
The Counteroffer vs Retention – If the counteroffer is your primary tool for retaining your people, you need to rethink your strategy.
We are officially in a “sellers’ market” where employees with good performance and skills can find opportunities and command offers because the labor market is tight. tippmix online In many industries and segments there are not enough people with the right skills and training to fill the available positions. When a good employee resigns to accept another position, the thought of replacing that person can often induce panic. The natural reaction is to find out what you can do for the person to stay. This invariably leads to money.
“What have they offered you? What if we can match that? What will it take for you to stay?”
All of these highly reactive responses put you in a defensive posture. The counteroffer invariably attempts to solve a problem with the wrong solution, or at least an expensive solution that could likely have been solved another way. Once an employee has had one foot out the door, even if the counteroffer causes them to stay, the relationship is rarely ever the same. You will always know they were close to leaving, others will question their loyalty and commitment and the odds of that person ultimately leaving the company have increased.
“Why do people stay?” A more proactive method to retention comes from asking this question far in advance of any potential resignation of good people. Many companies conduct exit interviews to find out why people leave. Once you are conducting the exit interview, it’s too late to remedy anything. What about conducting interviews asking people why they continue to stay with you? nyerőgépes játékok letöltése ingyen Not only is this a proactive approach to a potential problem, it sets the stage to learn what is important to people. tippmix elo eredmenyek You should use this as an opportunity to discover what people like (and dislike) about their work, what their career aspirations are and how you can work with them to help them move along that path.
It is important to have a strategy to retain your good people. While compensation is clearly important, there are often a multitude of other factors that give people satisfaction and keep them on board. These can include challenging or meaningful work, feeling recognized and valued by the company for their work, opportunities to learn and develop new skills, a positive work environment, feeling like their ideas are recognized and incorporated, liking their boss and/or their coworkers, etc. Without getting into a detailed discussion of a comprehensive retention strategy, the basic point is to have a plan for keeping good people engaged and decreasing the likelihood of being caught off guard when someone walks in to tender their resignation.
The time to focus on keeping good people is now. The counteroffer should not be your leading tactic to keep people from leaving. In fact, it should really be the last resort and we would argue the worst possible method for trying to keep people from leaving. Always be recruiting through Perelson’s Utah County staffing agency and you won’t have to resort to the counteroffer!