WorkStride and JELD-WEN - Most Valuable Response by a Sales Team

Company: WorkStride, New York, NY
Company Description: WorkStride builds highly configurable recognition, sales incentive, performance, and rewards programs that address and adapt to dynamic needs, helping individuals and organizations increase employee engagement, optimize performance, and enhance impact.
Nomination Category: COVID-19 Response Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Most Valuable Response by a Sales Team

Nomination Title: WorkStride and JELD-WEN Lean Into Training During COVID-19

JELD-WEN is a leading building materials manufacturer based in Charlotte, North Carolina who partnered with WorkStride for a flexible and unique incentive solution to stimulate engagement and incentivize their dealers and installers. They began their journey with us in late 2019 with a simpleSpin2WinSPIFF to reward their door installers in the Northeast. This single SPIFF strategy was appropriate for market conditions at the time, however, since then, public health mandates, work from home, and other market forces obligated WorkStride and JELD-WEN to react and find a more appropriate engagement strategy. We soon realized that at a time of stagnating sales because of the pandemic, incentivizing sales behaviors would be unproductive, so back to the drawing board we went.

After deep discussion in early 2020, the JELD-WEN and WorkStride teams realized that temporarily dormant market conditions in the wake of COVID-19 created a unique opportunity for a strategic pivot of the program. Rather than incentivize direct sales behaviors, leading pre-sales indicators like education and training were moved to the spotlight. The late 2019 program was forced to quickly evolve in early to mid 2020, incorporating a more robust incentive offering with more participants and a deep focus on training and learning. Territory Sales Managers and other installers stuck at home now had an effective way to be engaged with the incentive program. JELD-WEN had the blueprints for a creative way to stay top of mind and keep their partners productive and earning during heights of the pandemic period. This expansion soon grew and became their iconicJELD-WEN University.

At a broad stroke, the creation ofJELD-WENUniversity is significant because it retrofitted the original program to the uncertainty of the market, kept JELD-WEN top of mind during a time of lackluster sales, and also engaged their participants for the post-pandemic future. TheJELD-WEN Universityconcept augmented the original program to an expanded form and includes more than 50 training modules for more than 2,000 eligible participants who could leverage their down time and comfort at home.

The new virtual training program, which was launched inless than 30 days, (a typical implementation is 3-4 months) endeavored to enhance user education about new and existing products, features, and capabilities. These training incentives were also strategically aligned to sales incentives, encouraging participation in SPIFFs once business started springing back. For example, some training is a prerequisite to participating in future sales incentive promotions, unlocked only after adequate completion. Other times, training is infused as an internal module specific to job function. Furthermore, user participation levels within each individual training module are tracked, enabling administrators to see who might need additional support with a specific module, SPIFF or other incentive.

The success of theJELD-WEN Universityprogram quickly became evident, as the playbook has expanded to include additional products and teams, doubling down on their strategy- training incentives serve as effective precursors for sales incentives. Within the first year, almost half of JELD-WEN partners completed training, in addition to almost20%growth in program enrollment for the educational incentives.

JELD-WEN and WorkStride’s ability to react to the pandemic with both strategic and tactical change allowed the program to flex and exceed KPI expectations despite the tough market conditions of 2020 and 2021. Post-COVID shutdown, the educational incentives approach has continued to expand to new audiences including direct internal teams, like customer service.

Take a sneak peak intoJELD-WEN University!
Thank you for the opportunity, judges!