It’s never a good day as an owner, director, or manager when one of your favorite employees gives you their notice. Your first inclination can be to go into a serious state of denial – just block out that it’s even happening. But if you do that, the last two weeks you have with this employee will fly by faster than a supercar on the Autobahn. Your next reaction might be to put together the most amazing counteroffer; no rational person would be able to turn it/ you down. Before you start plotting how to make the counteroffer hall of fame, consider the following things about counteroffers.
Have you seen this statistic?
“89% of individuals who accept counteroffers are gone within six months and within eighteen months, 93% of those accepting counteroffers leave either voluntarily or involuntarily,” cited by careerprofiles.com .
Even if this statistic is not currently in force at your organization, it should cause you serious pause when you’re considering making a counteroffer. Take a moment to ask yourself the question about why you’re making the counteroffer. Are you panicking? Are you worried about how you’re going to recruit the right person to replace the one who’s given notice? Is there a project he or she is in the middle of, and no one on your team can catch up fast enough to finish it on time? Or are you simply thinking that if you can get the employee to take the counter offer, selfishly, you’ll have time to post the job and find the right person instead of hiring the first person who seems vaguely qualified?
Assess your motivation behind why you’re making the counteroffer, and determine if there’s another way to cover the gap instead of putting yourself and the company in the position to have to have a tough conversation six months from now when the employee is mysteriously leaving early multiple times over the course of two weeks.
Loyalty
Let’s face it, if your company falls on hard times, you will look at the employee who nearly left as the one you feel should be the first nominated to depart. After all, he or she tipped their hand that this is not their dream job and you’re not the dream employer. Even the most objective employer finds it hard to ignore the declaration of an employee stating they want to move on. It stings. They’ve essentially outed themselves as being less than loyal, and as an employer having to make a difficult decision about an employee, it can be both tempting and logical to choose the one who was on the verge of being a ship jumper, even if he or she did accept your counteroffer.
Negativity + team morale= other departures
The other consequence of a counteroffer to weigh is how likely you think it is that the employee will actually be happy staying. Are you able to deliver everything your counteroffer promises? Do you truly know why they are motivated to leave? Can you fix the reasons they’re wanting to leave? Are they currently a good influence on morale and the team? Or do you think their enthusiasm will fade after the first six months along with your ability to fix the things that are causing them to look for opportunities outside your organization? If the employee has a tendency to lean to the negative when interpreting circumstances or actions of other employees, will he or she have a hard time if it takes you some time to deliver on the aspects of your counteroffer? This could have a negative impact on the rest of your team. Realistically assess your timeline and ability to live up to your counteroffer, otherwise instead of having one borderline unhappy employee, you could have several who have heard about your struggle to make your counteroffer a reality.
One time you might consider a counteroffer is. . .
Let’s say you’ve been worried about how to promote or challenge a current employee. You decide to conduct a “stay interview.” A “stay” interview, as described by inc.com is a one-on-one interview between a manager/ owner and a critical employee. The goal of it is to learn what makes the employee want to keep working for you. It’s also designed to tell an owner or manager what might make a key employee want to leave.
If you’ve recently conducted a “stay interview” with an employee that is now stating his or her intention to leave, and you’ve started lining up a strategy to deliver on what you learned as a result of this interview, you might consider making a counteroffer. First, you have a strategy in place to deliver on what the employee is asking for. Second, the employee likely is happy about most other aspects of their job, and wouldn’t be a source of negativity after accepting a counteroffer. Third, you should feel confident that the competing offer is a result of an effective, yet unsolicited recruiting effort, and this employee is truly unlikely to leave in less than a year.
All you have to do is Google “counteroffer,” and you’ll see all the articles with conflicting advice for candidates or employers alike. No matter what you decide, be sure you understand why you’re making the offer and how you plan to realistically deliver on it once you extend it.