To start a grievance procedure at work about this?

[kitonian]

I work in a sales environment; we have low basic pay but can make decent money in commission.

One colleague is clearly favoured by the managers of our office and is given all of the ready made sales to put her name to (managers don't get commission so anyone who approaches the company to buy from us gets given to this colleague). Hence she is earning 3 or 4 times what the rest of us earn each week and is always being put on a pedestal as being 'the best' salesperson by management.

In actual fact, I sell far more from scratch than she does, as do a couple of others, therefore we are better salespeople than she is!

I have approached my line manager several times about the division of these ready-made sales being unfair, and she has promised time after time that they will be divided between us all but it never happens. Colleague is still getting them all, and getting a big fat pay cheque every month! She in turn gets all kinds of perks such as winning salesperson of the month and winning vouchers and other incentives every single month when the rest of us don't stand a chance.

WIBU to approach HR about this now and raise a grievance? I work bloody hard at work and tbh it's fucking sickening seeing someone just coast through like this and get all of the money, perks and the glory and recognition!

She is shagging a friend of the manager's, just thought I'd add that on, as it's (probably) relevant.

I am a sales manager and this sounds like poor management. If you have documented this properly then you should raise a grievance. Managers should be fair and to me this is a really poor. It will demotivate other staff and lead to less self generated sales losing the company revenue and profit. Directors need to know too.

Personally I wouldn't say anything but would probably try to get to 2nd top sales position, earn as much as I could then leave with an excellent track record. I would probably make comments about how I would love to be top sales.

The danger is that if you say anything the manager will just book the business and no one makes any commission on the orders or the manager will say that the salesperson had something to do with the opportunity.

It might be worth mentioning it in your exit interview, if you have one.

This happened at a place where I worked, although not in my team. I totally understand your issue.

Yes, I am afraid you will have to raise a grievance and hopefully the manager will be exposed for this very unfair practice. Good luck

I think you should say something, but put it in a constructive way rather than complaining about an individual. Some good suggestions upthread.

Something along the lines of:

I'd like to suggest that the ready-made X sales are removed from the incentive scheme. Some staff tend to be favoured in being given the majority of those X sales, which isn't fair to other staff and disincentivises them. Furthermore, I have noticed that X sales are held back for certain staff, such as when they're on leave, which means the customer suffers from unnecessary delays.

That way you don't have to name names, the management can look on the system and see who is getting all of the X sales and take it from there.

But if you did want to complain about certain staff holding back the X sales for their favourite, then you could do so if it's all evidenced like you say.