Latest / Best of Business / Megan Alexander: Robert Half New Zealand managing director on the counteroffer conundrum impacting Kiwi businesses

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Megan Alexander: Robert Half New Zealand managing director on the counteroffer conundrum impacting Kiwi businesses · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks'd be follow
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  Speaker 2: If your employee comes to you with a higher payoffer
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  Speaker 2: from another business, should you make a counteroffer? According to
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  Speaker 2: a new report, ninety five percent of New Zealand's employers
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  Speaker 2: made this counter office sometime in the last year, but
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  Speaker 2: the same employees. Employers are split over whether the tactic
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  Speaker 2: actually works or not, because after the counteroffer only half
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  Speaker 2: of the staff are still with them. Megan Alexander is
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  Speaker 2: the managing director for Robert Half New Zealand and with
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  Speaker 2: US Home Megan.
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  Speaker 3: Ah Hi, Heather, what do you reckon?
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  Speaker 2: Does it work?
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  Speaker 3: It has a short term fix, right, So you have
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  Speaker 3: to get under the real reason why the person was
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  Speaker 3: looking to leave. So if there's money driven and they
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  Speaker 3: like the culture of the company and they like their
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  Speaker 3: role and they have career progression and all those things,
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  Speaker 3: then it can work. But if it's that, if you
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  Speaker 3: don't really understand the real reasons why the person was
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  Speaker 3: looking to live even the first place, and you put
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  Speaker 3: the band aid of extra money on it, then it's
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  Speaker 3: a very short term fix.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, well, how do you so do you actually ideally
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  Speaker 2: want to avoid getting to the point where there is
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  Speaker 2: a counteroffer being made.
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  Speaker 3: Well, it's a known fact that it has some positive
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  Speaker 3: and negative effects. So you know, obviously a person feels
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  Speaker 3: valued when they get the counteroffer and they feel like yay,
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  Speaker 3: their manager rates them, etc. But if you haven't addressed
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  Speaker 3: the underlying reason why they looked, then you do put
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  Speaker 3: yourself in the cons piece where you know you've got
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  Speaker 3: pay equity issues, you've got trust issues, you've got after
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  Speaker 3: a short period of time, you've got people then thinking
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  Speaker 3: about moving anyway. So it just depends on what your
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  Speaker 3: strategy is. I wouldn't say you shouldn't use it, but
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  Speaker 3: I think you have to understand when you're using it
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  Speaker 3: and why you're using it.
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  Speaker 2: So do you think sometimes it is okay? This is
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  Speaker 2: a weird one. I heard recently of an employer who
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  Speaker 2: said to an employee, if you want to pay a rise,
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  Speaker 2: go out there, get another job offer, and we will
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  Speaker 2: see if we can match you. You ever heard of
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  Speaker 2: that happening before?
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  Speaker 3: Not so much, not blatantly, but it does happen. I
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  Speaker 3: mean it's happening more and more, as we say the
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  Speaker 3: school shortage market because in the in the New Zealand
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  Speaker 3: highly schooled professionals and like Robert Hart specializes in finance
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  Speaker 3: and accounting, and it those areas are really skill short
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  Speaker 3: in New Zealand. And so you know, the look the
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  Speaker 3: immediacy of losing someone that's good in your team means
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  Speaker 3: you have gonna you're gonna have to find the replacement.
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  Speaker 3: You may have a gap, and so that's a short
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  Speaker 3: term pain. And so we are seeing increasingly that the
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  Speaker 3: use of car offers to try and put the band
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  Speaker 3: aid on the short term.
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  Speaker 2: But when an employer asks an employee to go and
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  Speaker 2: do that themselves, is that them just trying to establish
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  Speaker 2: this person's market value?
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  Speaker 3: I think I think there's two camps here. I think
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  Speaker 3: there is a little bit of that to see what
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  Speaker 3: will happen. There's also sometimes some employers feel like their
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  Speaker 3: person won't get that money, and so for them it's
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  Speaker 3: you go out and you'll find out that you're not
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  Speaker 3: getting you're well looked after, and so you know, I
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  Speaker 3: don't actually think that's a great strategy. I think it's
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  Speaker 3: really about sitting down and understanding and having career conversations
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  Speaker 3: around where they're headed. What are they wanting out of
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  Speaker 3: their job, what can you offer, what can't you offer?
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  Speaker 3: And having more adult conversations.
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  Speaker 2: All right, hey, it's been really interesting to talk to you, Megan,
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  Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Look after yourself, Megan, Alexander Robert Half,
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  Speaker 2: New Zealand Managing Director.
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