When a bigger employer offers more money, counteroffers rarely hold. Shelley D. Smith on what keeps people that no rival can ever put in an offer letter.
When a bigger employer starts offering more money, the people who stay are rarely the ones who got a counteroffer.
They're the ones who already had a reason to stay that doesn't fit in an offer letter.
A manager who knows them, a future somebody has said out loud, and a say in how the work gets done.
None of that costs what a raise costs, and all of it has to be in place before the offer shows up.
Here's how it usually goes.
A bigger company opens down the road, and within a week everybody on your floor knows the starting pay.
It's more than yours.
Somebody in the leadership meeting finally asks it out loud: how do we keep our people?
Then somebody runs the numbers on matching and the room goes quiet, because you can't.
The funding is what it is, or a contract sets your rates, or you're simply smaller.
I think that room asked the wrong question, and I know it partly because I've been the employee in this story.
In 1985 I was living in Atlanta and working at an agency.
You had to work multiple jobs to live in Atlanta, so I picked up a second one as a part-time desk clerk at a Marriott hotel.
That's the whole reason I walked in the door.
I fell in love with it, and I stayed fourteen years.
I went on to become a general manager, and when I look back, the paycheck isn't the part I talk about.
I talk about the people and the structure.
I had a lot of great mentors in those first couple of years.
I talk about a belief I heard there over and over: if you treat the employees right, everything else just happens.
And somewhere along the way they started to see what a kid from a family auction house already knew, and to put the little pieces together, before I'd realized it myself.
I came for a second paycheck.
What I found was how important the human connection is, and what it means to treat people right.
I grew up poor, and I didn't know just how poor we were until I went back years later.
So I'm not going to tell you money doesn't matter, and right now it matters more than usual.
When Pew Research Center asked workers in late 2024, only 30% said they were highly satisfied with their pay, down from 34% the year before.
If you're paying well under what the work is worth, fix what you can.
Nothing in this piece makes up for a paycheck that doesn't cover the month.
But you were never going to win an auction against somebody with deeper pockets, and I grew up in an auction house.
So the useful question is what you actually have that the other bidder doesn't.
Start with what has changed, because it's easy to misread.
In November 2021, 3.0% of American workers quit their jobs in a single month, matching the record high at the time, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
This August it was 1.9%.
It would be easy to read that as loyalty.
It isn't.
Gallup's most recent numbers show 51% of employees watching for another job or actively looking for one, close to the highest it has measured since 2015.
In the same survey, only 28% said now is a good time to find a quality job.
In mid-2022 that was nearly 70%.
People haven't decided to stay. They've decided there's nowhere good to go yet.
I've watched leaders get mesmerized by a dashboard that's all green.
It sounds like this: everything is good, we haven't had to hire for a while.
Then all of a sudden they realize that their best leader, and the new hire they were so excited about, gave notice to go elsewhere, because nobody was fulfilling what those two needed.
A bigger employer opening down the road is how that happens to a whole team at once.
Gallup has also gone to the people who already left.
At the end of 2023 it surveyed 717 people who had quit a job by choice in the past year.
45% said that in the three months before they left, no manager or leader talked with them about their job satisfaction, their performance or their future.
Last week I wrote that people leave after about forty five-minute conversations that didn't happen.
That was my way of saying it, and this is Gallup's.
For nearly half of them, the offer arrived after three months of nobody asking.
That survey is nearly three years old.
What would the number be on your own floor today?
When somebody resigns, most companies reach for the counteroffer.
It has an amount, a date and a signature, and when it's signed everybody exhales.
That's a first finish line.
The second one is whether the person actually decided to stay, and that one never gets a date.
Two weeks ago I wrote about the private calendar every employee keeps, and the question at the bottom of it: am I still seen, valued and heard here?
A counteroffer doesn't answer that.
It answers what it costs to keep you for now.
Seen, valued and heard aren't buzzwords.
People give notice and go elsewhere when we've stopped fulfilling that need, whatever the number on the counteroffer says.
They can put a number in it, and a sign-on bonus, and better benefits.
Here's what I found behind that front desk that doesn't fit.
A manager who knows them. What they're good at, what they're carrying right now, and what they'd rather be doing more of. Mine saw it before I did.
A future somebody has said out loud. Most people have never been told where they could go inside the company they already work for.
A say in how the work gets done. In a smaller company, the person doing the job can change how it's done by Friday, if somebody lets them.
Underneath all three is what I've come to call feeling seen, valued and heard.
I usually say this about technology, and it's just as true about pay: we may all have the same tools, but we don't have the same humans.
The humans are the differentiation.
A bigger employer can't offer that on anyone's first day.
You can, this week.
You don't need a retention program for this.
You need about five minutes, inside a touchpoint that already exists, and a few questions.
These are the ones I find nobody asked, in companies that have lost touch with meeting people where they are.
"Where are you stuck?"
"What have you heard?"
"What do you wish we would've told you sooner?"
"What did we not ask you along the way?"
In a week when a new employer's starting pay is all over your floor, the second one matters most.
Start with the person who'd be hardest to replace, then anyone who has started saying "they" where they used to say "we."
Then do one thing about what you heard, within the week, and tell them you did it.
Asking and doing nothing is worse than not asking.
And write it down.
Across ten people, that's a record of what's actually holding your team in place, taken before anybody tested it.
In the Flow-State Culture Framework, that's detection: finding out what's holding people while there's still time to act on it.
Fractional culture and organizational development is the people side of the business.
Culture, values, training and development, succession.
Here, the work starts with a baseline of who's holding the place together and what's keeping them.
Then your managers learn to have the conversation above, and they keep having it long after I've gone.
It's laid out on the Fractional Chief People and Culture Officer page.
If you're inside a transaction right now, a new owner does what a new employer down the road does: it gives everybody a reason to answer the question this week.
The quiet window before the close is the time to find out who you can't afford to lose and what's holding them.
If you just want your managers doing this rather than reading about it, that's a session, not a program.
The room asked how to keep people.
Here's the question I'd put in its place.
Which of our people has a reason to stay that we gave them on purpose?
Go down the list, one name at a time.
For some you'll know the reason right away.
For others you'll realize you're hoping.
The most important thing I learned growing up in a family business is to listen, to connect with people, and to meet them where they are, in order to give them what it is they seek.
You can't give people what they seek if nobody has asked.
A part-time desk clerk in Atlanta was handed those reasons in 1985, and she stayed fourteen years.
So this week, pick one name, and ask.
P.S. This is the sixth piece in The Second Finish Line, a series on the gap between the day we declare a change finished and the day it actually is. Last week I shared the first drop, and the five minutes that rebuild trust. Next week, the last piece in the series: you measured engagement, so what changed on Monday?
Shelley D. Smith, the culture curator behind Premier Rapport, is its CEO and the author of Thirsty. A Certified Predictive Index Partner, executive coach, and speaker, she has spent 35+ years across hospitality, franchise operations, and organizational leadership helping companies detect and repair culture before it shows up in the numbers.
Learn more at premierrapport.com/about or start a conversation at premierrapport.com/contact.
Pew Research Center, "Most Americans Feel Good About Their Job Security but Not Their Pay" (December 10, 2024): Survey of 5,273 employed U.S. adults, October 7 to 13, 2024. Source of the 30% and 34% pay satisfaction figures.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary, November 2021 (released January 4, 2022): Quits rate of 3.0%, matching the series high at the time, as first reported.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary, August 2026 (released September 29, 2026): Quits rate of 1.9%, seasonally adjusted, total nonfarm.
Gallup, "U.S. Worker Thriving Declines as Job Market Pessimism Grows," Sarah Fioroni (March 23, 2026): Web survey of 22,368 employed U.S. adults, October 30 to November 14, 2025. Source of the 51% and 28% figures.
Gallup, "42% of Employee Turnover Is Preventable but Often Ignored," Corey Tatel and Ben Wigert (July 9, 2024, updated February 16, 2026): Web survey of 717 U.S. adults who voluntarily left an employer in the past year, November 8 to 20, 2023. Source of the 45% figure.
How do you retain employees when you can't compete on pay?
Give people reasons to stay that don't fit in an offer letter, and put them in place before the offer arrives. Shelley D. Smith points to three: a manager who knows them, a future somebody has said out loud, and a say in how the work gets done. None of them costs what a raise costs, and a bigger employer can't offer any of them on someone's first day.
Do counteroffers keep employees from leaving?
A counteroffer can keep someone for now, but it answers a different question than the one they're asking. It puts a price on staying. It doesn't tell them whether they're still seen, valued and heard. That's why a signed counteroffer is a first finish line, not proof the person has decided to stay.
What are the signs an employee is about to resign?
Language is one of the earliest. Listen for someone who has started saying "they" where they used to say "we." Silence from leadership is another: in a Gallup survey of 717 people who quit by choice, 45% said no manager or leader talked with them about their job satisfaction, performance or future in the three months before they left. A green dashboard doesn't rule it out.
What questions should managers ask to keep good employees?
Shelley D. Smith uses four: "Where are you stuck?", "What have you heard?", "What do you wish we would've told you sooner?" and "What did we not ask you along the way?" Ask them in about five minutes inside a touchpoint that already exists. Start with the person who'd be hardest to replace, then act on one thing within the week and tell them you did.
Why isn't low turnover a sign of employee loyalty right now?
Quits have fallen, from 3.0% of workers in November 2021 to 1.9% in August 2026, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But Gallup found 51% of employees watching for or actively seeking another job, while only 28% think it's a good time to find a quality one. People haven't decided to stay. They've decided there's nowhere good to go yet, which leaves a team exposed when a better-paying employer opens nearby.
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