Incentives for admin

[thisbathiscoldnow]

I work in a sales driven company. Generally a great place to work, we all get on, no drama and I enjoy my job.
Myself and 3 others are in administrative roles, everyone else (18 in total) is in a customer facing sales role. My job is to support the sales staff, monitor team performance and quite a bit of reporting and data analysis to identify trends/ where we could do better etc

The manager has introduced and new incentive for the sales staff (who also earn good commission) that if they hit their target weekly, they can finish early on a Friday. Also the top 2-3 performing sales people for the month then get taken out for a nice meal/ drinks. Since introducing the incentive, all the sales team have hit their minimum target every week meaning they all leave the office early leaving me and 3 other people until the end of the day. There's no target for us, so we aren't eligible to finish early or to get taken out for a meal, or earn any commission.
While I understand that the sales team are the ones 'making the money' for the business we can't help feeling a bit deflated. We work hard and the sales team wouldn't function without our support, but it feels a bit like we're the under performers who don't get to go home early every Friday now.
Likewise though, it would obviously be unfair to the sales staff if we just got to finish early without actually having to hit any target. So, my long winded question is; how do we come up with a target/ incentive for administrative staff? Does anyone have any ideas or something similar in their workplace that we could put forward as an idea so the admin staff feel valued too?

Bump ....

Have you spoken to yiur Manager to say how this is making you all feel demotivated.
Is it that they can't let you all go early as it would leave your office without cover?
I uses to work in Sales Support we used to get a very small percentage as a bonus, but nothing compared to the sales staff. Yet we often used ti convert sales.
It did feel unfair.
I'd talk to your manager, if you explain its demotivating for yiu he may come up with ideas.

I worked in sales for years - it was always salespeople who got bonuses and incentives, not admin. I'm not sure how you'd frame the idea as it's usually tied directly to increased company income.

The salespeople are already getting their main reward for individual sales in the form of commission. Could you suggest that the extra bonuses should be for all staff if the whole company does well, meets targets etc? That way everyone has an incentive to work harder at making the company successful in a way that promotes unity, rather than increasing division like this seems to be doing.

You might not get it but it would be very reasonable to request that the admin staff collectively get a small commission on total sales. It's not in anyone's interest for the admin team to feel resentment that they're working hard to increase everyone's bonus except their own.

That does seem to be very unfair.

Could it be agreed that once a month/6 weeks you get a Friday afternoon off? Presumably you will be covering the phones of people not in so it's extra work for the admin staff.

I work in a sales company

Rewards are always inclusive. We have company wide targets and if they're hit, we have company events: meals out, trips etc

It could be drinks and nibbles in the office on Friday?

Junior sales prop come and go but our support team have been around years so they're always treated as integral to our success

Speak to your manager.

I hate this, just because someone gets something doesn’t mean that you’re going without. Your roles are completely different, they have targets and you don’t. Before their incentive was introduced you would complete your contracted hours and now you’re feeling like you’re losing something that you never had. If the sales staff underperform and don’t get a bonus will you offer to subsidise their wages? I doubt it. You do your job and let them do theirs. As someone that works in administration supporting a team I’m happy when I get an email thanking me for doing a good job.

Our company is the same , every bonus / incentive / interest is aimed at customer facing roles . Those beavering away behind the scenes to keep the whole operation going are totally forgotten .

Weird reply, don't really understand your logic but ok...

The sales staff wouldn't hit their targets if it wasn't for the admin team.
They're all on a higher base salary than the admin team even before any bonus/ commissions so no, if they underperform I wouldn't subsidise their wage because they're already getting paid a decent basic salary. They are paid this for their contracted hours which are the same as ours ... now they have an extra incentive to finish early and I was merely asking for ideas or examples of anything similar to give the admin team a target/ incentive so we could maybe have something similar.

My manager is generally lovely and has said he's trying to think of a way of rewarding us in a similar way as he knows we work hard to support the sales team he just can't think of a way to measure what we do, hence I came on here asking for ideas....

We do have regular team events, meals out etc that kind of thing.
I think if there were more of us we probably wouldn't even notice, the office is very open plan and when the sales team are in full flow it's got a real buzz around the place. Once they all bugger off on a Friday afternoon it's a bit like a graveyard!
The manager is very approachable, but likes us to go to him with solutions/ suggestions rather than problems. I was hoping to be able to pitch an idea to him for an admin incentive!

I worked in recruitment. 3 teams, one admin each. If your team hit target, as their administrator you would receive a %.

I have not had a role where this was a given since then, and that was 15 years ago, but I (being fairly lairy and somehow able to get away with asking) would push for our bosses to treat the whole team to a coffee on a Friday, or a drink out, or a team lunch/breakfast as recognition for us all. More sales means more work for the admin after all. So while we didn’t have individual goals we had departmental goals which resulted in a team reward we could be part of.

I think a team reward sounds like the way to go. We have a monthly meeting to discuss things like this so will bring it up then and see if we can come up with something.