I think this is a good conversation to have. I broadly agree with the majority voice of the comments, that though it can be difficult and unfair to have your employees headhunted away from you after you invested in their development and planned around them being here, ultimately it seems better to allow it to happen because of the benefits to the employee and their new employer.
At the same time, I do want to acknowledge that there is a version of this behaviour that is a problem. To the extent that any headhunter is:
disrespectful of people’s time by trying to involve them in processes that aren’t suitable for or interesting to them,
persistent in the face of polite refusal from the employee in question,
in any aspect intentionally misleading or dishonest,
then I’m sure we’d all agree they were doing something wrong. It’s harder to prevent this kind of behaviour, because it’s often subjective when the line has been crossed, but I’d support a general understanding that if a headhunter does this kind of thing, then we hold both them and the organization they are hiring for responsible, perhaps privately at first and then publically if the behaviour persists. Anyone using recruiters or headhunters should feel under an obligation to ensure their agents are acting in ways consistent with their own values.
I think this is a good conversation to have. I broadly agree with the majority voice of the comments, that though it can be difficult and unfair to have your employees headhunted away from you after you invested in their development and planned around them being here, ultimately it seems better to allow it to happen because of the benefits to the employee and their new employer.
At the same time, I do want to acknowledge that there is a version of this behaviour that is a problem. To the extent that any headhunter is:
disrespectful of people’s time by trying to involve them in processes that aren’t suitable for or interesting to them,
persistent in the face of polite refusal from the employee in question,
in any aspect intentionally misleading or dishonest,
then I’m sure we’d all agree they were doing something wrong. It’s harder to prevent this kind of behaviour, because it’s often subjective when the line has been crossed, but I’d support a general understanding that if a headhunter does this kind of thing, then we hold both them and the organization they are hiring for responsible, perhaps privately at first and then publically if the behaviour persists. Anyone using recruiters or headhunters should feel under an obligation to ensure their agents are acting in ways consistent with their own values.