What Can You Do When a Competitor Poaches Your Employees?

You find out through the grapevine, or sometimes directly from a nervous employee, that a competitor has been making calls. Maybe one person has already left. Maybe two people on the same team have had conversations with the same recruiter in the same week. The urgency is immediate and the instinct is usually reactive: counter-offer, contract, panic.

All three of those instincts can make the situation worse if they are not grounded in something more strategic. Let’s talk about what is actually happening and what a thoughtful response looks like.

Poaching is information, not just an attack

When a competitor targets your employees, the first question worth asking is not how do I stop this — it is why are my people listening. A recruiter call goes nowhere with an employee who is fully engaged, well compensated, and genuinely excited about what they are building with you. The calls that gain traction are the ones that land on someone who was already halfway out the door or at least halfway open to a conversation.

That does not mean your employees are disloyal. It means they are human. Everyone evaluates their situation periodically, especially when someone puts a competing offer in front of them. The question for you as a leader is not whether your people will be approached. They will. The question is whether the foundation you have built is strong enough that the approach does not go anywhere.

When it does go somewhere — when people are leaving or seriously considering it — that is information about your organization. The competitor is not creating the vulnerability. They are finding it.

Consultant aside: When I work with companies navigating a poaching situation, the first thing I do is a quick retention pulse. Not a formal survey — a series of direct conversations with key people about how they are feeling about their work, their growth, their compensation, and their future here. What I almost always find is that the people who are most at risk already had a signal that was not being picked up. The poaching is not the beginning of the problem. It is the moment the problem becomes visible.

The counter-offer conversation: proceed carefully

When someone comes to you with a competing offer, the counter-offer conversation is one of the most delicate in management. Done well, it can retain a great employee and strengthen the relationship. Done poorly, it creates a dynamic where employees learn that the way to get a raise is to threaten to leave — and where the employee who stays often leaves anyway within the year.

The research on counter-offers is sobering. The majority of employees who accept a counter-offer are still gone within twelve months. The reasons they were looking in the first place — the growth ceiling, the management relationship, the cultural frustration, the feeling of being undervalued — do not disappear because the salary went up. They just get quieter for a while.

Before you make a counter-offer, ask yourself two things. First, is the compensation genuinely below market and was that the primary driver? If the answer is yes and you can correct it, a counter-offer may stick. Second, is there a deeper reason this person was listening to a recruiter? If the honest answer is yes, address that directly in the conversation rather than hoping the money closes the gap.

What actually retains people when a competitor is circling

The employees who are hardest to poach are the ones who feel like they are building something, who have a clear sense of where they are going, and who trust that the people leading them have their interests in mind. None of those things come from a retention bonus. They come from the quality of the management relationship and the clarity of the growth conversation.

If a competitor is successfully recruiting from your team, the most durable response is not a contract or a compensation bump. It is an honest look at what your people actually need and whether they are getting it. That means proactive one-on-ones where growth and compensation are discussed openly before they become exit conversations. It means recognizing people specifically and regularly. It means making sure the work your best people are doing is actually connected to something that matters.

This is not soft advice. It is the most practical retention strategy available to you because it addresses the actual reason people leave rather than the symptom that shows up at the end.

Consultant aside: One of the most effective retention moves I have seen companies make during a poaching situation is the stay interview — a structured conversation with key employees that asks directly: what would make you stay, what would make you leave, and what is the one thing we could do differently that would make the biggest difference to you? Most employees have never been asked. The answers are almost always actionable. And the act of asking sends a signal that matters more than most leaders realize.

Non-solicitation agreements: what they can and cannot do

Some leaders reach for non-solicitation or non-compete agreements as a response to poaching. These have a role in certain contexts, but their limitations are worth understanding clearly. Non-solicitation agreements — which restrict former employees from soliciting current colleagues to leave — are generally more enforceable than non-competes and can provide some protection against coordinated departures.

Non-competes, which restrict where a former employee can work, face increasing legal scrutiny. Several states have significantly limited or banned them for most employees. The FTC has attempted broader restrictions as well, and the legal landscape continues to evolve. Relying on non-competes as a primary retention strategy is not just legally uncertain — it is a signal to employees that you are trying to trap them rather than earn their loyalty. That signal does its own damage.

If you do not currently have non-solicitation language in your employment agreements and you are in a competitive talent market, it is worth adding for key roles. But treat it as a floor, not a strategy.

The Consultant Lens

After working with companies navigating active poaching situations, the organizations that come out of it strongest are the ones that use the moment as a forcing function. They do the retention work they had been deferring. They have the compensation conversations that felt inconvenient before someone left. They build the growth visibility and management practices that make the next round of recruiter calls less effective.

The organizations that stay vulnerable are the ones that respond tactically — a counter-offer here, a bonus there — without addressing the underlying conditions that made their people recruitable in the first place. The competitor will call again. And the next time, the offer might be better.

This is usually the moment when leaders pause and realize that the poaching is not the problem they need to solve. It is the signal pointing to the problem they have been putting off.

You cannot stop competitors from calling your people. You can build an environment where those calls do not find much traction. That environment is built one conversation, one growth opportunity, and one honest recognition at a time. It is the least dramatic retention strategy and the most effective one.

The best defense against poaching is not a contract. It is a team that does not want to leave — and a leader who earns that every day rather than assuming it.

What I’d Recommend if This Sounds Familiar

If you are currently in the middle of a poaching situation, the most useful immediate step is a stay interview with your highest-risk employees — the people a competitor would most want and who have the most options. Not a performance conversation. A genuine check-in about what they need and whether they are getting it.

From there, the work is building the retention foundation that makes the next round of calls less effective: growth visibility, compensation that reflects the market, and management relationships that give people a reason to stay that goes beyond inertia.

Schedule a call with me if you want to think through your retention strategy, build a stay interview process, or review your compensation structure against market. These are exactly the situations where a short outside perspective can help you see clearly what is hard to see from inside.

---

About Savvy HR Partner

Savvy HR Partner is an HR and payroll consulting firm that helps growing organizations build strong people operations. We specialize in HR strategy, compliance, employee relations, policy development, compensation guidance, and payroll support designed to scale with your business.

To learn more about our services, visit www.savvyhrpartner.com.

You can also follow Savvy HR Partner on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram for practical HR insights and guidance for founders, leaders, and HR professionals.

If you are looking for HR support, you can schedule an appointment during HR Office Hours.