The purpose of and how to manage a counteroffer.
Writing this article, for once, my first ideas were not Covid or work-from-home related. Instead, an article on something we see a lot of in the Banking and financial services industries is counteroffering. They have become more commonplace and it’s important to get the right advice on how to manage a counteroffer.
Counteroffers from your current employer are, in some instances, presented to you at the time of resignation. Current employers request that they get an opportunity to rebuff the prospective employers’ offer with a counteroffer to turn around the resignation. We are witnessing this within the Risk & Compliance market.
As a specialist Risk & Compliance recruitment consultant, my role is to accommodate discussions with the people I represent to prepare them to deal with possible counteroffer situations. In our process, we constantly reinforce the pros and cons of counteroffers from our first interactions. The market is already a candidate short market. With the New Zealand borders being closed and record levels of low unemployment, it is becoming even more difficult to attract talent in this area due to various factors, including the lack of people returning from overseas and the attraction of highly skilled migrants. So when an employer gets presented with a resignation notice from an employee, they are doing everything they can to retain their good employees.
Suppose you have recently received a counteroffer or going through the process – congratulations on securing an offer elsewhere! To aid you, I have put together some information that could be useful for navigating your resignation from your current position. And what to expect from your current employer.
How to handle counteroffers
Before receiving a counteroffer, you will firstly hand in your resignation. It can be an uncertain time for any individual, especially if you have been with the employer for an extended period. Suppose you have found a new role through a specialist recruitment agency such as Tyler Wren. In that case, I suggest speaking with your recruitment consultant to ensure you are on the right track. At Tyler Wren, we offer you templates to personalise and make your own based on our many years of experience dealing with these scenarios.
Now the inevitable, the counteroffer. Counteroffers occur in every sector but especially in a market as candidates short as Risk & Compliance. Employers present counteroffers for several reasons:
- Your knowledge and experience is vital to the company
- Minimise employee turnover as much as possible
- To avoid the hassle of replacing you
- To avoid the cost and time of training a new employee
- To prevent other employees from considering a move away
How to manage a counteroffer
- Please speak with your manager/team to find out why they want to keep you. Is it a benefit to them or you?
- Compare the counteroffer with your current offer (including both hard and soft benefits)
- Go back to your initial reason when you first started looking for a new role (understand if the counteroffer will fix the reasons you had for leaving, e.g. culture, progression, leadership)
- Always put yourself first and make a decision that is best for you and your career
If you are leaning towards taking the counteroffer, we prefer to know sooner rather than later. However, we want the best decision for you and your potential new employer. Once you think you have decided, speak to your recruitment partner at Tyler Wren. We would prefer you stay with your current employer than go to a new employer and regret the decision in 3 months. Vice-versa, we would instead you didn’t take the counteroffer if it means we go through this process with you again in 3 months.
We don’t just help you secure the job offer. We are on hand to ensure this part of the process runs smoothly for you. Get in touch to discuss how to manage a counteroffer today.
Please do feel free to reach out for a chat.