Original article appearing on Medium

I’ll paint you a hypothetical scenario: “Hey, we’ll need to lay a couple of developers off at the end of the year. They are the best on the team and have been performing above and beyond, however, we are having financial problems.”

Two weeks later, you discover that they attempted to poach my employee they let go and they were claiming that they were paying my agency far too much money and that they simply needed to pay $X/3 less (basically a dramatization of the cost).

I do wish this wasn’t a real scenario I’ve had to deal with in the past, but it happened recently at the end of this year.

First off, our prices are rather reasonable considering the generate rates of the majority of my rivals and similarly qualified team members. As a business owner, I should be aware of the market since I need to offer competitive pricing else employees will leave for greener pastures.

There are also a lot of articles about how much to charge and why hourly rates are actually against those, especially for people whose experience enables them to deliver more quickly w/ better quality. It might be challenging to charge by the project if the scope is ongoing, but it can be done.

I do have a contract in place about stealing personnel from either side, but the client obviously has a little bit more sway because they decide how much money gets spent.

In either situation, if the client discovered that we were attempting to poach their team, they would quickly terminate us.

If you are even in this situation, here are some steps you can take to potentially mitigate the situation:

1. Review the conditions of your client agreement: A condition that forbids the client from contacting or employing your workers after the contract has finished should be sought out.
2. Look over the contract provisions with your employee: Look for any conditions that forbid the employee from working for the client or a business that is similar, such as a non-compete or non-solicitation agreement.
3. Be in touch with your employee: Recognize the viewpoint and motivations of the departing employee.
4. Get in touch with the client: Ask them to explain their behavior and express your worries.
5. Analyze the effect that could have on your company: Take into account the potential loss of a crucial employee as well as the potential harm to your reputation and client connection.
6. Think about taking legal action: If the client has broken the terms of your contract or the contract with an employee, you might wish to speak with a lawyer to learn more about your legal alternatives.
7. Consider making a counteroffer to the employee in an effort to retain them by providing stronger incentives, chances, or benefits.

It’s crucial to keep in mind that in any circumstance, open and honest communication is essential, and to work toward coming to a mutually beneficial solution.

We always say that communication and trust is a two-way street and when that starts to happen, bridges are burned and Karma likes to show itself in one way or another.

“ Whatever thoughts or energy you put out, you get back — good or bad. In order to get what you want, you have to embody and be worthy of those things. It’s the concept of what you reap, you sow.” — 1st law of Karma

Connect with me @Makoto Kern — IIIMPACT, Inc.

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