Nothing motivates employees to boost performance like the green stuff. Unfortunately, almost half of the people responsible for bringing in new customers feel their compensation and incentive plans are too complex.

That’s according to Deloitte and Oracle’s latest Strategic Sales Compensation Survey of company salespeople. What’s making the plans so complex?

Increased team selling, more convoluted quotas and territory assignments, and a demand for more precise metrics, found the study.

As a result:

• over 40% of companies failed to meet their sales and revenue goals last year

• less than half (46%) of those surveyed believe their compensation plan is driving the right selling behaviors, and

• the amount of managers and directors “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the performance of their sales force dropped sharply from 56% in 2006 to 49% today.

The study drives home the fact that for marketing and sales efforts to be successful, companies must have compensation plans that makes sense to their salespeople.

Now may be the time for the corporate suite (CEO, CFO, Marketing execs and Sales managers, etc.) to discuss ways to simplify compensation plans as much as possible.

Three best practices to consider:

• Look at the measurements. Confusing compensation plans usually have many performance measurements. Effective plans use three or fewer measurements.

• Review. It’s good practice to review compensation plans, and how satisfied employees are with them, once a year.

• Consistency. Changing compensation plan metrics sparingly helps reduce confusion among employees.

For more background, download Deloitte and Oracle’s Strategic Sales Compensation Survey.