss Watson's incentive plan and how it is utilized to achieve the organization goals.

Incentive Plans

Incentive plans are extremely popular in the pharmaceutical industry. This is short-term compensation for achieved sales goals and increased revenue (Morningstar, 2011). Watson Co. utilizes this incentive compensation plan to motivate their employees to work harder, to reach their sales goals, and to exceed their sales goal. In return for their hard work, employees will be compensated with incentive benefits. The executives of the organization would also receive incentives for profitability and increased revenue. The incentive plan is a great motivator for all employees, the more profitability the company shows, the better compensated the employees would be. Incentive plans in most cases are very successful, mainly because it motivates the employees, rewards employees for hard work and provide tools to employees to accomplish their job successfully.

Watson's Incentive Plan

Watson's incentive plan begins with the evaluation of each employee. There are different ratings each employee can receive for work performance, and the rating would determine if an incentive was earned and how much. Employee ratings ranged from 1 to 5, with one being the lowest rating and 5 being the highest rating. The incentive plan was designed to create a different culture within the business. The new culture in the organization is establishing a work driven, performance driven, and successful company. The incentive plan was also designed to retain talented employees. The incentive plan gives clear direction and expectations for each employee, their job responsibilities are clearly defined. Clear expectations that are written for each employee, conversations about job responsibilities, a plan of action, training, development and coaching are all a part of the incentive plan.

The executives and managers of Watson also receive incentives for their job. They are rated on the overall performance of the organization and their leadership abilities. The managers are expected to provide clear expectations for their employees. They are also responsible for providing feedback on work progress, coaching and training when necessary. They are also expected to ensure reward and recognition is aligned with performance. Individuals should not be rewarded for poor work, and individuals with excellent work should not be allowed to go unnoticed. This incentive plan works for Watson because it allows the employees to feel as though they are being paid for the work they accomplished. Employees with excellent performance are rewarded higher than employees with average performance.

Incentive Evaluation