‘Defensive’ employers use money to cling to staff
Employers are using counter offers to keep banking and financial staff and are willing to pay more to keep their male employees, a new survey has found.
A survey of 2,095 accounting and finance professionals by recruitment firm Marks Sattin Australia found 361 had resigned at least once in the last six months and of those 31 per cent had received a counter offer from their employer to stay.
A similar 2009 survey revealed only 22 per cent of those quitting had been offered more money to stay.
The 2010 survey found that the number of men and women offered more money to stay was about equal. However, of those 25 per cent of the men surveyed were offered 20 per cent or more to stay compared to just 15 per cent of the women.
Scott Stacey managing director of Marks Sattin Australia says while the research indicates employers were willing to pay more to keep male staff it did not reveal why.
Cut by sector, banks were less willing to use counter offers to keep accounting and finance staff than other employers.
Stacey says the rate of resignations amongst finance and accounting staff had picked up rapidly in the last six months catching employers on the back foot.
“We know that in 2008 and 2009 people were very disengaged due to salary freezes and a lack of promotion opportunities but many employers have not nothing to look at those issues since,” Stacey says.
“Our evidence is employers are deploying a defensive strategy by saying we will offer you more money if you want to leave but by then it is too late.”
“We find most people who accept a counter offer are speaking to us again within six months and 90 per cent of research shows they will be gone within a year.
“Most research shows that the main reasons people leave their job is their manager, lack of career opportunity, the quality of the work they do and the workplace culture so just offering more money won’t fix that,” he says.
Mr Stacey advises employers to:
Talk to their workforce to find out what their issues are and then act on that information to re-engage their workforce.
Carry out salary benchmarking to find out if the salaries they are paying existing staff are market competitive.
Provide salary increases throughout the organisation in line with market rates rather than offer more money to an employee who quits or to attract a new employee, which just creates morale problems amongst well performing existing staff that do not receive more money.
Stacey said the research is a warning to employers to focus on the staff they have although it might already be too late.
“During the GFC, HR staff were amongst the first to go now many organisations are running around trying to re-build their strategic HR capability but it’s really too late,” Stacey said.
“Our earlier research from this survey group showed 63 per cent were willing to move overseas to find the right job with young accountants still keen on London and strong interest in moving to Hong Kong and Singapore.”
For employees offered more money to stay he advises reviewing their reasons for leaving in the first place and asking themselves if more money addresses those issues.
Stacey also advises against job searching as a way of forcing an employer to pay more as it might impact their reputation with recruiters when and if they want to find a new role outside their organisation.
He says that if money really is an issue, an employee should make their case for a pay rise directly to their manager.
