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CAREER ADVISOR
In this issue, “Your Career Advisor” is responding to a question from an employer in Alexandria “one of my employees is resigning because of a better paying offer, what are my options?”. All reasonable questions related to careers, skill development or employment related issues – sent to
advisor@skill-link.com
- would be addressed in this section every week.
Q: “One of my employees is resigning because of a better paying offer, what are my options ?”
I am the general manager of a small company (25 people); recently one of my best performing young employees submitted his resignation. This was due according to him to receiving a job offer from a large company with a higher salary. What do you suggest I do ? Should I attempt to increase his salary to convince him to stay ?
W. M.
Replying:
Dear Mr. M
It is part of life in the employment world to loose people, it hurts when they are star performers. As a rule we strongly advise you against making a financial counter offer to that employee. This is because it sends the wrong message to every one in the company, it tells them your best way to get a pay raise is to claim you have another better offer. Also, the concerned person himself may feel cheated, he will think that he was underpaid, and you were happy about it until he threatened to leave.
If you really care to retain that person, we would suggest you try / explore one or more of the following:
- discuss the merits of working in a small environment, where an individual’s contribution is more felt and recognized...
- suggest (if you can deliver this) that very soon the employee in question will be getting more challenging assignments, and that it is not all about compensation.
- Explore with the employee - objectively and without over promising - his potential in the coming 12 to 18 months (promotion, income etc…). Such a reasonably achievable potential may bridge the gap between what your company has to offer and the other party.
Note from the editor:
Employer names and inquiry sender names were withheld for confidentiality