Counteroffers and Onboarding: 5 Tips to Hire Smoothly

In the competitive landscape of talent acquisition and retention, counteroffers have become increasingly common strategy, so it’s definitely something you’ll have to face sooner or later. If you do manage to make it past the counter offer successfully you can breathe a sigh of relief, but can you really? The work doesn’t stop there! Most candidates now have a 3 month notice period and we can do a lot more than cross our fingers and hope hope for the best.

?

Average tenure in a tech role is 18 months and the CIPD are suggesting the average cost of filling a vacancy is over ￡6k, quickly rising to over ￡19k for anything managerial. With average time to hire now at 65 days it’s really not difficult to see why employers are using the counteroffer as a retention strategy (how long term it might be is up for debate).

?

This is why we’ve put together our five essential tips to help you navigate the crucial counteroffer stage and hire and onboard top tech staff smoothly:

?

1)???? Understand the reasons for leaving:

?

It is essential to understand why the candidate you are interested in is looking to leave their current role, and don’t take the first answer! Make sure you dig deep, ask questions, be interested and sympathetic. Most candidates won’t discuss their true motivations on the first question. Once you can understand their reasons for leaving you can make sure to emphasise all of the benefits in your current environment, new projects you may be working on or company culture/organisation that may allay any frustrations they have about their existing role.

?

Remember most candidates’ motivations usually fall into two categories, earning or learning. Either is fine but both is better, depending on your need you’ll have to emphasise how you can help them achieve both of these base goals, where their current employer can’t.

?

Please don’t rely on simply any mixture of extensive benefits packages, good salaries, flexibility, or company culture and crossing your fingers its good enough.

?

2)???? Face the counteroffer head on:

?

So, if we know the counteroffer is a likely strategy from the current employer. Why wouldn’t we discuss this with the candidate?

?

By talking to the candidate about what happens when or if they accept our offer, we can start to help the candidate visualise those steps; handing in their notice, discussing the counteroffer with the line manager and how they might think, feel or act in that situation which until now, hasn’t really been a consideration.

?

Think about it, most candidates we talk to usually open the conversation with “I’m looking for xyz salaries”, they’re looking to better their situation and first off that means being paid more to support their families. What it doesn’t mean is leaving a comfortable environment, the coffee they get served in the morning, the friendly chat they’ve been having with Steve in Accounting every morning about something or other. This all dies the moment you accept a new offer. This is change. Change is scary. But change is growth. But it can also be a worse deal. Sure, being paid more is nice but if candidates aren’t working towards their personal goals and doing it with people they like, respect, or look up to, you’ll find candidates struggle to make that jump and leave all the known quantity good bits behind.

?

Now, I’m not asking you to go hire Steve in Accounting to ensure this candidate doesn’t accept a counteroffer but understanding their motivations, personal goals and reasons for leaving will inform your recruitment process, allow you to make reference to this in the hiring process, requalify with the candidate why they are here and if the counteroffer comes, will give you good bargaining power, allowing you other options other than simply upping your offer, which may or may not even be an option.

?

3)???? Consistent Communication:

?

It’s easy to fall into this trap. Recruitment is exhausting. Its time consuming, difficult to get right and we’re dealing with people. People have opinions and at bare minimum are unpredictable. So, you can be forgiven if you’ve been caught out by this, but the game is not finished at the point of acceptance. We’ve all had candidates not turn up or ghost after accepting offers. It’s not super common but it does happen, so what is going on here?

?

Some of the things we discussed earlier can creep back in. The realisation that the candidate will soon be leaving all of what they know behind for a new, alien environment can overcome some of the initial excitement and good feelings. Combined with a 3-month notice, the likelihood candidates will be continually approached for new positions despite already accepting a role and/or constant badgering from their current co-workers can create a perfect storm, especially where they might not be fully sold on your role.

?

Effective and consistent communication is the only way ensure you dont get caught out by this. Some business we work with just send update communications or drag out their onboarding to suit the notice period where others will manufacture touch points to softly onboard candidates throughout the notice period, including coffee mornings, staff meetings or events and have even been known to get them set up on slack channels and to start communicating with their new co-workers where they can familiarise themselves with ongoing business projects, business initiatives, codebases and the way the team are tackling solutions.

?

"Day one", then, is more of "this is where you can find the coffee and the toilets, you’ve already met the team", its far less to process in one day and you’ll find candidates are up to speed and productive more quickly too, win win.

?

4)???? Create a structure onboarding process:

?

The candidate is now an employee, job done right? Well no, not really. At this point if you’ve followed all the points effectively you’ll have done a very good job of getting to day 1 of employment, but the next steps are just as crucial.

?

We’ve all seen it happen too. First day, the excited candidate attends the office as the line manager frantically searches for a machine, logins and spends much of their day getting them set up, only to untether them at the end of the day and hope they find their way. They might get some branded stationary if they are lucky.

?

Some stats for you. Over a third of business don’t spend a penny on onboarding, a negative onboarding process can make candidate up to twice as likely to consider leaving and getting it right can improve retention by 82%

?

If getting it wrong means potentially wasting all the effort above and getting it right means improving overall staff retention by up to 82%, its clear that at least some effort should be directed into onboarding and this will largely depend on your business, your environment and your people but broadly you should develop a onboarding plan that outlines the employee's first day, week and month.

?

This should include orientation sessions to introduce them to the company culture, values, mission, and structure. Provide training on tools, systems, and processes relevant to their role. Assign a mentor or buddy to guide them through their initial days and answer any questions they may have. Standardising some of this is a great idea but don’t be afraid to modify this depending on the level of candidate or forget that candidates are people. People will have different opinions, work well with other people and have different needs, catering for which will go a long long way, showing you are invested in their hiring, interested in their success and listening.

?

?

5)???? Feedback and support:

?

While this tags into the point about consistent communication, part of our job throughout this process is listening and providing feedback, this is an ongoing process. Check in regularly. Create touch points in the onboarding process that aren’t an annual review or 6 monthly probation review as these are far too far away. We usually check in at the end of the first day, the first week and the first month and feed back to both the hiring manager and the candidate which is a good rule of thumb for us but it may take a bit of trial and error to find out what works for you.

?

Some businesses we work with have extensive multi touch point, international onboarding with online training and buddy systems and while this may be excessive for some its baked into the company culture, has touch points with business leaders you may not see day to day and assesses new hire progress, addresses any concerns, and provide constructive feedback.

?

By implementing these five tips, you can navigate the counteroffer and create an onboarding process that not only facilitates the smooth transition of new hires but also sets the stage for their long-term engagement, productivity, and success within your organization.

?

Remember, effective hiring or hiring top tech talent is not just about paying higher salaries, it’s about achieving your mission, vision and values and by building meaningful relationships through listening and effective communication we can lay the foundation for a mutually beneficial relationship between the employee and the business where salary isn’t the only driver.

?

P.S I’m still interested in figures for what candidates do after a counteroffer, if you know what they are and a solid source please do drop me a note

?

For more tips or advice on how to navigate your challenges in tech recruitment reach out to me directly or give me a call on 01527 407140 or you can find out a bit more about us here: https://www.sourceco.co.uk/it-recruitment/

?

If you are looking for a new role, or just want some advice, get in touch, or send us a message and we’ll be happy to help.

?

About the author

?

Sam is a technical recruiter and head of the IT division at SourceCo Recruitment with extensive experience in managing end to end recruitment solutions for contract and permanent positions, who can help you get tech roles or find tech staff.

?