DEALING WITH COUNTEROFFERS
Quitting a job is never easy. Career changes are tough enough and the anxieties of leaving a comfortable job, friends and environment for an unknown opportunity can easily cloud anyone's judgment. But what should you do when your current employer "muddles the waters" even more by asking you to stay.
A counteroffer is an inducement from your current employer to get you to stay after you've announced your intentions to accept another job elsewhere. And, in recent years, counteroffers have practically become the norm.
If you are considering a counteroffer, remain focused on your primary objectives. Why were you looking for another job to begin with? If an employee is happy with their current job and/or salary, they're usually not paving the road with resumes. So, oftentimes a counteroffer that promises more money never really remedies the real reasons for wanting to move on in the first place.
Apart from a short-term bandage on the problem, nothing will change within the company and when the dust settles you can find yourself back in the same old rut. Recruiters report that more than 80% of those who accept counteroffers leave, begin looking for another job, or are "let go" within six to twelve months after announcing their intentions.
Counteroffers are certainly flattering and make an employee question their initial decision to leave. But oftentimes they are merely stall tactics used by bosses and companies to alleviate an upheaval a departing employee can cause. High turnover also brings a boss's management skills into question. His reaction is to do what's necessary until he's better prepared to replace you.
What kind of company do you work for if you have to threaten to resign before they pay you what you're worth?
The things they'll say:
"You can't leave, the department really needs you."
"We were just about to give you a raise"
"I didn't know you were unhappy. Why didn't you come to me sooner?
What can we do to make things better?"
Again, stay focused on your decision and your opportunities.
You need to ask yourself: What kind of company do you work for if you have to threaten to resign before they pay you what you're worth?
Where did the money for the counteroffer come from? Is it your next raise or promotion just given early? Are future opportunities limited now? Will you have to threaten to leave again for another raise or promotion?
You've demonstrated your unhappiness and will be viewed as having committed blackmail in order to get a raise. Your loyalty will also be questioned come promotion time.
Well managed companies rarely make counteroffers since they view their employment policies as fair and equitable.
If you do consider being "brought back", obtain the details of the offer in writing, as well as a one-year "no-cut" contract from the employer. If they refuse, as two-thirds of counteroffering employers do, your decision to leave is made.
Look at your current job and the new position as if you were unemployed, then make your decision based on which holds the most real potential. It's probably the new job or you wouldn't have accepted it in the first place.
This article was in the Wall Street Journal:
Accepting a Counteroffer Can Be the Road to Ruin by Paul Hawkinson
As the economy rebounds, companies are focused on retaining their best employees. This may be because they sense that top performers, exhausted from being overworked and underpaid during the recession, have new options.
Counteroffers are one talent-preservation tool companies use to prevent being "left in the lurch" by an employee who leaves. In making such an offer, your employer might appear to be doing you a big favor. Don't be deceived, though. You aren't the main beneficiary of an accepted counteroffer.
During my 40 years monitoring the hiring scene, primarily from the standpoint of the executive-recruiting industry, it's been clear that the company reaps the benefits when employees take counteroffers.
Industry pundits may argue that this is no longer true now that the employment paradigm has changed and the loyalty contract between employers and employees has been irrevocably broken. Employees control their destinies more now than a decade or two ago and it's sensible for them to use counteroffers to improve their earnings or careers.
But human nature is unalterable -- even as the workplace changes around it. Employers aren't charities. They want to avoid the transition turmoil generated when a key player leaves. They also know that for employees, changing jobs ranks as a major stressor with death, divorce, moving and other of life's undesirable speed bumps. They make counteroffers knowing that employees would rather avoid leaving the familiar and starting new someplace else.
As one human resources executive told me, "My core belief is 'Better the devil you know than the devil you don't.' We understand that matching the salary, changing the job title, creating a new project or promises of any kind can tip the balance between going and staying. It is a lot cheaper to keep someone than the expense and aggravation of finding a replacement."
The Boss Saves Face
Accepting a counteroffer also makes bosses look good. They feel somewhat like jilted lovers or spouses when someone they need resigns. They think to themselves:
What did I do wrong?
Why didn't I recognize the problem earlier?
This couldn't happen at a worse time.
My own boss will be furious.
This is one of my best people and his leaving could cause serious morale problems.
I've already got one opening in my department. I don't need another right now. What if this resignation starts a mass exodus?
Let's face it. When someone quits, it's a direct refection on the boss. Unless you're really incompetent or a disrupting thorn in the boss's side, he or she might look bad by "allowing" you to go. The gut reaction is to do what's necessary to keep you from leaving until it's convenient. That's human nature, too.
If you accept the counteroffer and stay, you'll always be viewed differently. In essence, by agreeing to stay, you've "blackmailed" your boss. From now on, he or she will consider you a "fidelity risk." You lose your status as a team player. You're no longer viewed as an insider.
Nothing Changes, Really
Meanwhile, your reasons for wanting to leave still exist. In almost every case, a counteroffer is a temporary fix -- a stall technique to keep you in your seat until the organization can find a suitable replacement. Ask yourself: If and when I feel underpaid, overworked or otherwise mistreated again, will I have to solicit another offer to correct it?
What about the prospective employer, which spent long hours and considerable expense to get you to the offer point? Presumably, you negotiated in good faith and arrived at a mutually acceptable offer. If you renege on your commitment, you taint your reputation. It's a smaller world than you may think. Word of your lack of integrity can poison your career for decades.
Not only can your reputation for untrustworthiness hinder your career progress among executives in your sector, but search professionals also will consider you untouchable for the openings they handle. If you think recruiters don't talk among themselves, you're dead wrong. Being blackballed by the search community can be career suicide.
In my four decades in the hiring community, only a small percentage of counteroffer acceptors I've known haven't regretted their choice. If in your naïveté you believe that your current company loves you despite how it's treated you, you deserve the ho-hum career it may offer.
But my advice is to refuse the guilt and the sweet talk it tries to lay on you. The momentary flattery just isn't worth it. Decent and well-managed companies don't make counteroffers. Their policies are fair and equitable, and they won't bow to coercion.
When you say, "I quit," mean it. It's really your only honorable option.
-- Mr. Hawkinson is publisher of The Fordyce Letter, a monthly newsletter for executive search and recruiting professionals. He is a former executive recruiter and consultant.