Retention
Retention is a by-product of a long term investment in somebody. It's not something that happens right when someone has a foot out the door.
Here was the situation, from a few years ago:
An engineer on my team messaged me off-hours asking to schedule a meeting for the following day. Since the timing was odd, the request vague, and since I had some time, I offered to jump on a call immediately. They deferred and so we agreed to chat first thing in the morning. I was expecting a resignation letter to land in my inbox and a short conversation about 'timelines' and 'transition'.
The next morning, we get on a call.
Hey man, I just wanted to let you know that I've been talking to another company and they've made me an offer for 40k more than I'm making here.
Okay, wow. This may as well have been a resignation letter. There's no world in which I would be able to convince the company to part with that type of money for a counteroffer. That said, I figured that what might be happening is an attempt to get a counteroffer. You know, bump up the current salary by a bit.
I knew that if the number was closer, maybe we could do the dance. But this gap was too far to bridge, no chance.
On a personal level, I was thrilled for them.
That's huge, congratulations! You should take that. We thought you were good when we hired you, we love having you on the team, and clearly someone, some other company, saw that too. You're a great add to any team, so, congratulations.
I don't think he was expecting that.
As an engineering manager, you want to keep your team happy. And if your team's performing well, you want to keep the band together. But ultimately, each individual does have the ability to move to greener pastures and if that's legitimately the best thing for a teammate then I'm really happy for them.
Look, you're a big part of the team and it's gonna hurt. But on a personal level, you know, I'm proud of you. You should take that deal.
I also made clear that there would be no counter-offer. We're not gonna match it, there's no way.
But, as a courtesy, I did tell him I would ask, just to confirm. You don't get what you don't ask for.
As expected, my director said, "Yeah, that's not happening. Let me know when his last day is".
So, with the engineer having until the end of the week to accept their offer, all I could ask was for them to prepare their transition out.
At the end of the week, the engineer messages: "can we have another call?".
I've declined the offer.
My turn to be surprised.
I would love to know how you came to that decision.
I knew it couldn't have been an easy decision to make.
He shared that it came down to the position he held at our company. He was getting cool projects. He was working on tech he enjoyed. He also saw the path towards management/leadership, and that we had been actively working on that plan. There was more money elsewhere, but he would have been at the bottom of the ladder there, with less influence and responsibility that he craved at this point in his career. So, he stayed.
I think that about that a lot.
I've been on the other side of 'retention', and I know what it feels like to work at places where you feel valued, and where you don't.
That's why I think retention is a long term game. It's the culture that's built that surrounds the team. It's the interaction and the relationship that you have with your team. It's having a legitimate growth plan. Answers to: Where do I go next? How do I get better? What are you gonna do to help me get to my next career goal?
Those things matter and I didn't realize how much until that moment.