WHEN MARK Hurd became chief executive of Hewlett-Packard (HP) four years ago, he brought a reputation as a “numbers man”, famous for a forensic eye on metrics. This approach has permeated HP’s management culture but the economic downturn calls for a different style, especially when dealing with sales people.

HP Ireland’s director of sales Mary Lou Nolan is tasked with keeping a 70-strong team motivated in an IT market down by an estimated 10 to 20 per cent.

“At a country level obviously I assess the numbers, but sales people being measured on the public sector only, for example, are having a tough time so you can’t go too hard on them,” Ms Nolan points out.

“Personally it wouldn’t be my style to say ‘Let’s look at a spreadsheet.’ It would be ‘Let’s look at the situation.’ Sales people lean more towards the verbal and to situational analysis than numerical analysis.”

The single most important factor in managing a sales force in the current climate is communication, Ms Nolan believes. “The worst thing you could do is to run away and hide at your desk and look at the decreasing numbers and get depressed. You absolutely have to keep talking to the guys and saying: ‘how are you finding it, what’s going on and what are your customers saying?’ and building plans around that feedback.”

“Whatever you would have done before on a communications basis with your guys, you’ve got to now double that. You have to up the ante in these times because when people don’t hear anything, they go into fear mode and it’s up to you to make sure they don’t feel fearful and that they feel confident enough to get out there and talk to customers.”

Ms Nolan meets her team in person regularly: she has weekly meetings with senior managers and a monthly get-together with most of the sales team, where feedback is encouraged. “We’re very much an e-mail company but I don’t believe that’s enough for sales people,” she says. “My preferred approach is to look at someone face to face.”

In the absence of financial incentives for beating sales targets, rewards come in the form of extra days’ leave, or that old reliable – praise.

Resetting expectations is another way to keep a sales team focused in a downturn, she adds. “If you can retain or grow market share, even if the market is declining, that’s a motivator.”

The recession offers an opportunity to train sales people and add to their experience, Ms Nolan says. “You see where certain people have skills gaps and now is the time to train them because you don’t need as many feet on the street.”

It might seem counterintuitive but some aspects of managing sales people are easier in a downturn than during a boom. “In the good times, managing sales people can be very challenging because they are constantly asking for extra recognition, probably financial or otherwise,” she says. “In times like this it’s so different because they’re rather quiet. People are tending to keep their heads down and just focus on the job in hand so in one respect being a manager is a little more straightforward, managing people from the noise level perspective.”

Ms Nolan points to HP’s announcement of 500 new jobs at its operation in Leixlip, Co Kildare, as a sign that multinationals still have a “hugely important” role to play in Ireland.

“The strange thing is, within HP, Ireland is not seen negatively. HP still views Ireland as a fantastic place to do business. We can talk ourselves into a situation but that’s not the viewpoint of HP globally. All of the reasons to invest in Ireland still exist,” she says.

She believes that more could be done to encourage students entering third level to take up science and computing disciplines.