Believe it or not, counteroffers are still one of the most common reactions to a resignation in fresh produce and horticulture. They could be more money, sometimes a better job title, or even just reassurance that ‘things will change’. On paper, they look like a perfectly sensible attempt to stop a good person walking out of the door.

But patterns don’t usually repeat themselves consistently by accident, and time and time again I see them fail. The issue with counteroffers isn't generosity or intent. It’s that they’re often trying to fix the wrong thing, at the wrong moment.

Resignations in fresh produce are rarely impulsive - don’t get me wrong, I see some snap decisions for sure, but people don’t tend to wake up mid‑season and suddenly decide they’ve had enough. Most stick it out, they tell themselves it’ll calm down, they wait for harvest to finish, they don’t want to let the team down or cause disruption. By the time a counteroffer is made, the real decision usually happened weeks, sometimes months, earlier.

Often, it’s the moment someone stopped raising the same issues again, or when they realised the workload wasn’t temporary anymore, or even when someone else left, wasn’t replaced, and their role quietly absorbed the extra pressure. The resignation is just the administrative step at the end, like a break-up that you’d mourned way before you moved out. A counteroffer addresses the moment you notice the problem, not the moment it began.

Salary does matter in fresh produce. The work is demanding, the responsibility is real, and people absolutely notice when they’re underpaid. But pay is rarely the root cause of disengagement on its own. More often, it becomes symbolic as the thing people can point to when the actual frustration is harder to articulate:

• unclear progression in a flat structure

• responsibility without authority

• constant firefighting with no breathing space

• being technically strong but permanently stretched

• feeling noticed only when something goes wrong

When a counteroffer arrives, it can feel less like recognition and more like confirmation: the value was always there - it just wasn’t offered until I tried to leave.

From where I stand, working in the fresh produce/horticulture industries actually makes this worse - structurally, not emotionally. This isn’t about bad employers or unreasonable expectations. It’s about how the industry actually operates. Fresh produce businesses tend to have:

• tight hierarchies

• limited lateral career moves

• progression that depends on someone leaving

Counteroffers often promise future change in organisations that don’t have much room to change the structure itself. So people stay…briefly. Not because they’re suddenly re‑motivated, but because loyalty still matters and because the season still needs them. Which brings us to the bit that rarely gets talked about: life after the counteroffer, where trust quietly erodes.

When a counteroffer is accepted, it’s often described as a “retention win”. In reality, something fundamental has shifted.

From the employer’s side:

• There’s a lingering question about commitment

• Future pay rises feel “used up”

• Responsibility increases faster than support

From the employee’s side:

• They know what it took to be valued

• They’re aware they’ve mentally stepped out once already

• The problems that pushed them to leave haven’t magically disappeared

Even in the healthiest environments, the relationship is subtly altered, the counteroffer doesn’t reset the clock, it almost starts a countdown. And I fully accept that as a recruiter, I tend to meet people when that countdown expires. Survivorship bias is very real, but it’s striking how often candidates describe the months after a counteroffer as worse, not better. Heavier expectations, higher scrutiny, less goodwill on both sides.

The most effective retention in fresh produce almost never happens at the resignation stage, it happens:

• In regular conversations about workload, not just performance

• When limitations are acknowledged honestly, not over‑promised

• When recognition appears before dissatisfaction becomes visible

It’s rarely dramatic, and it certainly doesn’t arrive in a panic meeting with a revised contract. Counteroffers are, by nature, very blunt, and blunt tools don’t really work well on subtle problems.

So if counteroffers are still losing (even when the money’s better), it’s not because people are ungrateful or disloyal. It’s because, by that point, the decision you’re trying to influence has usually already been made. And of course, I would say that. I’m a recruitment consultant, but I am one who sees the same endings often enough to recognise how the story usually goes.