4.2
The Walt Disney World Resort at its core is a vacation destination offering World-class entertainment, theme parks, restaurants, and resort accommodations. It takes over 77K employees to run the resort on a day-to-day basis, but one role in particular is responsible for the income of the organization in a way that others don’t. That role is of a Vacation Planner that is employed to assist the guests of the Walt Disney World Resort to purchase their park tickets exemplify guest service skills and set the expectations of what the resort will bring the guests upon entry into one of the four theme parks. The goals of the organization are like that of many to make a profit with the difference being they do it while providing exactly what the guest needs and not exactly what the company needs. The Vacation Planner role is considered an entry-level position where the employee is tasked will selling guests their requested park media as well as offering any upgraded offering to
the tickets that were not originally requested by the guest. The amount of ticket offerings is vast
and selecting the correct ticket with the guest's needs in mind is important however the offer to
upgrade their experience with addons such as Sport Complex, water park, or golf admissions additional products like tours and photo packages can be added to the ticket products as well. Employees must maintain a minimum sales goal of ticket sales set forth by the company’s goals (DisneyCareers, 2023). Wages are paid using the method of Hourly plus “commission”. Hourly wages, listed on the internal employee transfer site, start at $17 an hour for seasonal positions and $18 an hour for Full or Part-time positions (Transfer Genie, 2024). The commission however is not like the commission of the examples of other positions in that it reflects the employee’s performance in alignment with the sales goals of the organization but does not reflect a monetary wage. Instead of a monetary increase reflected in a paystub, if an employee can upgrade an existing ticket into a higher priced offering, they are provided an incentive. Offering incentives to the employees helps to drive the sales of the tickets and experiences thus meeting the company’s sales goals while also keeping the employees on task throughout the day (Indeed, 2023) These incentives help to keep employees engaged and to complete their day-to-day sales tasks to maintain their required sales goals. The incentives offered to those above the set sales goals range from gift certificates from $5-$500, night stays at Walt Disney World Hotels, and meal or experience vouchers for products around the resorts (Edavis, 2014). Each month the employees are compared by their sales for the previous month and if they achieve sales higher than the goal of the company, they are awarded one of the incentives.
However, if the employees’ sales numbers are under a set sales goal set by the company it is then determined if the employee is to receive additional training, a probation period where a second month under the sales goals is monitored by leadership, coaching by management, reprimand or relocating the employee into a different role (Edavis, 2014). This standard of measuring sales is this role's form of employee evaluation. The general pay philosophy and culture of Walt Disney World is to assist guests in the resort and ensure they have a good vacation while traveling here. The role of the vacation planner as described above lists all the ways that this team of employees can help the organization achieve this. Motivating employees through incentives and performance goals has
