Employers and Employees: The Balance of Power

It’s funny (almost), but not quite—the way power rarely rests in the middle. The balance of power seems to always swing from one far end of the pendulum to the other. These extremes are clearer than ever in today’s recruiting world.

A few days ago, I was working with a candidate who received a counter offer from his current place of employment that would essentially escalate his total compensation package by 30% or more. While counter-offers have always been real, companies are currently going to excessive magnitudes to keep their talent on board.

Is this bad? That’s tough to say. In 15+ years of recruiting, I’ve always wondered why the company wasn’t already compensating someone what he or she is worth. The data also shows that somewhere around 50% of employees who accept a counter-offer will leave within a year, and even worse - 71% of senior executives and 67% of HR leaders also said that superiors in the current company would question the employee’s loyalty going forward (Harvard Business Review).

That being said, the reality is that kind of a raise makes a massive practical difference for the person’s life, so it’s hard to turn down.

So who wins in the long run? The company who negotiated to keep the candidate but paid well above what they had most likely budgeted? The candidate? But more importantly, who is winning in the bigger picture of our professional economy? Most companies will tell you these types of salary increases are not sustainable. Perhaps they are - but there are two sides to every coin.

A long time ago, before today’s hot labor market, I had coffee with a friend who voiced her philosophy of work and compensation.

“I try to hold to the 100/100 principle,” she said. “I give 100%—all I’ve got—and I expect my employer to give 100% as well. Regardless of the labor market, I want to work for a company who will do all they can to make work flexible, pay me competitively—essentially, to make things work. I want this to be the case regardless of what the employment market is like, because it will shift eventually.”

Some of the pendulum swing we see today has been a long time in coming. Employers have held too much power, and leveraged that in unfair ways. There have been many artificial limitations and ceilings, and employees are tired of it. But at some point the pendulum will swing back in the other direction as well. So to circle back to my original question—who wins?

Change has to start somewhere.

What if we all came in, believed the best, performed our best, and gave as much as we could? As employers and as employees?

I hear the naysayers. Are there a million practical, messy applications to this that aren’t tied up in a neat bow? Absolutely.

But change has to start with our worldview. There will be people (employers AND employees) who disappoint, who take advantage, on both sides of the table. I’ve been on both ends of that equation, and it’s hard to pick back up and give 100% again. But if we all start approaching our teams with a 100% mentality, how much can change?

I want to be one of the people who starts with giving 100%.

Over the next few blog posts, we’ll cover some of the practical ways we can apply this in our daily lives. But for now, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the balance of power and how we can each give 100%.