An honest approach to managing people, or why I never do counteroffers
Unfortunately, in the face of tough business goals, honesty is sometimes relegated to second place. Consciously underestimate salaries, draw obviously unachievable career prospects, with the help of deft manipulations they provoke processing that is not compensated for in any way. We do not do this in principle. And this is not quixotic, but a conscious decision that can be fully justified pragmatically. In this article we will talk about honesty on the example of counteroffers. I hope, as a result, it will become clear why I consider them an extremely harmful undertaking.
Disclaimer: Yandex is very large and different, and I describe here only the principles adopted in the development of Yandex. Health. I am sure that colleagues from other departments may not share my (rather radical) convictions and do not see anything wrong in keeping a good person by making him a counteroffer.
')
A few words about yourself. I am a CTO in the Yandex.Health service, I am responsible for all its technical part: development, testing, operation, etc. The service is growing at a rapid pace, we are actively expanding the team, interviewing techies (developers, testers, admins) and inviting them in large numbers to work. From time to time it happens that good candidates refuse the offer confirmed by them in words. In most cases, having questioned the candidate, we learn that in the current work he or she was given a counter-proposal “which cannot be refused”, and it sounds tastier and more interesting than ours.
This practice is considered normal. And really, can we condemn an ​​employer who wants to keep a valuable employee by any means? However, I myself never do that. In this article I will try to explain why.
I will formulate three conditions and rules for working in a team that allow you to remain honest even in difficult situations. As an example, I will tell you how these rules work when I myself have the temptation to make a counteroffer.
So, three rules: adequate remuneration, frequent synchronization of goals and expectations and full feedback.
It's simple. It is important that the level of wages (including bonuses and other bonuses) be commensurate with the benefits that a person brings and should not be underestimated or overestimated. It is very easy to check whether the reward is adequate in a team. I call it the “publicity test”. Let's imagine what happens if the salary is publicly announced. Will there be misunderstanding on the part of colleagues? Will there be (even if not asked) questions like "Why is Petit smaller than Vasya?". If there are no such questions, then you are doing everything correctly.
Of course, sometimes there are times when we get Vasya from a neighboring company at “double tariffs”. And his salary is one and a half times higher than that of Petit, who has been working for a long time. But I, as a manager, will think about it ten times before making such an offer to Vasya. And if I do, then Vasya is really worth so much (in the current situation). And I’m not ashamed to look at Pete’s face, telling why Vasya gets one and a half times as much as him. It is important to take into account that we, for example, may be in dire need of developers, and we are ready for any investments, just to get a person. But it is also necessary to understand and not be afraid to say out loud.
Another very important point, about which everyone forgets: the overpayment in this case will be unfair in relation not only to Pete, but also to Vasya. If a person is “overpaid” at the entrance, then I will have corresponding expectations from his work. And here too many problems arise. For example, the assessment of Vasya’s work will be lower than that of Petit’s, and the conditional “career growth” of an overpaid employee almost stops at the time until he “catches” his salary. And then the "sediment remains."
In fact, overpayment is a topic for a completely separate article. There is something to talk about and argue. The main idea is to check the level of your children’s salaries with a “publicity test”. Helpful
I think that there is no point in writing about underpayment. I can only say that the most disgusting of the actions of a manager is to assure an employee who is underpaid that “he is worth so much”. No motivation, burning eyes and big victories in such a team have no reason to wait. It may work in offices with a working day from 9 to 18 and explanatory due to a delay of 15 minutes. With us - it will not work for sure, but we still do not know how.
The manager must understand what the employee wants: more income, more interesting tasks, more responsibility. The employee must see how and what he needs to do to achieve his goals. Or (this is about honesty) to realize that in this team at a given time, some of these goals will not be achieved. But then such goals should be verbalized and should be periodically negotiated.
A very important note: not only the expectations of the manager from the employee, but also the expectations of the employee from the work (and from the manager) should be explicitly discussed. In what direction does the employee want to grow? Learn new technology? Manage the team? Increase income? This is also a growth, although for some reason it is embarrassing for many to admit this openly - it is not customary for us to be mercantile. By the way, some just want to do their job so that no one interferes. This is also normal. A very important point is to gain trust between the manager and the employee in order to discuss such things without a raid of socially desirable answers and doubts in the spirit of “Well, I can’t just say that I like managing more than writing code!”. In my experience, not all programmers are ready to voice their desires, and you have to guess by hints, gestures and other not very verbal manifestations. It will always be with everyone. The only universal (and obvious) advice to the leader is to pump emotional intelligence .
Well and, I think, it is not necessary to remind about the importance of periodic one-on-one meetings. The leader is obliged (I rarely use this word, but now is the right moment) to meet periodically with my subordinates and talk with them.
Very often we hear the following: “We already have a service meeting where everyone can ask questions,” “If they want, they will ask themselves,” or something like that. The first does not work at all - in order to discuss personal problems at a common meeting, one must be frostbitten as an extrovert (like me). The second also generally works only with a small number of the most active guys. Most will suffer in silence and resent in smoking rooms and coffee-points. All this is harmful because it gives a false assurance that you know everything about your team. Because of this confidence, you can miss not only the moment of serious problems with individuals, but also problems in the whole unit.
Another classic question that arises in this place: I have 35 immediate subordinates - if I talk to everyone, who will do the rest of my work? And so is the classic answer: 35 direct subordinates are a mess. If there is no formal opportunity to identify smaller groups among them, simply designate the most responsible guys as “informal leaders” (for example, there is an excellent multi-functional word in the development) and delegate them one-on-one communication, and communicate with them (including about aggregated information by team). And the main thing: do not trust people to work with people with low EQ, even if they are great programmers. Otherwise, problems — and there will be many of them — you will still have to decide.
Let's return to the topic of honesty. One of my leaders at a periodical (I must pay tribute to this) one-on-one meeting said something like, “All is well, you are well done”. At the next performance review, I received a rather low score with a lot of arguments why it was like that. To say that I was very annoyed is to say nothing. Even in spite of the fact that I have not been working in that division for some time, I still have a sediment.
If the manager has questions to the employee’s work, these questions should be delivered as soon as possible. But neat. It is important to understand that the goal of a manager is not to punish an employee, but to make him correct his shortcomings. If there is a feeling that something is wrong - this should be discussed. If the problem is visible, but it does not seem very serious - you need to talk about it in order to fix it quickly. If the problem is critical - this is all the more necessary to talk about. And about the consequences too. And, yes, if a person works fine and generally well done - yes, we should also talk about this.
Here again the question of courage and decisiveness of the leader arises. Not everyone is ready to tell a person by sight that he works poorly (and why). Praise is much easier. And another important fact: it takes enough diplomacy to point out shortcomings in the work that need to be corrected without offending the employee, but at the same time not noticing the problem under the carpet and not minimizing their importance.
There is one classical formula when something goes wrong for the guys: “to teach - to heal - to soak.” Explaining the meaning of this (often sad) story in three parts is worthy of a separate article.
Everyone understands these three words in their own way. For me, “teaching” is to tell what exactly is going wrong, why it is bad and why it needs to be corrected with the elaboration of a plan for correction (often a developer needs only one item: “turn on your head when you are doing <activity>”) and checking that everything has improved. Treatment is an attempt to understand why learning “does not enter”, try to transfer, for example, to other projects, etc. To wet ... well, yes, unfortunately, from time to time it is necessary.
The main thing here is not to confuse order. For example, the most frequent problem for a manager is to skip to treatment immediately, bypassing the first point. Or even to punishment - for example, in the paradigm of “mowing - dismiss”.
In any case, all arguments about the completeness of feedback boil down to the following thesis: if you are satisfied with the employee, he should know why (this is easy). If you are dissatisfied - he especially should know why (it is much more difficult).
Let us return to the counteroffer. To better represent the situation, suppose that an employee came to me by the name of Asya and said that she was leaving for another company or a neighboring team. We will assume that Asya is a good employee who will not bluff and blackmail the manager in order to beat out a pay raise (otherwise the counteroffer is definitely not needed). What should I do as a manager in this case?
All the reasons for leaving can be divided into two classes: they leave the current team and go to the new team. Consider them separately.
In this case, either I did not find a common language with Asya (which, given all the above, is unlikely and speaks of serious problems with communication), or - and this happens quite often too - I know about the problems, but I’m ready to release Asya. Problems are not solved easily or ... we are about honesty - the loss of Asi is not so significant for the team.
In any case, talk to her and find out about the problem is necessary. It is possible to offer a solution to the problem as a “counter-partner” (if you honestly believe that it can be solved). But this is also not the best option. We will assume that Asya and I periodically discuss what excites her. If I still haven’t solved a problem about which I know and because of which (sic!) Employees leave, it means either I continued the problem (in this case it is usually too late to do something), or the solution is very difficult. Another option - Asya could not convey to me the importance of this problem specifically for her. This is probably the worst case. But he talks about poor communication between the employee and the manager. And, most likely, these problems in communication will manifest many times in various other areas, including critical ones. Perhaps for her the most correct decision is to accept an offer in a new company, and for me to let her go.
There is almost nothing to talk about. If she was offered much better conditions than the present, then there is no point in persuading her to remain. The only exception is when I really see potential problems with the new post of Asi and speak directly about them. Without manipulations that I really want to apply, but which will poison further interaction with Asya. An article about honesty!
Again, one should not forget that “by construction” an employee is honestly evaluated by his level within the team, constantly communicates with the manager, voices his problems (or at least has such an opportunity) and understands his perspectives.
Important point: the team may have, for example, areas of responsibility similar to those to which Asya is moving. And there already for a long time and unsuccessfully looking for a person. It would seem that one can offer these areas to Ace - a win-win situation. But there is one big objection: notice that Asya chose to go to another team before finding out the possibilities for growth in her own. Such behavior, most likely, speaks directly about the lack of qualities necessary for a more responsible position: trust in the leader, activity, loyalty, ability to articulate needs and courage to tell about them. So in any case, let go without regret and rejoice for a colleague.
Discussing the option “I like everything here, but it gives us a plus of 100% to the salary” also makes little sense. We understand that Asi has a family, children, parents, a mortgage and we are happy for her.
And, finally, to the question about honesty: I remember several cases when I myself helped organize the transfer of excellent guys from my team to my colleagues. I understood that they were bored, they stayed behind and they don’t see where to grow.
And one more addition. Do not be afraid to lose key developers. In most cases, the loss is quickly compensated. If you are not afraid of this, then it becomes much easier for them and you to live and work. But this is also a topic for a separate article ...
I don’t do a counter offer because:
Be honest and courageous. Talk to people. Then the question of counter-affiliates will arise in front of you much less often, and most likely, it will not arise at all.
PS The world is not black and white - there are always borderline cases and exceptions to the rules (working with people is, unfortunately, not a math). So some special cases can get out of this theory. I am pleased to discuss them in the comments.
Disclaimer: Yandex is very large and different, and I describe here only the principles adopted in the development of Yandex. Health. I am sure that colleagues from other departments may not share my (rather radical) convictions and do not see anything wrong in keeping a good person by making him a counteroffer.
')
A few words about yourself. I am a CTO in the Yandex.Health service, I am responsible for all its technical part: development, testing, operation, etc. The service is growing at a rapid pace, we are actively expanding the team, interviewing techies (developers, testers, admins) and inviting them in large numbers to work. From time to time it happens that good candidates refuse the offer confirmed by them in words. In most cases, having questioned the candidate, we learn that in the current work he or she was given a counter-proposal “which cannot be refused”, and it sounds tastier and more interesting than ours.
This practice is considered normal. And really, can we condemn an ​​employer who wants to keep a valuable employee by any means? However, I myself never do that. In this article I will try to explain why.
I will formulate three conditions and rules for working in a team that allow you to remain honest even in difficult situations. As an example, I will tell you how these rules work when I myself have the temptation to make a counteroffer.
So, three rules: adequate remuneration, frequent synchronization of goals and expectations and full feedback.
Adequate reward
It's simple. It is important that the level of wages (including bonuses and other bonuses) be commensurate with the benefits that a person brings and should not be underestimated or overestimated. It is very easy to check whether the reward is adequate in a team. I call it the “publicity test”. Let's imagine what happens if the salary is publicly announced. Will there be misunderstanding on the part of colleagues? Will there be (even if not asked) questions like "Why is Petit smaller than Vasya?". If there are no such questions, then you are doing everything correctly.
Of course, sometimes there are times when we get Vasya from a neighboring company at “double tariffs”. And his salary is one and a half times higher than that of Petit, who has been working for a long time. But I, as a manager, will think about it ten times before making such an offer to Vasya. And if I do, then Vasya is really worth so much (in the current situation). And I’m not ashamed to look at Pete’s face, telling why Vasya gets one and a half times as much as him. It is important to take into account that we, for example, may be in dire need of developers, and we are ready for any investments, just to get a person. But it is also necessary to understand and not be afraid to say out loud.
Another very important point, about which everyone forgets: the overpayment in this case will be unfair in relation not only to Pete, but also to Vasya. If a person is “overpaid” at the entrance, then I will have corresponding expectations from his work. And here too many problems arise. For example, the assessment of Vasya’s work will be lower than that of Petit’s, and the conditional “career growth” of an overpaid employee almost stops at the time until he “catches” his salary. And then the "sediment remains."
In fact, overpayment is a topic for a completely separate article. There is something to talk about and argue. The main idea is to check the level of your children’s salaries with a “publicity test”. Helpful
I think that there is no point in writing about underpayment. I can only say that the most disgusting of the actions of a manager is to assure an employee who is underpaid that “he is worth so much”. No motivation, burning eyes and big victories in such a team have no reason to wait. It may work in offices with a working day from 9 to 18 and explanatory due to a delay of 15 minutes. With us - it will not work for sure, but we still do not know how.
Frequent synchronization of goals and expectations
The manager must understand what the employee wants: more income, more interesting tasks, more responsibility. The employee must see how and what he needs to do to achieve his goals. Or (this is about honesty) to realize that in this team at a given time, some of these goals will not be achieved. But then such goals should be verbalized and should be periodically negotiated.
A very important note: not only the expectations of the manager from the employee, but also the expectations of the employee from the work (and from the manager) should be explicitly discussed. In what direction does the employee want to grow? Learn new technology? Manage the team? Increase income? This is also a growth, although for some reason it is embarrassing for many to admit this openly - it is not customary for us to be mercantile. By the way, some just want to do their job so that no one interferes. This is also normal. A very important point is to gain trust between the manager and the employee in order to discuss such things without a raid of socially desirable answers and doubts in the spirit of “Well, I can’t just say that I like managing more than writing code!”. In my experience, not all programmers are ready to voice their desires, and you have to guess by hints, gestures and other not very verbal manifestations. It will always be with everyone. The only universal (and obvious) advice to the leader is to pump emotional intelligence .
Well and, I think, it is not necessary to remind about the importance of periodic one-on-one meetings. The leader is obliged (I rarely use this word, but now is the right moment) to meet periodically with my subordinates and talk with them.
Very often we hear the following: “We already have a service meeting where everyone can ask questions,” “If they want, they will ask themselves,” or something like that. The first does not work at all - in order to discuss personal problems at a common meeting, one must be frostbitten as an extrovert (like me). The second also generally works only with a small number of the most active guys. Most will suffer in silence and resent in smoking rooms and coffee-points. All this is harmful because it gives a false assurance that you know everything about your team. Because of this confidence, you can miss not only the moment of serious problems with individuals, but also problems in the whole unit.
Another classic question that arises in this place: I have 35 immediate subordinates - if I talk to everyone, who will do the rest of my work? And so is the classic answer: 35 direct subordinates are a mess. If there is no formal opportunity to identify smaller groups among them, simply designate the most responsible guys as “informal leaders” (for example, there is an excellent multi-functional word in the development) and delegate them one-on-one communication, and communicate with them (including about aggregated information by team). And the main thing: do not trust people to work with people with low EQ, even if they are great programmers. Otherwise, problems — and there will be many of them — you will still have to decide.
Full feedback
Let's return to the topic of honesty. One of my leaders at a periodical (I must pay tribute to this) one-on-one meeting said something like, “All is well, you are well done”. At the next performance review, I received a rather low score with a lot of arguments why it was like that. To say that I was very annoyed is to say nothing. Even in spite of the fact that I have not been working in that division for some time, I still have a sediment.
If the manager has questions to the employee’s work, these questions should be delivered as soon as possible. But neat. It is important to understand that the goal of a manager is not to punish an employee, but to make him correct his shortcomings. If there is a feeling that something is wrong - this should be discussed. If the problem is visible, but it does not seem very serious - you need to talk about it in order to fix it quickly. If the problem is critical - this is all the more necessary to talk about. And about the consequences too. And, yes, if a person works fine and generally well done - yes, we should also talk about this.
Here again the question of courage and decisiveness of the leader arises. Not everyone is ready to tell a person by sight that he works poorly (and why). Praise is much easier. And another important fact: it takes enough diplomacy to point out shortcomings in the work that need to be corrected without offending the employee, but at the same time not noticing the problem under the carpet and not minimizing their importance.
There is one classical formula when something goes wrong for the guys: “to teach - to heal - to soak.” Explaining the meaning of this (often sad) story in three parts is worthy of a separate article.
Everyone understands these three words in their own way. For me, “teaching” is to tell what exactly is going wrong, why it is bad and why it needs to be corrected with the elaboration of a plan for correction (often a developer needs only one item: “turn on your head when you are doing <activity>”) and checking that everything has improved. Treatment is an attempt to understand why learning “does not enter”, try to transfer, for example, to other projects, etc. To wet ... well, yes, unfortunately, from time to time it is necessary.
The main thing here is not to confuse order. For example, the most frequent problem for a manager is to skip to treatment immediately, bypassing the first point. Or even to punishment - for example, in the paradigm of “mowing - dismiss”.
In any case, all arguments about the completeness of feedback boil down to the following thesis: if you are satisfied with the employee, he should know why (this is easy). If you are dissatisfied - he especially should know why (it is much more difficult).
What is wrong with counteroffers
Let us return to the counteroffer. To better represent the situation, suppose that an employee came to me by the name of Asya and said that she was leaving for another company or a neighboring team. We will assume that Asya is a good employee who will not bluff and blackmail the manager in order to beat out a pay raise (otherwise the counteroffer is definitely not needed). What should I do as a manager in this case?
All the reasons for leaving can be divided into two classes: they leave the current team and go to the new team. Consider them separately.
Asya is leaving the current team: boring, hopeless, paying little, unpleasant climate ...
In this case, either I did not find a common language with Asya (which, given all the above, is unlikely and speaks of serious problems with communication), or - and this happens quite often too - I know about the problems, but I’m ready to release Asya. Problems are not solved easily or ... we are about honesty - the loss of Asi is not so significant for the team.
In any case, talk to her and find out about the problem is necessary. It is possible to offer a solution to the problem as a “counter-partner” (if you honestly believe that it can be solved). But this is also not the best option. We will assume that Asya and I periodically discuss what excites her. If I still haven’t solved a problem about which I know and because of which (sic!) Employees leave, it means either I continued the problem (in this case it is usually too late to do something), or the solution is very difficult. Another option - Asya could not convey to me the importance of this problem specifically for her. This is probably the worst case. But he talks about poor communication between the employee and the manager. And, most likely, these problems in communication will manifest many times in various other areas, including critical ones. Perhaps for her the most correct decision is to accept an offer in a new company, and for me to let her go.
Asya goes to a new job: great prospects, interesting projects, big salary, friends called ...
There is almost nothing to talk about. If she was offered much better conditions than the present, then there is no point in persuading her to remain. The only exception is when I really see potential problems with the new post of Asi and speak directly about them. Without manipulations that I really want to apply, but which will poison further interaction with Asya. An article about honesty!
Again, one should not forget that “by construction” an employee is honestly evaluated by his level within the team, constantly communicates with the manager, voices his problems (or at least has such an opportunity) and understands his perspectives.
Important point: the team may have, for example, areas of responsibility similar to those to which Asya is moving. And there already for a long time and unsuccessfully looking for a person. It would seem that one can offer these areas to Ace - a win-win situation. But there is one big objection: notice that Asya chose to go to another team before finding out the possibilities for growth in her own. Such behavior, most likely, speaks directly about the lack of qualities necessary for a more responsible position: trust in the leader, activity, loyalty, ability to articulate needs and courage to tell about them. So in any case, let go without regret and rejoice for a colleague.
Discussing the option “I like everything here, but it gives us a plus of 100% to the salary” also makes little sense. We understand that Asi has a family, children, parents, a mortgage and we are happy for her.
And, finally, to the question about honesty: I remember several cases when I myself helped organize the transfer of excellent guys from my team to my colleagues. I understood that they were bored, they stayed behind and they don’t see where to grow.
And one more addition. Do not be afraid to lose key developers. In most cases, the loss is quickly compensated. If you are not afraid of this, then it becomes much easier for them and you to live and work. But this is also a topic for a separate article ...
Total
I don’t do a counter offer because:
- I believe that a person is satisfied, if he does not tell me the opposite at periodic meetings.
- If a person does not tell me about the problems, then there are no less problems in communication, and probably I have already lost it.
- If a person is dissatisfied, then I know about it in advance and either I can correct and correct problems, or I cannot (perhaps I don’t want to). Then the departure of the person from the team seems logical.
- If a person goes on increasing, then trying to stop him with the help of the counter-affiliate is strange and not very honest. I will leave to think about the question why the proposal from the counteroffer was not made earlier.
Be honest and courageous. Talk to people. Then the question of counter-affiliates will arise in front of you much less often, and most likely, it will not arise at all.
PS The world is not black and white - there are always borderline cases and exceptions to the rules (working with people is, unfortunately, not a math). So some special cases can get out of this theory. I am pleased to discuss them in the comments.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/347246/
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