Counteroffers don't get employees to stay, after all

Employees whose companies pay them to stay are gone within two years, the results of a Robert Half (RH) survey show. Researchers in the new online survey concluded that paying departing workers to stay is just a stop-gap strategy that doesn't get to the real reason they want to leave or keep them onboard for very long. Of the 5,500 hiring decision-makers polled, 58% said they extend counteroffers to departing employees. Senior managers said they saw employees stay an average of 1.7 years after giving them a counteroffer. The main reasons companies extend counteroffers are to prevent losing organizational information and to avoid the time and expense of replacing those who leave. Paul McDonald, RH's senior executive director, said he advises professionals both not to offer and not to accept counteroffers. From the employer's perspective, a counteroffer offers a quick fix for an employee who will likely still leave a while later. On the side of the employee, he or she may seem disloyal to the company after accepting a counteroffer, and it's likely the original reason for wanting to leave still exists. Goodbyes are hard, especially when it's a valuable employee who wants to pack up and leave. An employer strapped for talent may see a counteroffer as not only a reasonable solution, but also the sole solution available but employers must remain aware of why an employee may be leaving and seek to solve the real underlying issues. Stay interviews can give employers a sense of the likelihood that an employee will remain on the job. A well-conducted stay interview can establish a culture of trust between an employee and a manager in addition to identifying issues before they become deal breakers. Today's employers, however, can still expect to lose a fair number of employees over time; the stigma of staying in a job only a few years has less impact on job seekers than in past years.  High retention rates count in this tight labor market, and the process of onboarding a new team member can get lengthy. Faced with the possibility of losing a worker with in-demand skills, HR managers must consider whether counteroffers really incentivize employees to stick around for a long time or if it is just a stopgap regarding the real issues.