I resigned after three years in a previous organization. I felt my professional career was not going anywhere and I wanted to do more than what was assigned to me. When I talked to my manager, she said they had started making plans of making me a supervisor, and that I would oversee my colleagues in the different branches. She asked me to think about it and I ended up staying another four years. While my experience taught me that counteroffers can be good for my professional career, these can also be disastrous for others.
Counteroffers are tricky especially when you have firmly decided to leave the company that currently employs you. Some reasons are irreconcilable while some are negotiable. When your employer gives you one, ask yourself why you are resigning in the first place. List what initially prompted you to think of resigning and then write down the other reasons. Some are not given counteroffers, but if you are a valued and significant member of the team, they will likely propose it. List your reasons so that when they do, you are in a better position to negotiate because you already have a list of what you need.
After listing your reasons down, another consideration is to ask yourself if your current employer is still aligned with your own professional and personal goals. If the counteroffer supports those, then you must carefully consider if you will accept it. If you do not give it proper consideration, you might end up changing from one company to the next with the same set of issues and you will not stop looking for other opportunities.
The bottomline issue you need to address when given a counteroffer is to know what is mutually beneficial for both you and the company. This could be an opportunity for you to upgrade your professional skills or a missed opportunity for career progress. So, before you decide if you will take the counteroffer or go, there are several considerations you need to evaluate.
If your primary consideration for leaving the company is for better pay, evaluate the salary differences between your current job and your future employer, and note how much you should receive based on industry standards, your current skill set, certifications and experiences. In evaluating your salary, do not forget to take into account your variable pays, existing benefits and bonuses, and how they factor into your annual salary. Compare the counteroffer and the offer from your prospective employer, and decide which one you are comfortable with. Your current organization might not be in a good financial condition to give you a salary increase or provide other benefits or opportunities like other companies in the same industry. In that case, you need to ask yourself which one you are willing to accept.
You also need to look at company culture and the work-life balance practices because these also affect your productivity and efficiency. You might reconsider especially when company culture and the work-life balance practices matter significantly in the way you do your work and are among the reasons why you are thinking of leaving in the first place. Some people are willing to take a pay cut for better work culture and better work-life balance.
If you are leaving for better professional opportunities, is your prospective company an industry leader? If they are, it will help you get the experience and expose you to their organization’s network. You also need to ascertain available career opportunities within that organization and how they can maximize your growth and enhance your potential. Understanding what your prospective employer can offer will help you decide if you will receive the counteroffer, especially if your current employer does not provide the same opportunities.
When you do decide to accept it, you still need to consider several things which will affect your work. When your current company gives a counteroffer, they would have already made the decision that they need you in the company and your work is valuable to the entire organization, along with your institutional knowledge and the network you have built while in the company. But putting your employer in this position could also pose potential problems.
This begs the question: Why did it have to come to this point where you need to give your notice for your current employer to give you a counteroffer? Employees may have several reasons for leaving the organization and one of them might be the feeling that their work is not appreciated or valued. If it comes to a point where you have to resign for you to be appreciated and valued, the organization has to deliberately evaluate their performance appraisals and engagement initiatives. And you have to decide whether you want to stay in an environment where your contribution has been glossed over.
Even if organizations employ changes in how employees are evaluated, most who receive a counteroffer eventually leave the company in the next year or so because their reasons for leaving most likely have not been resolved. It becomes counterproductive and puts a strain on the employee who decided to stay, only to suffer the same conditions that made him want to leave in the first place. This puts undue pressure on both the employee and the organization.
When an employee accepts a counteroffer, it also puts the loyalty of the employee under scrutiny. And with this, there would be significant changes in the office dynamics and how your manager and peers relate to you. If your loyalty comes into question, the company can just start having someone train under you and then replace you with the same person. Or, hire somebody with the same qualifications and experiences as you do. It all depends on how your role and function is essential to the entire organization.
In the end, counteroffers provide the catalyst to propel your professional career in the direction you point it to. Knowing how to decide, and the effects of your decision, can help you manage your own expectations and help you navigate your career toward better opportunities.
Image courtesy of Frank McKenna on Unsplash
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