Moving jobs is stressful and most people don’t usually do it without a good reason. In a competitive market, receiving a counter offer from your existing employer isn’t unusual! You go to hand in your notice and your boss seizes that particular moment to offer you more money and make promises of a better role. Although this offer can be tempting (you’d have more money and not have to uproot yourself), there is still plenty of things to consider before accepting that counter offer:-
- Did you know a high percentage of people who accept a counter offer still leave within 6 months? This means, even if you did accept a counter offer, the chances are you’ll still end up leaving within a year.
- Your undervalued - so it’s taken the threat of losing you for your employer to act on it, but all of a sudden you’re worth more money to your current employer! This is essentially your employer admitting you’ve been underpaid this entire time. Why would you want to work for a company that undervalues your work?
- Your loyalty to the business – unfortunately once you’ve given your notice your loyalty may be questioned. If you’ve threatened to leave once, what’s to stop you doing it again? You could find yourself being scrutinised for every dentist visit, every doctor’s appointment, every sick day, or anything that takes time away from the office. If you’ve thought about leaving once, your boss knows you’ll probably do it again.
- Your reputation - A counter-offer might seem like a sign of respect, but don’t be fooled. Replacing an employee that has resigned is expensive and takes a lot of time. This means that most of the time, extending a counter-offer is not a sign of change, but a simple way for a boss to avoid the unnecessary cost and hassle of replacing you. As soon as you offer your resignation, chances are you will always be viewed differently.
- You’re unhappy – very few people actually leave their job purely due to money, a lot of the time other factors come into play. If you’ve been vocal about being unhappy at work, money won’t change this.
- Getting paid more won’t change the job - while it’s always nice to be earning more money, everything else about the job is more difficult to change. You’ll still be doing the same job, the same commute, working under the same boss and working with the same people. If these were factors in your decision to look for a new job in the first place, accepting a counter offer based on money probably is not the best idea