The purpose of this research is to study sales employee reviews to find how remote work during Covid impacted sales employee ratings, how the effect varied across industry contexts, and the interaction effect of remote work during Covid and sales compensation on sales employee ratings.
The data for the research were collected through web scraping of employee reviews from a popular employer review website. A total of 41,711 online employer ratings by sales employees across 29 leading organizations in industries including banking, pharmaceuticals, technology, telecommunications and the snacks and beverage industry over the period of 2011–2021 were analyzed using fixed effects regression models.
We find that remote work during Covid had a negative effect on sales employee ratings. The effect is stronger for industries like banking that faced a more severe disruption in the sales process as a result of remote work during Covid. We also find that while a higher total compensation results in a greater employee rating, and higher incentive pay results in a lower rating, the negative effect of remote work from Covid is positively moderated by incentive pay.
Limitations of the research include the fact that the remote work during Covid data is from around the pandemic period (2020–2021). Future research can explore how the effect of remote work has changed since then and with initiatives like back-to-office programs introduced by firms.
The research provides an assessment of the sales employee rating as a result of remote work during Covid, emphasizing the need for careful evaluation of remote work implementation in companies. It also highlights the need for face-to-face sales in industries that involve relationship-based business-to-consumer sales, e.g. banking. A silver lining of incentive pay is identified in the form of greater autonomy in remote work, which results in better employee ratings.
The study offers novel descriptive data and analysis on the effect of remote work during Covid on sales employee ratings. In the process, it sheds light on the effect of remote work during Covid across sales contexts. It is also one of the first studies to consider the effect of remote work during Covid and its interaction with sales compensation on sales employee ratings.
