Contented, valued employees resist recruiters

By Marcia Heroux Pounds
Knight Ridder Newspapers

A valued employee announces he or she is leaving your company. Should you make a counteroffer?

Even in this tough labor market, the answer is “no,” said Bill Frank, president of Curtiss Group International, an executive search firm in Boca Raton, Fla.

“It’s a lose-lose situation,” Frank said. “It sets a tone.”

If you offer the employee a salary hike, “the message that is sent is, ‘I’ve been taking advantage of you for a long time. Now you’re threatening to leave, and I’ll give you what you want.’”

Richard Hadden, co-author of Contented Cows Give Better Milk, agrees: “How do you stop the bidding? Money and perks attract, but strong and caring leadership retains.”

Frank says counteroffers don’t work because the real reason people leave companies is not salary. It may be lifestyle. It may be an opportunity they can’t pass up. Or it may be you didn’t appreciate them while they were around.

When an employee tenders his resignation, “they’ve mentally committed to leave,” Frank said. “When you try to dissuade them from that, it will keep them happy with their wallet, but it won’t change the fact they don’t like their supervisor or corporate culture, or there are no promotional opportunities. In less than a year, you will find the employee going anyway.”

When an employee is so critical to the company that it must fight to keep him or her, ‘they have to do it with a different job in the organization. Say, ‘We’ve been thinking about moving you into another assignment. How does this sound to you?’”

While money is important, Hadden said, more critical is the opportunity for career development. If managers provide training and promotion opportunities, employees are more likely to say, “I’m really in this for the long haul.”

But your employees are being wooed by recruiters and potential new employers every day. What can you do about that?

“You have to change the corporate culture to retain employees,” Frank said.

Hadden, with co-author Bill Catlett, examined employee relations and the bottom line in Contented Cows.

According to the view taken by Contented Cows companies, employees want and deserve:

• Meaningful work: Employees need to feel proud of their work. They want suitable challenges and the freedom to pursue the them.

• High standards: They dislike losing organizations and don’t want to hang around with losers.

• Clear sense of purpose and direction: Timely, relevant and meaningful information is a must.

• Balanced “Worth-its”: Interest and investment in them must be demonstrated. Internal systems must support rather than impede their efforts.

• Level playing field: Reciprocal caring, a sense of justice and assurance the company won’t take advantage of them. “You should be equitable. You should reward excellent work and not reward mediocre work and then you send the message this is what it takes to be successful here. Then you’re going to keep the kind of people you want,” Hadden said.

So how do you keep contented cows?

Frank says managers and supervisors are the first line of defense in retaining good employees: How are managers interacting with your employees? Are you choosing managers who work well with people?

“The lines of communication have to open. If something is unpleasant, can it be said in a constructive way? You need someone who can set positive and reasonable expectations for employees,” Frank said.

Managers tend to emulate managers they’ve had: some are “yellers,” some are coaches. “Let them know what is expected of a manager, what enters into being a successful manager,” Frank said. “Employees want to know one thing: How am I doing? Recognition is more than money. They need to feel appreciated.”

Source: The Columbus Dispatch / May 28, 2000