Counter offers - the pros and cons

One of your best employees has just told you that they have a better job offer and are resigning.

This employee is a valuable part of your team, would keeping them happy be worthwhile?

How do you respond? With a counter offer?

Why you might or might not want to counter offer.

Losing a valued employee can be costly. Not only in terms of replacing them with someone new - which could add up to tens of thousands in terms of downtime and hiring expenses, but also morale can be lowered when your other staff see you letting talent walk right out the door.

However other considerations could make you think twice before doing this……

• What about if the employees talk? It’s one thing to negotiate with a single, valued employee (in private). It’s another if everyone else assumes you’ll match whatever outside offers they can wrangle.
• What’s to guarantee that buying this employee’s loyalty will hold them there for long? Or that once you give in to their demands, they’ll continue performing at their previous level?
• If you do choose to negotiate a counter-offer, you’ll probably want to ask the employee why they’d sought out a job elsewhere in the first place. Is it really because they feel underpaid?

It is a case of weighing up the situation…..

The more you understand the person’s underlying motivations, the better your chances are of offering what matters most to them.

Otherwise you could find yourself outbidding yourself on salary only to discover that 90% of the candidates who are counter offered leave within 12 months as money is not everything.