The CEO of a software company is offering new hires a $5,000 bonus if they quit the company on the two-week anniversary of their hiring if they are not enthusiastic about their job.
Chris Ronzio, CEO of Trainual, said he has found it less expensive to give the bonus to someone who is “feeling anything but excited” about their job than to keep them on, investing in time and training.
“With today’s market, hiring teams have to move quickly to assess candidates and get them through the process to a competitive offer, so it’s impossible to be right 100% of the time,” Ronzio told Business Insider. “The offer to quit allows the dust to settle from a speedy process and let the new team member throw a red flag if they’re feeling anything but excited.”
Ronzio first introduced the incentive in May 2020 and then offered $2,500 to quit. He recently increased the offer to $5,000.
He said none of the 38 employees hired since have followed through on the pay-to-quit offer.
“We looked at our average salary when we considered changing the amount and ultimately figured that if somebody is making $80,000 or $100,000 a year, then $2,500 might not be significant enough,” Ronzio said. “They could decide to stay while they look for another job because they’ll make more staying. So we adjusted the number with that in mind.”
According to its website, Trainual has served thousands of businesses in more than 120 countries since January 2018 and “aims to arm every small business with a playbook for scale.”
Trainual is not the only company that uses the bonus system. According to Human Resources Director, Zappos and Amazon also offer bonuses to leave if employees do not seem to be the right fit for the job at the end of the onboarding window.