Counter-offers and resignations: keeping an engineer who's handed in notice

It's Friday, half three. Your best shift engineer knocks on the office door with an envelope. They've got a job at a site ten miles away. More money, days only, no on-call.

They're the one who knows the palletiser. They wrote half the PLC changes on line 2. They're the first name you ring when nights get stuck.

Your first thought is the obvious one. What will it take to keep them?

Slow down. The first conversation after a resignation decides more than the offer you make.

Ask why before you talk money

Most managers go straight to pay. Match the offer, add a bit, job done.

Sometimes that works. Often the money is the reason they gave, and something else is the reason they're going. Six months of covering an empty post. A rota that's wrecked their weekends. A breakdown last month where production stood over them for three hours and nobody backed them up. A training course promised two years ago that never came.

So ask, and then listen. Why now? What made you start looking? If you could change one thing here, what would it be?

Write the answers down. Even if they still leave, you've learned what's pushing people out. Our post on exit interviews with engineers goes into the questions that get honest answers.

Should you counter?

Here's our view. A counter-offer on money alone rarely fixes the problem. It buys you time.

If the only reason is pay, and you've been paying below the market, then fix the pay. But ask yourself why it took a resignation letter to do it. Everyone else on the team doing the same job will hear about the new rate within a week. If they're still on the old one, you've just told them how to get a pay rise.

If the reason is the rota, the workload or the way they're treated on breakdowns, more money won't hold them. They'll take it, and they'll be looking again within the year.

The counter-offers that work fix the real reason, for the whole team. A second engineer on nights so nobody's on their own. An on-call rota that's actually shared. Pay brought up to the market for every engineer on the team. See keeping good engineers when the site down the road pays more for what that looks like.

If you can't fix the reason, don't make the offer. Thank them, and plan for them going.

What the notice period really gives you

Check the contract. That's where the notice period lives. By law, an employee who's been in the job for more than a month must give at least a week's notice* (GOV.UK). Most engineering contracts ask for a month or more. The notice usually runs from the day after they hand it in.

A few other points from the same guidance are worth knowing:

• If someone resigns in the "heat of the moment" and changes their mind, the employer "can choose to accept your resignation or not" (GOV.UK). So a letter handed over after a bad night isn't always final.
• You can put them on garden leave. They stay away from work for the notice, on the same pay and contractual benefits (GOV.UK).
• Their contract may have restrictive covenants, for example a ban on working for a competitor for a time after they leave (GOV.UK). Take advice before you lean on one.

Garden leave is rarely the right call for a maintenance engineer going to a site in another industry. You need them on the tools and passing on what they know.

Use every shift of the notice

If they're going, the notice period is the most useful month you'll get from them. Use it.

Start with what only they know. Walk the site with them and a notebook. Which machines do they fix that nobody else does? What are the tricks? The sensor on the infeed that needs cleaning every Tuesday. The drive that trips if you restart it too soon. The panel where the drawings don't match the wiring.

Then get it written down:

1. A list of the machines they're the go-to person for
2. The repeat faults on each, and what fixes them
3. Any changes they've made to PLC programs, with the backups saved and named
4. The suppliers and machine makers they ring, with numbers

Pair them with whoever will pick it up. Not in a classroom. On real jobs, on real shifts. If nobody on the team can pick it up, you've found a single-skill risk you didn't know you had.

And check the PLC backups now, while they're still around to tell you which version is live. A program that only lives on their laptop walks out the door with them. Our article on PLC program backups covers how to keep them safe.

Plan the gap before it opens

Their last day will come, and the replacement won't be ready. Even if you start recruiting today, a new engineer has their own notice to work.

Look at the rota for the first eight weeks after they go. Which shifts lose the most skill? Book cover for those now. A contract engineer as a stop-gap on the hardest shifts keeps the line covered and stops the rest of the team picking up the slack for months.

Leaving it costs more. The first big breakdown after they go is the one that runs all night, because the person who would have fixed it in an hour is ten miles away. Work out what that hour of downtime costs and the cover pays for itself.

What to do on Monday

1. If someone has handed in notice, ask why before you mention money, and write the answers down.
2. List what only they know, and book time on shift for them to hand it over.
3. Check every PLC backup they look after is saved, named and somewhere the team can find it.
4. Book cover for the shifts that lose the most skill when they go.

* Minimum notice period correct as of 11 October 2026. Check GOV.UK for the latest. This is general information, not legal advice.