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about a year ago this competitor sprang up.... and they keep trying to take my people away... they'll contact them on email, on the phone, at public events, or through intermediaries in the industry who they know know us. they tried to get to me a couple times too. they've even tried to work through family members of people on my team.

its kind of amazing that no one has taken their bait and gone over. but then again, they really don't garner a lot of respect.

but anyway, i just wonder what to do about this, if anything. some of this is just part of business competition, right? but when does it cross the line to harassment. at the least i'd say we're at the point where it's just pretty low class and not cool.

am i being punked if i don't reach over to the competitor and tell them to cut this bs out? or should i keep being the bigger entity and let it roll off my back. my boss has considered making our lawyer aware. i don't know what that'll accomplish.

mostly, i just feel like they are disrespecting me with this approach, so i should do something back, no? or do my emotions really have no relevance in the matter, and they should be ignored.

what do i want to happen? i want them to know we're not here to let you keep punking us. thinking you can go after our people, and talk crap about us to our clients all the time. and i want them to lay off the non stop recruitment.

rwwh's picture
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 Your message sounds really emotional. This is not the right attitude to contact your competitor. Cool off first.

It is quite usual that competitors talk at high level. You could probably call them up and tell them the consequences of their behavior. They may not realize what they are doing.

Be aware that there are many business things you can not discuss legally.

rwwh's picture
Licensee BadgeTraining Badge

 Duplicate removed

Camby's picture

yea, i wouldn't let emotions get into our response... but i just wonder how much it is affecting our thought process on this

reaching out and being like, please stop, everyone here knows you have an open door to them, so you don't need to keep letting everyone know... that sounds like a first step... but as far as the consequences of them not stopping, i mean, if it rises to the level of harassment, i suppose that could have some formal legal consequence ....

in reality, the consquence of them not stopping is that they look desperate and are annoying my people, so maybe that's actually a good thing for us.

timrutter's picture

Two of the biggest compliments in business. They want your people, because you have good people. Your people aren't going, you're succeeding as a manager

Tim

Nil Desperandum Experto Crede

Camby's picture

funny thing ... so they finally did get someone to bite. this person is talented, but inconsistent, and a super headcase. very high maintenance. no one liked working with her. kind of relieved to see the person go, even though the person will certainly be an asset to the competitor. im sure they'll experience the same headaches too as the person can't help but alienate others. in fact, it wasnt more than 3 months ago i was close to firing the person. that was the second time i was close to firing.

anyway, odd twist is that my boss has us counter with what i think was an egregious counter offer. it was very out of step with our pay scale, especially for someone of this person's production track record.

the counter was rejected. im kinda thankful of that. i had told my boss i was against such a big counter.

so im curious of what you guys think of counter offer dynamic and how it played out.

Kevin1's picture

 Well done

mjpeterson's picture

Giving her the counter was a very dangerous precedent.  You should assume your staff is going to find out about the counter offer.  So now your team might be tempted to talk to these guys, just to get an offer on the table.  Then they can go to you and ask for a counter offer.Since you were willing to counter for a mid to low level team member, what should your top people think? 

Maybe you can go to your boss and see if you can get raises for your folks proactively, instead of waiting for them start entertaining offers from the competition.  Can you divide the money that would have gone towards the counter offer and spread it amongst your folks.  You were willing to spend the money to keep your low performer.  Why not spend the money to keep your top performers.  It will make them twice as hard to recruit. 

Camby's picture

yea, it was a ridiculous precedent ... word travels, so i told a few people right under me that we didn't counter. i figure that got around. no one trusts the person who left anyway, so they would probably not find anything she would say about it credible.

we also did do what you said, i was able to give out 3 raises, seemingly spontaneously