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Never Have the “What Would It Take to Keep You Here?” Conversation
- rhizome 14y agoI think there's much more evidence that there is a management mandate to squeeze as much as possible out of salaried employees than there is about counter-offered employees having their head on a block under management efforts to replace the perceived-disloyal. The proactivity being championed in the post and comments does not have industry support and any manager who suggests giving raises or benefits ahead of time likely has the Sword of Damocles hanging over them afterwards.
- corresation 14y agoI don't think this post, or most best-practice type articles, is trying to describe how things generally work, or even trying to push it as mainstream knowledge. Instead it's someone who has gained enlightenment trying to get through to people with open minds. On this general topic, not only should you ensure that you don't lose your best people externally, more importantly you shouldn't lose your best people internally -- that they turn into not-your-best-people because they know they're underappreciated but don't have the willpower to leave, but instead try to passively setup a situation where they're asked to go.
- rhizome 14y agoSure, "shouldn't," but in my experience the second case is far, far more prevalent, using Machiavelli and Sun Tzu as management techniques, keeping good people on board as well as a lower burn rate than they would if their board allowed them to proactively secure their staff..
- rayiner 14y ago> The proactivity being championed in the post and comments does not have industry support and any manager who suggests giving raises or benefits ahead of time likely has the Sword of Damocles hanging over them afterwards. This might be true, but it seems like bad policy. A number of industries give extra compensation to preempt attrition. The whole point of bonuses in finance and consulting isn't to encourage people to work harder (they're already working flat-out) but to keep them from leaving. Nobody has the "I'm going to leave unless you can up my salary" conversation. Instead, management pays big bonuses to top performers before they get dissatisfied and think of leaving.
- coopdog 14y agoThat's one thing I've learned from Hacker News, that the ability to identify the right people to hire and promote is the lifeblood of an organisation. It seems like such a crime that big companies would delegate these to central departments who barely know how the teams are going or even what they do
- dillona 14y ago> It seems like such a crime that big companies would delegate these to central departments who barely know how the teams are going or even what they do It is, but its also an opportunity for smaller business to more effectively compete
- walshemj 14y agowhat also needs to be done form a CEO CTO perspective is have a succession plan in place - this is where I feel Rand fell down here it should not be be "o noes what if x leaves" it should be if x leaves can y (x's deputy) do his job.
- redguava 14y agoI like the idea of regularly evaluating what you would do to keep someone, and then just doing it. Perhaps make it a six monthly thing. I think I came across this idea in a Netflix culture slide deck first and it stuck with me.
- dokem 14y agoThis seems like it could be double sided. What happens when you realize someone hasn't held up to their last evaluation?
- greghinch 14y agoThen you start a conversation about what's going on. The point here isn't about offering extra compensation to keep people. It's about keeping an open dialog so they know you appreciate their work (and conversely if there's a problem, you talk about it early instead of letting it fester).
- redguava 14y agoI am not sure, my planning is for optimal circumstances and so far that's working out for me. Trusting your staff will do well by you does amazing things.
- dangero 14y agoIt seems that in this post a title change was given without a raise. I don't necessarily think that doing that is such a good idea. I know the post says that they were already being compensated fairly. Here's why I think promotions without pay are a bad idea: It gives the employee more incentive to leave, and very little to stay. Superiors tend to give titles pretty easily because it's "free", but I think it may actually cost the company more in the long run. It's a gambler's play.
- drewmck 14y agoExactly. A title bump means that the person will just leverage their position for the same/better position somewhere else with better pay.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- sliverstorm 14y agoAlternatively, a title bump with static pay could mean increased responsibilities without a corresponding increase in pay, which is also incentive to leave.
- randfish 14y agoThat's an incorrect assumption. We gave raises to both Adam & Jamie commensurate with their new titles/roles.
- MattRogish 14y agoI think it's first worth having policies that recognize the modern knowledge worker. Unlimited vacation, hardware budgets, a results-only work environment, optional meetings. No company bullshit. Etc. That way folks won't go "maybe a vacation will help" - because you've already done it. Of course, that is just removing roadblocks. That's not an active measure. You should be having weekly one on ones with all direct reports (and so on up and down the chain). Rarely when a coworker quits is it completely unexpected. At some point a switch is flipped from "not going to even consider it" to "sure, I'll talk to recruiters." And then the clock starts ticking. In some ways, the organization has already lost if it got to that point. Raises and titles are not the only thing that drives people; I'd probably argue that's the worst sort of extrinsic motivation. If a bigger title is all that keeps someone working there, you've already failed. As a manager it's your job to know what motivates your people and help get them there accordingly.
- uxp 14y agoAs a manager it's your job to know what motivates your people and help get them there accordingly. And keep them motivated, all the time, every day, every week, which you imply in the previous paragraph but I feel needs to be repeated explicitly. I recently just accepted a new job which is better for a variety of reasons, but there really was no reason I should have been looking for a new job given what I was doing at the time I resigned. I had sent my resume out months ago when my now former team started disbanding during a shakeup, leaving me as the only developer on the team. The implications of having a development team with no developers should be obvious.
- psykotic 14y ago> Unlimited vacation, hardware budgets, a results-only work environment, optional meetings. No company bullshit. Aside: I've become convinced unlimited vacation policies are a bad idea at scale. Everywhere I've seen them applied, they lead to less vacationing for the people who need it most: the eternally stressed and overworked who feel like the world will end in their absence or that they will get dinged or plain fired in their next performance review if they're not always in the office. You don't need to force people to take a vacation, but the old system of assigning them a fixed number of yearly days with some sort of limited rollover strikes a good balance I see no reason to upset. A system based on firm expectations can still accommodate exceptional events like honeymoons.
- yesimahuman 14y agoI'm legitimately curious for my own early-stage CEO sake: why did you have to ask the board just to promote them? EDIT: nvm, on re-read, I see you were just asking for feedback. I wasn't sure if you needed permission from your board to promote to CMO, etc.
- randfish 14y agoI think technically, I may not have needed board permission to make the move, but certainly any time you're promoting to officer level, you should be informing your board/investors.
- yesimahuman 14y agoThanks Rand, makes sense!
- TinyBig 14y agoThe email featured in the article bothers me. First line: "If either were to come to us with a competing offer, we'd work with all our might to keep them". Then, almost in the same breath "They're fairly compensated, IMO." Cognitive dissonance, anyone?
- georgemcbay 14y agoFrom my reading of it, that email is in fact written by the author (Rand Fishkin). In any case, I have to admit that in most situations if I were given a new title without an accompanying raise or bonus, I'd consider it to be somewhat patronizing and it would have the opposite impact of what the author here is suggesting. Of course, YMMV. I'm a programmer and I don't care much about specific titles.
- randfish 14y agoIt was my belief that at the time, they were fairly compensated for the roles they held at the VP level. When we moved them up to officer titles and roles, we did increase compensation as well. Our standard policy is that we always pay above the 50th percentile and below the 90th percentile based on available salary data. We've got a really nice set from a wide survey of VC investors based on portfolio company size, stage, etc. and combine that with info from Salary.com and Payscale, too.
- jaggederest 14y ago> Our standard policy is that we always pay above the 50th percentile and below the 90th percentile based on available salary data. That's such a confusing standard. It means that a majority of your employees could get a nice raise by changing companies, no?
- johnbellone 14y agoGlad I'm not the only one that was thinking that. Is that a public policy?
- noonespecial 14y agoIn my experience, companies that find themselves in the “What Would It Take to Keep You Here?” situation are rarely ever prepared to actually do what it would take to keep you there. The very next sentence out of their mouths is usually "but only management is eligible for that level of..."
- m0nty 14y ago"OK, but to be honest we just don't have that money available at the moment. Is there anything else we could do? We don't want to lose you, but we have to be realistic."
- mzarate06 14y agoAs a CEO, many of the scariest days I've faced have been those when a critical member of our team told us they were leaving the company. Your heart sinks... I'm always happy to hear that a company values their employees, and takes a proactive approach to keep them happy. I'm also surprised how little some companies do on that same front, and only scramble to analyze pay, work conditions, etc. after an employee has announced they're leaving. By then it's too late. One case that sticks out for me was a few years back when a brilliant lead dev I know left the company he was working for. I knew the company's work conditions weren't favorable, he didn't have a job title worthy of what he was doing day to day, and after hearing the salary he was being paid (about half a typical market-rate salary at the time), my only question was why he hadn't left earlier. So I think a lot of companies encourage their employees to leave without even knowing it. Or even worse, they know they're shortchanging them on some level and gamble on fear or ignorance in hopes that said employees feel they're getting a fair deal. I believe this to be the case with the example I cited above, and am glad the lead dev has since found a company with much better work conditions across the board.
- just2n 14y agoI was in a pretty similar situation recently. After more firewood was thrown on the fire, I decided to start looking, and at that point I had already decided not to accept any counter-offer. Not only was I being shortchanged on salary (significantly), but also in benefits, perks, and working conditions. I'm really happy I found an awesome startup in SF that still after a month feels like an ideal workplace for me. When I was looking, I was disconcerted when I found companies with no personal growth prospects or that flat out said they wouldn't pay what I was asking (fair) because they didn't want to pay two engineers with the same title too differently. I asked if they would offer bonuses to compensate or if they'd consider paying the other guy the same salary, because he seemed smart enough. No to both, and I felt that alone indicated that management there didn't value engineering talent. I really hope this treatment of talented workers isn't too pervasive in the industry. Pay people what they're worth. Strive to offer the best working conditions, benefits, and perks. Take the values of your employees into consideration. It really doesn't seem like it's too much to ask for. And personally, I'm all for complete transparency within my company, even to the point of salary information. I think it would resolve more issues than it would cause.
- tnuc 14y agoYears ago: My boss found out I wanted to leave. Got double the pay and free rent on my apartment.
- 3825 14y agoDid you leave anyway? Are you still staying now out of loyalty even though it is likely you are worth more than what the company pays you (and probably haven't put out your feelers)?
- tnuc 14y agoI left a year later. Going from leading a team to dealing with career politicians wasn't my idea of fun.
- awakeasleep 14y agoHere is the big kicker you won't read catchy blog posts about. All the recognition, perks, and compensation in the world don't make it worth working with 'career politicians' or employees who don't pull their weight in management positions. I don't think there is an easy fix, once a company reaches a certain size these problems become unavoidable. A hiring slip-up occurs, and it isn't fixed because of some conflict with other perks. An incompetent manager takes advantage of a results oriented work environment. A shitty hire lands on a team with a remote supervisor. Or some combination of both causes a rift that doesn't close, and good workers associated with the team have to bail. Boom, your organization has a bedsore that won't heal.
- NenAcOpdaf3 14y agoThe answer may be more equity than you're willing to give to "just a developer". Awards and titles are cheap by comparison.
- treskot 14y agoWhat if he/she is a real gem and you know it!
- wellthat 14y agoYou might not have read the article :) It doesn't say "don't have that conversation - just let them go", it says "preemptive strike that conversation! Pretend they came to you with an offer, think about what you would come up with to try to retain them [implicitly: you should make a counteroffer in this situation], and then go ahead and do so and give that to them for free even though they didn't even come to you!" It's pretty much the exact opposite of what the title leads you to believe :)
- xmanifesto 14y agoAs an early employee of a startup, what keeps me here are my stock options. REAL ownership of a company. I didn't join the company to get a vacation or a title bump. I joined because I believe in the vision, the people and the hope that some day my stock will be worth something. If you can create a meritocracy where employees understand that the company's success translates to their own personal success, then they're much less likely to leave.
- stevewilhelm 14y agoIf your startup has done a couple rounds of financing, you might want to start thinking about titles and salary.
- michaelochurch 14y agoI don't know anything about your company, and there are some good ones out there, but read this: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/dont-waste-your-time-in-crappy-startup-jobs/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/dont-waste-yo...
- cunac 14y agoI think you are in for some growing up. No to put down your beleifs or company you work for but getting paid unfairly (below reasonable market) is not most practical approach.
- bconway 14y agoIf you aren't one of the founders, you aren't going to make anything. Sorry. We've all been there.
- xmanifesto 14y agoJust like how Adam D'angelo didn't make anything from Facebook?
- bconway 14y agoI wish you the best of luck. And I hope your employer is the next Facebook, I really do. I'm just saying, many of us have been in that position and learned a valuable lesson. Don't be surprised.
- nolok 14y agoAs always, it comes down to "if you want your employee to stay, give him a raise (salary, title, perks, ...) according to his skill BEFORE he tries to leave with a competing offer". There was a post on hacker news a few days ago where everyone was saying that in their experience, non-minimal pay raises always came with changing job, not with normal raises within their current position. Same for me, pay raises always meant changing job, with my employer realizing "oh wait, we were paying you as X but you're actually worth Y, now that you noticed let us offer you an appropriate salary". No thanks. That's why when google started giving huge pay raises to a lot of people a couple years ago to keep them I actually thought it was a good idea, and more people should do that; if your employees are good, giving them a raise is usually a lot cheaper and easier than finding someone of the same skill and experience.
- johnward 14y agoIt really seems like that is the only way to make significant progress (as far as salary) in your career. You either jump ship or get a competing offer so your current company can match. If I came in with a competing offer that paid me 15-20% more and the company can match, then why didn't they just give me a raise in the first place? It probably would have stopped me from even being interested in other positions.
- wellthat 14y agoThis is a pure theoretical economic exercise: Think about the following situation. The following are axiomatic. 1. You have the chance to hire any number of people on Earth - no matter what number you write down, that many people will end up on your payroll with the following terms: 2. they will have a net value of $1 to the company per year (net of every kind of cost, period), starting immediately and with no capital requirements, and no hidden costs of any kind. What number should you write down? How many people do you need on those terms? The answer is: even though each person brings a net of $1 per year only, the assumption stated says that there are no capital requirements and you can hire "any number of people on Earth" with no costs of any kind. There are 7 billion people on Earth: you should write down "7 billion" for the number of people you want on those terms, making $1 from each one. You now have a company that nets $7 billion per year. By comparison, McDonald's has $5.45 billion in annual net revenue available to common shareholders. This was an exercise in what your demand should be on the margin with no other costs but only a net value of $1. Now we move to the real world. In the real world, none of the assumptions listed are correct. Employees have capital requirements. You only have the ability to hire so many. Luckily, they net you more than $1 each in value. So, in the real world, we have an interesting situation. We want employees at practically any cost, but could reduce our twenty-person firm to annually netting us just twenty bucks a year, if we pay everyone as much as we still want more people at. The truth is, we want to pay people as little as possible to retain them. How far above or below their PERSONAL market price (what they can make elsewhere) and how far above or below the market price for the position (how much people will fill your position for) their salary is for, will determine our strategy, and, crucially, how far each of these things is from their net value to you, will determine this strategy. If a qualified neurosurgeon is working at a McDonald's for whatever reason, then almost no money (e.g. increasing his wage by 8x) will retain him. But presumable an 8x increase in his wage completely eradicates his net value, so it's not even worth considering. On the other hand, if a qualified CMO is working as your VP of marketing, then presumably a very small increase in wage will bridge the gap between his personal opportunity cost (working elsewhere) and his current wage with you: whether you should do this depends on how much value you are getting from him. Bottom line: if you are getting huge amounts of value from employees, you should consider paying them their replacement cost if you would rather replace them (McDonald's neurosurgeon example), or, if they are performing better than their replacement would, perhaps a fair strategy is to pay them a portion of their extra net, above their replacement cost. In other words, if an average VP nets you $300k and this guy nets you $500k then you can pay him an extra $100k over what you would replace him with. On the other hand, if an avarage VP nets you $10k per year, and this guy is weould be netting the same at the market rate, but is working for $40k less than the VP market rate, and therefore netting you $50k, then almost the entiretly of your net from him comes from his willingness to work for less than your replacement wage. In this case, I don't think it makes sense to preemmptively give him all your profit. I guess the correct behavior depends on a number of factors that are not explicitly stated in the article. The take-home lesson might be "Pay attention to market wages, and how much value each employee is bringing versus what replacing him with someone else would bring." Bonuses, in my opinion, are a really, really, really good way of dealing with situations where someone is bringing far more net value than their replacement would, and also has a high personal opportunity cost due to their talent. In this case, by sharing the huge extra revenue, you can increase his wage only in proportion to how much better he is than someone else you would replace him with. This deals with his opportunity cost and retains him, presuming he has enough tools at his disposal to make you as much money as he can make someone else. (The neurosurgeon can't make McDonald's as much money as he can make a hospital, no matter what he does. Therefore, a bonus sharing program won't help that much. On the other hand, a bonus at a hospital would help immensely, if he could also be a director at a different hospital...)
- lhnz 14y agoI don't think you should expect employers to make pre-emptive strikes. This is a geek rationalisation for passive behaviour. As a talented employee, you should speak to your employer and tell them that you believe you're worth more to them than they're currently valuing you (do not threaten them with leaving though). If they don't understand the significance of you stating this to them, then leave and it will become apparent to them. (But it is better to give them the information before doing so.) For profitability, it's more important to keep the cost of employees down, than it is to helpfully negotiate value-creators into better positions. (If you were to do so, then how do you defend it to your investors? You can't prove they were about to leave...) If you are worried about single points of failure leaving, then request that another employee be hired and mentored into understanding of the SPOF. Even better create intrinsic motivations so you can have more confidence this won't happen. Ask employees if they're doing work they love, create a fun company culture, etc. I kind of see this whole article as feel-good for the non-ownership class.
- michaelochurch 14y agoI don't think you should expect employers to make pre-emptive strikes. This is a geek rationalisation for passive behaviour. As a talented employee, you should speak to your employer and tell them that you believe you're worth more to them than they're currently valuing you (do not threaten them with leaving though). If they don't understand the significance of you stating this to them, then leave and it will become apparent to them. One thing that many engineers fail to recognize is that their managers are often more overworked than they are. They take being "ignored" personally, when reality is that their managers have a million plates spinning at once. This is why it's considered distasteful to ask for a transfer or better project at 6 months. To the employee, that's a long time. To the manager, that person just came on board. If the manager has 12 reports, then the effective tenure (absolute tenure, divided by number of reports) is 0.5 months. Which supports my long-standing contention that open allocation is superior. Expecting managers to control the division of labor in addition to the other work they have is just too much.
- edw519 14y agoWhen someone says it's about the money, it's never about the money. So in order to prevent the "I have a better offer" discussion, you have to innoculate your people ahead of time. Make them immune to better offers by making them unavailable to those who would make them. Find out what really motivates each person and engineer the "perfect job description" for them: - meaningful work - quality working conditions - proper work/life balance - appropriate compensation / benefits - a well-defined mutually agreed upon future career path - proper recognition - congruent culture (work mates) Make it so that people love coming to work. It's not that hard if you really want to. Do that and you will never lose them. If you can't (or won't), then they were never really yours in the first place.
- kami8845 14y ago> - meaningful work One thing that you didn't mention and that has been very important in the decision making process of my recent job search would be: - hard work The vast majority of the jobs out there are run-of-the-mill scale this CRUD thing jobs. Nothing wrong with that but if a company can offer me the opportunity and trust to work on something that is technically very hard, then that is a definitive bonus (although it's not possible for all types of companies to offer that kind of work to engineers)
- gbog 14y agoWhat do you mean by hard? Hard like design an exciting new nonosql datastore? Or hard like refactoring and fixing an enormous crud codebase with myriad of hidden dependencies?
- kami8845 14y agoAs I said above: Hard like technically hard: AI, Machine learning, generally designing new algorithms, language design, crypto, distributed systems, computer vision, compilers, and so on and so forth >exciting new nonosql also nice try at drawing a false dichotomy between CRUD stuff and "reckless" NoSQL DBs.
- codegeek 14y agoCompanies need to focus more on "What we should be doing to ensure our best employees are happy and not looking to move" rather than the "Oh you are leaving. What can we do for you ? btw, we cannot do this this and this. other than all this, sure we can do blah"
- squozzer 14y agoA fine sentiment. And considering the pressures of an average business, probably not observed very often.
- mustefaj 14y agoThat mock monologue is actually really spot on. I just recently left our bootstrapped startup and had a pre-emotive conversation shortly before doing so. It played out just like that. I shared this link on HN already but since its so relavent here it is again. I wrote about why I still left. But didn't write about the conversation I had. And you hit it on the head. http://mustefa.com/looking-back-at-my-ux-career-in-2012/ http://mustefa.com/looking-back-at-my-ux-career-in-2012/
- mustefaj 14y agoI read some of the comments about employee passiveness. Sometimes it's tough for an employee to put themselves on the spot like that. What if the conversation doesn't go the 'right' way?