#ontrack is a challenge I’ve set myself; to write and post a piece of weekly content in the time it takes me to get to London on the train. So from the first carriage of the 8.50am to Waterloo, your weekly hit of digital marketing & eComm insight, career advice and the odd left-field musing inspired by who ever sits opposite me.
This, my friend, is a counter offer. There are many, many posts on this subject; How to negotiate a counter offer, The Pro’s and Con’s of accepting a counter offer and posts telling you that accepting a counter offer is career suicide. A bit extreme perhaps? Let’s discuss.
We have to start with one inexcusable fact: 80% of employees who accept a counter-offer leave the company within 1 year. Seeing your boss prostrate themselves before you and beg you to stay can be a heady experience. It feels like a huge compliment and we all like to feel needed don’t we? It validates what you’ve been telling friends in the pub every Friday; ‘The place would fall apart without me.’ But trust me, this feeling rarely lasts and when it disappears you’ll find yourself in a compromised position. Here’s why:
Salary vs. Worth
When I interview, one of the first questions I ask is; Why do you want to leave? and the answer is rarely money. Reasons are generally the need for a new challenge or new environment; ‘I’m no longer stretched’, ‘I’m ready for a step up in responsibility’, ‘I want to experience a different sector’ or ‘I am not happy with senior management/direction’. I remind you (not sure about the word candidate) of these reasons when you get a counter-offer. The reality? Rarely any of those circumstances change if you stay!
Also beware of building a link between salary and worth. It’s difficult not to feel more valued when you’re being offered more money and see the above about your boss but the truth is you haven’t been offered more money because they think you’re worth it, you’ve been offered more money because you ransomed it and it’s less hassle for them to pay you more than replace you. In the end, simmering resentment wins out and now they know you are a flight risk you will be overlooked for promotion or long term incentives.
Money as a motivator.
Historically, it never works for long, unless you are fighting to feed your family! Money just isn’t what gets us out of bed in the morning. It does not motivate us to give the lion’s share of our daily energy. What motivates us is opportunity, progression, challenge and making a real difference. Let’s face it – what you really want is your senior managers job, isn’t it? Are they going to give it to you right now? No. They are paying you off to stay where you are and you have just broadcast the fact that you can be ‘bought’.
The game is up.
The professional world is a great game, a series of transactions: an exchange of time, energy and expertise for money, training and opportunity. As you might imagine, within this, it can get personal – after all you spend more time with your colleagues than your family. By the time you ‘force’ a counter offer, the game is normally up, you have mentally already left which is dangerous territory in any relationship. Your boss knows you want to leave, you’ve been interviewing in probably more than one place and have been offered a role that might make you their equal somewhere else. But, if you accept the generous counter offer and emotional pleading we’ll all go back to work, game on, right? Wrong. Even if you really get on with your manager, it lingers. Why? Because the chances are you were ready to move on but you decided to stay and do the same job for more money – it just doesn’t stack up and it’s never forgotten. Game on? Game over.
So when does it work?
Well, I’m not actually convinced it does long term. But there are examples of where personnel change/structures evolve and people do get that senior management role they were looking for but this is definitely the 20% exception rather than the rule. This is normally in companies where there is already a programme of organisational change and where the individuals external offer just prompts an internal conversation that was already scheduled.
In conclusion, your career relationships are no different to the relationships you have with your partner, family and friends. Think long and hard and perhaps more importantly, think objectively before you end that relationship. If you are ready for a new challenge and if you have learned everything you can then make the decision to move on. Don’t look back, it’s ok you’re doing it for all the right reasons.
If you stay, you’re staying for them and they are simply rewarding sacrifice; your sacrifice of self.
Ben Howells | Managing Consultant | benhowells@beringertame.com
