JIM KENNEDY • DEC 2015

Sell the Job with Three Paychecks

Have you noticed a recent trend in which candidates who have been made an offer by your company go to their current employer and get a counter-offer? The counter-offer keeps valued high-quality employees from leaving.

The next time you want to convince a candidate to join your company, consider relating the opportunities using the Three Paycheck formula.

• The first paycheck is the cash compensation.

• The second paycheck is the positive impact the position has on the candidate's career or learning curve.

• The third paycheck relates to whether or not the person likes and respects the people he or she works with.

Use as many of these as possible to register the opportunity of your offer. If you can't compete on one, then compete on the other two.

Apply the same formula to retain your best employees. For instance, if your organization has put a freeze on salary increases, maybe there is an opportunity to expand marketable skills, or join a sought-after project. Encourage employees to think twice about changing jobs to correct just one paycheck.