What is a counteroffer?

You’ve nailed the interview(s), you’ve had a call from your Recruitment Consultant with the great news that the new company formally want to offer you the position.

Brilliant, your hard work has paid off!

All you must do is hand in your notice which can be daunting. You have a sigh of relief after you’ve handed in your notice. Then you get called into your current boss’ office, you’re offered a counter-offer, usually more money or a promotion to stay.

You’re torn, what do you do now?

Here are 6 reasons why you should never take a counter-offer

Recognise your worth

Why has it taken for you to resign to prompt your employer to give you the promotion, responsibility or pay rise you have been asking for? Professional development should be rewarded due to hard work and not out of fear of losing staff. The culture of your workplace could not be rewarding your hard work. You’ll soon be in the same situation again.

Broken trust

You’ve essentially fired your Manager. You have expressed your desire to leave and your Manager is unlikely to completely trust you again.

Money doesn’t solve your problems

Unfortunately, money will not make your work environment nicer, give you better projects to work on or remove that Sunday night fear. You’ll just be able to buy slightly more expensive coffee to catch your tears at work. This short-term gain most likely won’t pay off in the long run. Many promises made during the counteroffer period do not come to fruition and you may find yourself even more frustrated and eager to leave.

You’ll end up leaving

80% of candidates who accept a counteroffer from their current employer end up leaving within 6 months. Not only will you leave but you’ll have damaged your reputation with your employer and burnt bridges. Going all the way to offer stage with a new employer, only to turn them down to stay where you are a waste of everyone’s time. Are they likely to give you that same offer 6 months down the road – employers will remember that you jilted them at the altar!

Your Manager is buying time (and maybe their job security)

Depending on your Manager, they might not care if you leave, they’re more worried about you walking out and there being no one to replace you. The cost of no one in your role can be very costly and it can also reflect poorly on a Manager if they are losing a valued team member.

Rock the boat

Once your office or co-workers get a whiff of your £5 or 10k pay rise the company environment may be damaged. Resentment could grow from your co-workers. They may be thinking, ‘Oh, Susan handed in her notice and got an amazing pay rise, maybe I should do that too…’

Expectations will also be raised in terms of what you are expected to deliver – if you are given a pay increase and improved conditions, your existing employer will have significantly increased expectations about repaying them, which can lead to friction.

Conclusion

It’s important to remember why you were planning on leaving in the first place. Appreciate the value of taking this new opportunity. There were reasons you were leaving your current employer, create a pros and cons list of starting fresh at a new company. One thing that is important during this period is to talk to your Recruitment Consultant. Let them know your thoughts on this negotiation period they should be there to advise and recognise which would be the best opportunity for you.

It can be a scary process changing jobs which is why most people can see the easier option of simply staying where they are.  Workers who change jobs earn an average pay raise of £2,066 per year or 5.2% (compared to the 2.9% national average) – when did you last get a pay rise? – Glassdoor Economic Research, Why Do Workers Quit? The Factors That Predict Employee Turnover February 2017.

Benefits of changing jobs when you’re unhappy

A reminder of why you were changing your job in the first place.

•    Your mood

It will feel like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders. When you’re unhappy, it can affect not only your mood in work, but your life outside of work. Your mood affects the people around you. Changing jobs can help improve your relationships with family and friends.

•    Fresh start

When you’re interested in changing your job, it’s usually to either get away from negativity or you’re attracted by opportunity. This could be an opportunity to take a step up in the career ladder and I don’t necessarily mean more money, I mean more responsibility, career development, new projects, better experience – an overall better career path.

•    Stay sharp

When you change your job, you need to learn to adapt to new work environments, face new challenges and possibly even work with new technologies. You’ll meet more people in your industry and broaden your knowledge in your sector.

•    Better job

In addition, to feeling more valued, this could be an opportunity to achieve a far better remuneration package. Whether that means a better pension, less travel, additional training more flexible working or bonus structure to name a few. This could give you overall better satisfaction in work.

If you’re currently looking for a job or maybe you’re considering a change it is important that you do the following things to ensure you are making the best move for your career.

1.    Create a list

Create a list of reasons why you want to change jobs. This will affirm whether you’re making the right decision to change your job and what you are looking for in a career move. This will prevent any embarrassment for yourself and the recruitment consultant if you end up accepting a counteroffer and take it because of last-minute promises.   

2.    Find a niche recruiter in your sector

This is important for a number of reasons. They will have expert market knowledge on which companies are good to work for, who is currently recruiting, and who will be someone to fight your corner throughout the job search process.

3.    Glassdoor is your friend

If your recruitment consultant suggests a company you haven’t heard of, or even if you have. Check out their Glassdoor reviews. It’s important that you’re moving to a company where things will get better, not a toxic environment where the staff are unhappy in their jobs.

Learn more about job searching in Northern Ireland

If you’re not looking for a job but would like to learn local professionals’ career stories and know what’s going on in the market in Northern Ireland? Why not listen to our career podcasts

What’s the goal of recruitment?

To build productive and high functioning teams so businesses can meet their goals.

The harsh truth is that this takes investment, time and widespread commitment. Staff payroll can account for up to 70% of total business costs once you factor in salary, benefits, bonuses and other related taxes.

Hiring is not straightforward and predictable; it can take a lot more work than simply finding the person with the right skills and experience. Research by McKinsey & Company suggests the top 5% of talent is up to 8 times more productive than average talent. One of the key differences between a high performing team, and an average poorly performing team, is the genuine care the employees demonstrate towards each other.

Employees who feel valued by their companies are more committed and satisfied which means more motivated, productive and engaged employees. You want productive staff, so hiring right is essential to save your business from the cost of hiring the wrong person. In the UK, businesses fail to hire the right person 2 out of 5 roles1.

How much do you think hiring the wrong person costs? Their salary, recruitment fees, some management time?

The true cost: It can be up to 3 x a person’s annual salary.

Not only is this costly in terms of direct cost but there are many in-direct costs which need to be taken into consideration. A poor hire at mid-manager level with a salary of £42,000 could end up costing your business £132,015*. I’ve broken down the costs below, to show you where the coins start to add up.

First, you have direct costs. The obvious ones being:

• Salary paid for time spent with your company.
• Recruitment agency fees. Followed by more potential fees to find a replacement.
• Wasted management time and training costs.
• Lost productivity leading to lost profits.

Now, let’s add in your indirect costs:

• Increased workload for remaining staff.
• Loss of team productivity.
• Revenue losses from underperformance.
• Staff turnover.
• Impact on your wider reputation.
   

Use our recruitment calculator below to find out the true financial impact of hiring the wrong person. The results are based on formulas from Perfect Match (Making the right hire and the cost of getting it wrong)* researched & published by the Recruitment & Employment Confederation.

Interested in learning more about our recruitment services or the cost of hiring the wrong person, get in touch with Ian Weatherup, Managing Director at Corvus.

E: [email protected]

P: 07880 751 089

Chances are most of your marketing is either B2B or B2C.

But how much thought do you put into your B2T (business-to-talent) marketing?

Most SME’s don’t give it much thought & I find that quite strange because those same companies also say that their “people” are their most important assets…

Ask yourself these two questions:

What impact would/does the best talent have on your business?

What impact would/does below-average talent have on your business?

I’m sure the answer to the above questions will be the same for most people. The best talent will generally cost more in the short term, but the investment will usually pay off and result in growth in the long term. Below average staff will cost less in the short-term, but they’ll result in stagnation or failure & a higher cost in the long term.

So, how can you improve your B2T marketing?

Get your marketing people involved in your recruitment advertising. 

Seriously, a job advert should make somebody want to find out more, it shouldn’t be a job description or a photo of a sign saying “we’re hiring”/”new job”.

Make your candidate experience straight-forward, positive & quick. 

If you have a process where people don’t know what’s coming next, you’ll lose out on them. If people go away with a negative experience, it’ll affect your business because NI is a small market & people talk. If you don’t move quickly, you’ll lose out to one of your competitors who’ve realised the importance of moving quickly.

Give everyone that you interview constructive feedback. 

People don’t like wasting their time. If you interview somebody and don’t provide any feedback, you’ll have wasted that person’s time. NI is a small place, people talk. If you don’t provide feedback, it will negatively affect your ability to recruit. You will get people saying: “You’re interviewing at ….? I wouldn’t waste your time, I went there and didn’t hear anything back”

Show appreciation & celebrate the success of your employees. 

B2T marketing isn’t just about attracting new people, it’s about retaining your current talent. It’s important to feedback to them & celebrate their successes.

When people leave, conduct a proper exit interview where you ask for their advice on how to improve as a business. 

You could be doing everything right but you’ll never retain all your staff. When people hand their notice in, treat them well, show that you respect them by asking them how you can improve your business. The more that you understand about your business, the better. Don’t be afraid to hear negative things, if you listen & take action to try to fix the issues, you’ll only improve as an employer.

This might all seem new. That’s because it’s relatively new.

When it came to recruiting talent, companies used to be the buyers – “We’ll just post a job, you’ll apply and then you’ll tell us what you can do for us”. That’s now changed. Now candidates are the buyers – Before people apply to your jobs, they’ll now likely do more research. They’ll google you, look on Glassdoor, look at your website, look on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter etc to get a feel for what you are like as a business. A US piece of research from 2016 found that 72% of people now research a job or employer for over 1-hour before applying for a job. This means that now more than ever, your B2T marketing needs to be on point.

We’re in a candidate-driven market, there are more jobs that there are suitable people to do them. The issue is that lots of SME’s are still trying to recruit how they were 20 years ago… And if you do that, you’ll be unlikely to get the best talent… which means your company will stop growing.

Candidates are the customers. If you want to attract the best, you need to have a strategy in place to attract and retain them. We call this B2T & if this is the first time that you’ve heard of it, we’d be happy to sit down with you to discuss it.

I’m not saying that B2B & B2C marketing isn’t important. What I’m saying is that B2T is also important and it’s something that’s worth thinking about if you’re serious about the growth of your business.

At Corvus, we’re experienced at supporting companies to attract, recruit & retain top talent, if you’re in growth mode but feel you have some gaps in your business, let’s talk.

028 9091 8529 / [email protected]

Corvus Assured®,  a brand new service aimed at providing companies with a solution to the consistent problem of getting the right people for the job has been launched.  This new recruitment methodology created by Belfast based Corvus, guarantees to save time, money and increase new employee retention.  Corvus is confident of the accuracy of the process, that they will offer a 12-month guarantee on a new hire.

*Research reveals that talent & recruitment are two of the biggest challenges that high-growth businesses face.  2 out of 5 new hires turn out wrong within the first 18 months and replacing those people is estimated to cost the UK economy £3 billion per year. Getting the wrong hire is expensive, a bad hire at a salary of £40k can cost a business £120k.  However, getting it right can lead to exceptional growth, with superior talent proving to be up to 8 times more productive.

With a combined 120+  years experience in the recruitment industry working with some of NI’s best-known companies, Corvus were keen to help companies solve the issue of getting the right hire. The Corvus Assured® process is underpinned by an expert team of experienced consultants who are diplomats, authentic, empathetic with the ability to nuance, problem solve, whilst sourcing top talent globally including successfully working on US-based assignments.

The Corvus Assured®  process includes assessments in skills, experience, qualifications & behavioural profiling which leads to highly accurate hires. It gives businesses the confidence to make hiring decisions based on evidence, rather than gut instinct but it also gives new employees the confidence that the job they accept is the right one for them.

Corvus Assured® was originally due to launch in March 2020 but was delayed due to the first lockdown. During this time the team has successfully trialled Corvus Assured® which has led to a 100% offers accepted, 100% job fill rate and a 100% new hire retention.

Officially launching, Corvus Assured®, Ian Weatherup, Managing Director of Corvus, said:

“In my 25 years of working in the recruitment industry, I’ve always felt like there is something that as an industry we could be doing better, and I believe with Corvus Assured® we’ve found the solution. It’s a process that leads to better matches for both candidates and clients which results in more profitable businesses and helps people avoid costly career mistakes. We’re so confident in the accuracy of our process that we offer a 12-month guarantee on new hires.”

For further information on Corvus Assured® visit www.corvus.jobs/corvus-assured or follow the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

We have all had to adapt to new ways of working with Covid-19 disrupting businesses and lives worldwide. When whole companies started working from home, many have had to adapt to how to better communicate and continue to be productive in their jobs. It also means, just because we are working from home, doesn’t mean you can’t recruit.  It takes months to build talent pipelines and if competitors are slowing down it can be a tremendous opportunity to attract outstanding candidates.

Corvus have developed a remote recruitment methodology which provides a platform for collaboration with key decision-makers, including behavioural testing and video interviews which save time and money; called Corvus Assured. 

Furthermore, we know it can be daunting to think of onboarding a staff member, so we’ve put together this guide on how to onboard staff when most people are working remotely.

New employees that are put through a structured onboarding program were 58% more likely to stay after 3 years. Using a structured process will ensure that new hires are up to speed on their role, your business, policies and projects. In addition, 91% of people believe they get more work done when they work remotely.

Equipment

Does your new hire have access to all the equipment needed to do their job effectively? This can often be a problem if an employee is using an old laptop which is slow, or they don’t have the right software for the program you need to run. Getting set up can be half the battle and make life so much easier for the new hire when it runs smoothly.

If you can help in this process by sending new equipment or screen-sharing to help with set-up, it can make a real difference to the new start becoming productive asap.

Contract

Using a tool like DocuSign can be really useful when trying to sign contracts quickly. Employees can add their signatures digitally and share contracts internally in a secure environment.

Company Information

Have all company policies on a digital platform such as SharePoint which can be securely be accessed from any device.

Key documents to share with your new staff member:

• Values
• Company policies/procedures
• GDPR policy
• Social Media policy
• Contact details of all internal departments

It’s also important to cover projects, workflow, priorities and expectations, this could be in document or presentation form, but may be more effective when discussed over video chat or in a phone call.

Over-communicate

Communication is key to every team but even more important when working remotely. Ensure new hires understand how to use your communication tools. Whether you’re collaborating via video chat, group chat, emails and phone calls, it’s essential they are kept up to date. Over-communication is recommended to ensure they feel they’re involved and understand what is going on in current projects and what they are meant to be doing.

Putting together a communication schedule such as every morning everyone catches up on a video conference and then continues to talk via email or Microsoft Teams for the rest of the day could be very important to maintain constant communication.

Click here to learn more about how to stay connected with your team when working remotely

Stack overflow discuss their remote onboarding process:

“We take on-boarding very seriously. Every new hire in the company goes through a series of orientation calls with each member of the executive team, where they hear about our company history, culture, goals and structure. Within the engineering team, all new hires are assigned a mentor who guides them through a six-week on-boarding process where they meet people from different parts of the engineering team and learn about our culture and processes.”

Training

If training is required on a specific system or product, most training topics are best explained through videos. We recommend pre-recording training sessions as well as talking things through over a video call.

In addition, to reinforce the training, follow up after each training session to answer questions.

Managers

Whoever the new hire will be reporting to should set specific goals and expectations to keep the new hire motivated. Developing a task calendar after onboarding will be important for monitoring their progress and maintaining collaboration over time.

Scheduling weekly one-to-one meetings to discuss progress, resolve potential issues and set short-term and long-term goals.

Support

Ensure that team members can support new staff members when they have questions or even for general chat. Starting a new job can be an exciting time, it’s important they feel support via instant messenger, email, and calls, especially during the early part of onboarding.

Social Aspect

 At Corvus, we have video call meetings at 09:15 & 16:00 to keep the team connected & engaged. On a Friday, at 16:00 we all have a virtual drink together (tea/beer/wine/whiskey, whatever floats your boat). This routine and constant communication maintains great teamwork and communication when working remotely.

You could even consider online team-buildings, this could be playing a game online or hosting an online quiz in a video conference. You can be creative!

Virtual Teammates

Pairing your new staff member up with peer-to-peer mentorship can make a significant impact on their onboarding. Having a designated person to help in the initial onboarding period can help streamline any questions the new staff member has and is able to guide them through projects they are currently working on.

Tools to Help Onboarding Staff

There are tools available to help with on-boarding to streamline the process, improve communication and manage projects.

Kin

Kin is a new hire onboarding software that creates a personalised welcome page for each new hire that links them to tasks, paperwork, and workplace details like location, start time, and team member bios. This could be useful to streamline the hiring process.

Learn more about Kin

Trello

Trello is used for task-based communication.

You use it to organise “cards” into lists—these cards can be projects, notes, memos, shared files, or anything else that helps your team work together. It’s extremely handy for online effective project management, you gain full visibility over all tasks in a project and have the flexibility to rearrange them as your priorities change. You can collaborate with team members on this board.

Learn more about Trello

Sharepoint

SharePoint is a document management and collaboration tool developed by Microsoft. It’s basically an intranet and content management system that is used for internal purposes to assist with bringing an organisation together.

Learn more about Sharepoint

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams makes it easy to Instantly go from group chat to video conference with the touch of a button. Teams of 10 or 10,000 can meet in one place, no matter how many places they’re in. You can use the group chat feature for private 1-to-1 conversations, specific team chats or for company-wide conversations. There are increased collaboration opportunities, you can access, share, and edit Word docs, PowerPoint, and Excel files in real-time.  Planner is an excellent tool as well to assign & track tasks and stay organised.

You can also add in other apps to increase productivity such as Trello. I personally like that my calendar is interlinked into the app so I can quickly check my schedule during a conversation with a colleague.

Learn more about Microsoft Teams here.

Slack

There are many other communication platforms which are great for remote working such as Slack. Slack also helps teams to communicate and collaborate in one place, it’s good for both a large enterprise and a small business. You can create a to-do list and continue working on projects by bringing the right people, conversations, tools and information you need together. Slack is available on any device as well; you can message or call any person or group within your team. You can video call groups of up to 15 people.

• Share and edit documents a in Slack
• Integrate the tools and services you already use into your workflow, including Google Drive, Salesforce, Dropbox, Asana, Twitter, Zendesk and more
• Easily search a central knowledge base that automatically indexes and archives your team’s past conversations and files
• Customise your notifications so you stay focused on what matters

Learn more about Slack here

Conclusion 

Overall, communication, structure, trust and collaboration are essential for a successful onboarding process. Working from home means adapting to the situation and using online tools to do things we would usually do in person. If you have any questions about remotely recruiting, please get in touch on 028 9091 8529 / [email protected]