Counter Offers: Fixing the Problem or Delaying the Inevitable?

Counter offers are one of those topics that recruiters seem to have debated for decades.

Every recruiter has a statistic tucked away somewhere about the percentage of people who accept a counter offer and then leave anyway within six or twelve months. I've heard various figures over the years and, if I'm honest, I've no idea where most of them come from. What I can tell you is this: it happens. A lot.

The reality is that neither side usually wants to be in this position.

Managers don't want to lose good people. Employees don't generally wake up one morning excited by the prospect of updating their CV, attending interviews and starting all over again somewhere new. If everything was working exactly as they wanted, most people would probably stay where they are.

Yet there seems to come a point in many careers where a small seed of doubt gets planted. Sometimes you can clearly identify it. Sometimes you can't.

It's a bit like the seven year itch. Nothing is necessarily wrong, but something doesn't quite feel right either. Maybe you've stopped learning. Maybe you've become too comfortable. Maybe you're simply ready for a fresh challenge.

Can an employer really solve that with a pay rise?

Sometimes, yes.

But often, probably not.

People rarely leave a role because of one thing. Salary might be part of it, but it's usually accompanied by a whole collection of other factors. Progression. Recognition. Flexibility. Management style. Work-life balance. Culture. Feeling valued.

The challenge today is that everyone's priorities are different.

Years ago, jobs were perhaps a little more standardised. Now there are huge differences between employers. Pension contributions, bonus structures, hybrid working, wellbeing benefits, development opportunities, annual leave, flexibility. Then layer on top the fact that everyone's personal circumstances are completely different and it becomes increasingly difficult to create a one-size-fits-all solution.

For some employees, accepting a counter offer genuinely works out well. The employer wasn't aware there was an issue, the conversation prompts positive change and everyone moves forward happily.

For others, staying simply delays a move that was probably coming anyway.

If someone has spent six months quietly building frustrations, a salary increase alone may not make those frustrations disappear. They often resurface later because the root cause was never really addressed.

That isn't to say employees are all the same either.

Some people demonstrate incredible loyalty and genuinely want to build a long-term career with one organisation. Others are more focused on maximising opportunities and accelerating their career journey. Neither approach is right or wrong. They're just different.

From the employer's perspective, losing someone can be incredibly disruptive.

The obvious costs are recruitment fees and advertising spend, but those are often the tip of the iceberg. There's lost knowledge, additional pressure on the existing team, temporary cover arrangements, reduced productivity and the sheer amount of management time consumed by recruitment.

Even with a fantastic internal talent team and external recruitment support, hiring takes time and attention away from the day job.

One thing I find particularly interesting is how often a resignation triggers a realisation.

Sometimes a business genuinely hadn't appreciated quite how much value someone was delivering. Sometimes salaries have moved significantly since the person joined. Sometimes everyone has simply become so focused on the day-to-day running of the business that a role has quietly faded into the background.

A resignation can be a surprisingly effective wake-up call.

When I first speak to candidates, one question I nearly always ask is:

"Have you spoken to your employer about this?"

The answer is usually no.

That's understandable. Those conversations can feel uncomfortable. Nobody particularly enjoys sitting down and saying they're unhappy or that their priorities have changed.

But from an employer's perspective, it's difficult to fix something you don't know is broken.

Perhaps someone wants more responsibility. Perhaps they want exposure to another area of the business. Perhaps they need greater flexibility because life circumstances have changed. Quite often there are solutions available if the conversation happens early enough.

I've seen businesses create development opportunities, redesign roles and build entirely new career paths simply because someone was honest enough to raise a concern before reaching the point of resignation.

Of course, once a resignation is handed in, there is another factor that often gets overlooked: trust.

Even when someone stays, something has changed.

The employee has shown they were prepared to leave. The employer knows they were looking elsewhere. Both sides may move forward positively, but it's difficult to pretend that nothing happened.

How much that matters varies enormously from one situation to another, but there is often a legacy that remains long after the counter offer has been accepted.

Perhaps that's simply the reality of modern careers.

The days of a job for life have largely disappeared. People move more frequently than they used to. Employers know many of their workforce are passive candidates and most employees will occasionally browse job boards or respond to a LinkedIn message, even when they're perfectly happy where they are.

Sometimes a dream opportunity appears and curiosity gets the better of us.

That doesn't necessarily mean someone is disengaged. It's just the world we now work in.

Which perhaps leads to the bigger question.

If businesses invest enough time in understanding what their employees really want, create genuine opportunities for development and build cultures where concerns can be discussed openly, does the counter offer conversation become less relevant altogether?

Because perhaps the best counter offer is the one that never needed to happen in the first place.