We, at Incential, run into this debate with almost all of our clients: the decision of whether or not to show a Territory Rep how they rank against their peers in terms of their performance measurement (i.e. quota attainment, market share increase, or even rank for a sales contest or annual President's Club). One side of the debate argues that this information should be held proprietary to each individual Rep while the other side argues that sharing more information creates a healthy competition among Reps and allows them to see exactly how much better they must perform in order to overtake their closest rival. This becomes particularly important in a plan structure that uses a forced ranking or other relative metric becuase there is only so much of the compensation pie to go around.
So, what's the answer? Well, it really depends on each company's corporate culture. For example, how much of a competitive environment do you wish to create or are you trying to foster more teamwork, instead? Our general recommendation is to share as much information as possible, especially if it will motivate better performance. But stop short of sharing any data that would allow another Rep to calculate the exact pay of their fellow Rep.
