I found parts of the handbook insightful, but that bit about competing offers and promotions bothered me too. The section goes on:
> After you fold, three things happen:
> Word gets out that “all you need to do to get a raise is to ask for it.” You have sent out the message that raises aren’t tied to performance.
> Less aggressive employees will be denied a raise simply by being apolitical.
> The lesson to your team is that the most politically astute employees get raises. Prepare for more politics!
If an employee comes to you with a 'competitive offer' (read: pays more), then it means someone else judges their market wage to be higher than what you are paying. If your assessment of that employee's value is higher than the amount they're being offered, you should admit to yourself that the jig is up, they're no longer going to accept being paid below their market wage, and you should match or better the offer. It's not 'caving', it's paying a sufficient wage to retain a valued employee. It's not 'politics', it's the labour market. I find the whole undertone of this section, that it's somehow being sneaky or 'political' for an employee to figure out that you're underpaying them, to be borderline offensive.
Fine, your perfectly rational strategy might be to sacrifice one high-value employee so you can continue to underpay your other employees (wouldn't want them to get the idea that they can ask for a raise, right?), but it's the dishonesty of this section that gets me.
Their proposed solutions are equally silly:
> Put a process around raises. Do them annually, and don’t make them out of band.
> Create a leveling system that can be referred to objectively.
> Never cave to people who have competing offers.
Sounds like a good way to steadily lose your best talent to your labour market competitors.
> After you fold, three things happen:
> Word gets out that “all you need to do to get a raise is to ask for it.” You have sent out the message that raises aren’t tied to performance.
> Less aggressive employees will be denied a raise simply by being apolitical.
> The lesson to your team is that the most politically astute employees get raises. Prepare for more politics!
If an employee comes to you with a 'competitive offer' (read: pays more), then it means someone else judges their market wage to be higher than what you are paying. If your assessment of that employee's value is higher than the amount they're being offered, you should admit to yourself that the jig is up, they're no longer going to accept being paid below their market wage, and you should match or better the offer. It's not 'caving', it's paying a sufficient wage to retain a valued employee. It's not 'politics', it's the labour market. I find the whole undertone of this section, that it's somehow being sneaky or 'political' for an employee to figure out that you're underpaying them, to be borderline offensive.
Fine, your perfectly rational strategy might be to sacrifice one high-value employee so you can continue to underpay your other employees (wouldn't want them to get the idea that they can ask for a raise, right?), but it's the dishonesty of this section that gets me.
Their proposed solutions are equally silly:
> Put a process around raises. Do them annually, and don’t make them out of band.
> Create a leveling system that can be referred to objectively.
> Never cave to people who have competing offers.
Sounds like a good way to steadily lose your best talent to your labour market competitors.