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Counteroffers usually fail. The employee is usually in a different company in 12 months, either by getting fired (as soon as a CO is made, the boss is working o

Counteroffers usually fail. The employee is usually in a different company in 12 months, either by getting fired (as soon as a CO is made, the boss is working on a replacement plan) or taking another offer elsewhere. Only if the counteroffer involves a move to another team or up the chain of command does it work. Money has a surprisingly small effect on employee happiness. Most people who leave do so because they outgrow their role. Giving them more money to do the same stuff isn't going to have a long-term effect.

mikeash 14y ago
"Counteroffers usually fail." Which is why I advocate thinking about the situation and only making counter offers when they actually make sense. I mean, startups usually fail. Does that mean one should never start a startup?
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  Of course. If you can come up with an intelligent counteroffer with a decent chance of success, then go ahead. It is, however, a failure of management to have had to make one. This may be why employees who take CO's often get fired; their existence is a continuing embarrassment to the manager who failed to promote/raise them until an ultimatum was made.
  - mikeash 14y ago
    Which is exactly what I said in my comment. Treat the need for a counter offer as a failure, but don't just rule it out because the situation shouldn't have happened.
    - zwily 14y ago
      Before I was a manager, I believed that taking a counter offer was always stupid. Now that I'm on the other side of the fence, I see that it's not always so cut and dry. I wonder how many of the people supporting the author are actually managers in charge of compensation decisions.
rhizome 14y ago
either by getting fired (as soon as a CO is made, the boss is working on a replacement plan) Does this actually happen? Has it happened to you, or have you gotten rid of someone as a manager in this way?
- ryguytilidie 14y ago
  Head of Talent at a few different startups here. I have seen this happen multiple times.
  - rhizome 14y ago
    "Head of Talent" sounds pretty third-party HR, sorry. The fact remains is that this kind of conventional wisdom persists without examples.
    - sbisker 14y ago
      Huh? The guy is posting from an account with 600 karma; I'm going to assume his experience is at least as reputable as anyone else's here. Though it'd be useful to hear a slightly more specific example with the timescales and nuances on which these things happen, yes.
      - nostrademons 14y ago
        Not saying anything about the guy's experience (I usually take people at face value when they say what they do), but karma's a pretty shitty measure to judge expertise. - Signed, the guy with 23,000 karma, who was once #2 on the leaderboard and is still in the top 30.
        sbisker 14y ago
        I think there's a lot more meaning in the difference between 0 and 600 karma, than the difference between 600 and 23,000 karma. I was only speaking to my willingness to believe this guy wasn't flat lying or exaggerating about his position, or simply trolling. But tips hat point taken.
Shorel 14y ago
I must be out of the norm. Every raise have made me happier. I will welcome every raise with open arms.
codegeek 14y ago
"as soon as a CO is made, the boss is working on a replacement plan" I hear what you are saying but you cannot generalize this. One anecdote: my wife successfully got a counter-offer from one of her jobs a few years ago and stayed for a long time afterwards. her company/boss wanted her and did not think of her leaving to get a decent raise as a threat. They understood and obliged.
tptacek 14y ago
This happened to me; I was aggressively talked down from an attractive job offer I received, and when I accepted a counter, a succession plan was put in place to improve the the timing of my presumed inevitable resignation. This isn't folklore. There are roles and companies where counteroffers are pathological; sometimes it's overt and the company is trying to screw you over, and other times it's subtle and emergent and has more to do with the inevitable loss of traction that comes of the company preparing itself more deliberately for your eventual departure. If I ever end up in this situation again, I'm certainly going to bring this concern up directly and immediately. It's something you can work out if you're negotiating in good faith; it's not the case that there's no such thing as a successful counter.
- rhizome 14y ago
  If your story is any way indicative of SOP, it sounds like a counteroffer should come with an employment contract with time and termination restrictions.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    The odds of you ever negotiating something like that from any company with funding and/or house counsel are effectively zero. The closest you'll get is severance, but note that negotiating an effective severance agreement is expensive and can get adversarial. (It's easy to get a severance agreement that does not really protect you). By this I mean, don't look to contractual provisions to mitigate the risk of a bad-faith (or bad-in-effect) counteroffer. You'll either establish real trust in your employer or you should walk.

mikeash 14y ago

"Counteroffers usually fail." Which is why I advocate thinking about the situation and only making counter offers when they actually make sense. I mean, startups usually fail. Does that mean one should never start a startup?

michaelochurch 14y ago
Of course. If you can come up with an intelligent counteroffer with a decent chance of success, then go ahead. It is, however, a failure of management to have had to make one. This may be why employees who take CO's often get fired; their existence is a continuing embarrassment to the manager who failed to promote/raise them until an ultimatum was made.
- mikeash 14y ago
  Which is exactly what I said in my comment. Treat the need for a counter offer as a failure, but don't just rule it out because the situation shouldn't have happened.
  - zwily 14y ago
    Before I was a manager, I believed that taking a counter offer was always stupid. Now that I'm on the other side of the fence, I see that it's not always so cut and dry. I wonder how many of the people supporting the author are actually managers in charge of compensation decisions.

rhizome 14y ago

either by getting fired (as soon as a CO is made, the boss is working on a replacement plan) Does this actually happen? Has it happened to you, or have you gotten rid of someone as a manager in this way?

ryguytilidie 14y ago
Head of Talent at a few different startups here. I have seen this happen multiple times.
- rhizome 14y ago
  "Head of Talent" sounds pretty third-party HR, sorry. The fact remains is that this kind of conventional wisdom persists without examples.
  - sbisker 14y ago
    Huh? The guy is posting from an account with 600 karma; I'm going to assume his experience is at least as reputable as anyone else's here. Though it'd be useful to hear a slightly more specific example with the timescales and nuances on which these things happen, yes.
    - nostrademons 14y ago
      Not saying anything about the guy's experience (I usually take people at face value when they say what they do), but karma's a pretty shitty measure to judge expertise. - Signed, the guy with 23,000 karma, who was once #2 on the leaderboard and is still in the top 30.
      - sbisker 14y ago
        I think there's a lot more meaning in the difference between 0 and 600 karma, than the difference between 600 and 23,000 karma. I was only speaking to my willingness to believe this guy wasn't flat lying or exaggerating about his position, or simply trolling. But tips hat point taken.

Shorel 14y ago

I must be out of the norm. Every raise have made me happier. I will welcome every raise with open arms.

codegeek 14y ago

"as soon as a CO is made, the boss is working on a replacement plan" I hear what you are saying but you cannot generalize this. One anecdote: my wife successfully got a counter-offer from one of her jobs a few years ago and stayed for a long time afterwards. her company/boss wanted her and did not think of her leaving to get a decent raise as a threat. They understood and obliged.

tptacek 14y ago

This happened to me; I was aggressively talked down from an attractive job offer I received, and when I accepted a counter, a succession plan was put in place to improve the the timing of my presumed inevitable resignation. This isn't folklore. There are roles and companies where counteroffers are pathological; sometimes it's overt and the company is trying to screw you over, and other times it's subtle and emergent and has more to do with the inevitable loss of traction that comes of the company preparing itself more deliberately for your eventual departure. If I ever end up in this situation again, I'm certainly going to bring this concern up directly and immediately. It's something you can work out if you're negotiating in good faith; it's not the case that there's no such thing as a successful counter.

rhizome 14y ago
If your story is any way indicative of SOP, it sounds like a counteroffer should come with an employment contract with time and termination restrictions.
- tptacek 14y ago
  The odds of you ever negotiating something like that from any company with funding and/or house counsel are effectively zero. The closest you'll get is severance, but note that negotiating an effective severance agreement is expensive and can get adversarial. (It's easy to get a severance agreement that does not really protect you). By this I mean, don't look to contractual provisions to mitigate the risk of a bad-faith (or bad-in-effect) counteroffer. You'll either establish real trust in your employer or you should walk.