CEO offers staff US$5K to leave job if they don’t love it after 2 weeks

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona –

A Scottsdale, Ariz.-based tech company, Trainual, says it will offer employees US$5,000 to leave their job if they’re not totally happy after their first two weeks of work. The CEO, Chris Ronzio, says it’s a way to keep the folks who truly want to be there as companies across the country scramble to fill positions.

“We had in the past hired people that would maybe stick around six months or nine months and take some other opportunity,” said Ronzio.”So we thought, ‘how do we make sure that this is the right opportunity for people?'”

He started the firm in 2018. It produces a software platform that allows small businesses to write down and share all of their policies for employees.

Ronzio tells Arizona’s Family that no one has taken advantage of the $5,000 yet, but it’s an idea that goes back to the pandemic’s beginning. “So it started in May of 2020. And right before we launched this, we had a developer, an engineer, that started, and five days into his job, he kind of raised his hand and said, ‘I think I took the wrong job. This isn’t for me,'” Ronzio said.

It got Ronzio thinking if anyone else feels the same way. “Because over three months, six months, nine months, we’re pouring responsibilities onto this person’s plate,” Ronzio said. “And they’re becoming a bigger part of the company. And so if you pull that person out nine months in, it’s much more expensive to replace.”

The idea is if employees are thinking short-term, they might take the money and go, and that might be better for everyone. Of course, Ronzio hopes to keep folks longer with competitive benefits and stock options. From customer support to senior-level engineers, Ronzio says the average salary at the company is $70,000 to $80,000.

Dave Wells, the research director for the Grand Canyon Institute, says he’s never heard anything quite like this before. While this may not work for every industry, like restaurants where higher pay may pay off, turnover may cost a tech company like Trainual a lot of money and productivity.

Wells calls the $5,000 a good investment if you’re putting time and effort into a new hire. “I think this is a great example of how the job market has changed. And how an employer is being really innovative and trying to adjust to that because employees have a lot more power than they’ve had in the past,” he said.

Ronzio sees this as an important twist companies will have to make to adapt, or they will continue to see people leave. He says that everyone has the option to work from home, and they have about six open positions.