There is one aspect of this candidate driven market at the moment that particularly makes my blood boil - the counter offer!!
Anyone involved in the recruitment process will understand how frustrating the 'counter offer' is. Let me paint the typical scenario..... the employee called Bob has decided to leave his employer Tight Git Ltd for a new job. When his he hands in his notice, his employer turns round to him and offers him another XX grand to stay saying how 'valued' they are!!
What really hacks me off is that it takes the resignation for the employer to 'offer' the payrise - if the employer valued that employee so mych they should have done it along time ago! So does that mean they have been underpaying that employee all that time? Of course it bloody does!!
Why do companies do it? Are they just blind to their own staff or are they just to damn tight?
After all, why should an employee go through the process of getting another job, to trigger this employer response.
Then there is the statistic of how many people who have been counter offered actually stay with the employer long term anyway - the figure somebody quoted to me previously is that 85% of these employees actually leave within 6 months anyway - a figure that by my experience seems about right. The reason for this is simple - once the employee has got over the payrise etc their job simply returns to the same as before, and then all the original reasons why they were looking to leave their employer resurface.
So apart from looking at retention strategies and talent management schemes what else can companies do to reduce the need to counter offer? I would be keen to hear from you with any innovative ways.
