Editor’s note: This story was originally published on September 6, 2018.
Sometimes a new job turns out not to be the dream job you thought it was. But you can’t always afford to walk away from a paycheck.
Unless the company pays you to leave.
Some companies facilitate parting ways, paying disgruntled employees to bow out gracefully.
Executive Brief
At online retailer Zappos, new hires are offered a month’s salary to leave within three months of starting their position. Amazon offers some workers up to $5,000 once a year to leave.
Why would a company pay someone to quit? Because it can also be in the interest of the employer.
“We want you here because you believe in the company’s vision and goals and can make a difference,” said Megan Petrini, director of Zappos’ new hiring program.
Zappos is not your typical office.
“We often have parades,” he said. “If a parade comes down and you’re on the phone and you can’t hear … and if that ruins your day, you’re not going to be happy here.”
Zappo’s policy is officially called the Graceful Leave Policy, but is more commonly referred to as “The Offer.” He’s about halfway through the company’s four-week training program. It is good for three months from an employee’s start date.
“That way they can see what it’s like in training and get a feel for their position and really make sure it’s the right fit for them to be happy,” he said.
Some years, no one takes the Offer. Other years, it is more popular. So far this year, three people have taken the company on it.
“It was higher than normal,” Petrini said. “But the nice thing is that we know that the people who work here have been chosen to work here and that they have been offered money to resign.”
Amazon, building on the idea of ​​Zappos (which it bought in 2009), offers a similar program called Pay to Quit. Once a year, fulfillment center workers are offered the opportunity to leave the company. The offer is $2,000 the first year and increases by $1,000 each year to a maximum of $5,000.
“We want people who work at Amazon and want to be here. In the long run, living somewhere you don’t want to be is not healthy for our employees or the company,” an Amazon spokesperson told CNN.
The program has been in place since 2013. “We tell them in advance that we hope they don’t take the offer. In fact, we want them to stay.”
While offering employees cash to leave can help with productivity and morale, high acceptance rates may mean it’s time to reevaluate how a company hires.
“Check with your hiring process, who we’re hiring, how we’re developing them and whether we’re matching jobs to skills,” said John Baldoni, executive coach and author of “Moxie: The Secret to Bold and Gutsy Leadership.”
But programs can also fail and may not be effective at weeding out the bad apples.
“Quite often, the people who could take advantage of it might be your good performers who have options,” he said. “People who don’t have options, who are dead wood and cling to a job, have nowhere else to go.”
