Accidentally accept that offer sheet from Riot Games? Stuck in that gaming dream job? Working at “THE place to be” in the gaming industry got you down? Now you can get paid to quit!
Riot Games is offering up to $25,000 for employees to leave the company, an initiative they call “Queue Dodge.” New hires can drop their Riot job during their first 60 days, no questions asked, and receive 10 percent of their annual salary in return, up to $25,000.
If you “queue dodge” in League of Legends—leaving a match while in the game lobby— you’ll incur penalties. But in real life, Riot doesn’t want to be stuck with a bad team composition, or locked into a game with a troll playing Karthus in the jungle.
“Rather than allow mismatches to fester, we want to resolve them quickly,” explained Riot in the announcement. “This is good for the company, and good for the professional.”
Riot Games has a reputation for being a great place to work. Last year, they ranked no. 4 in the Business Insider’s list of “The 25 Best Tech Companies To Work For In 2013.” But it has a reputation for having “high standards” and a unique company culture, one that just doesn’t work for some people.
In those cases, it often makes more sense for a company to offer an incentive to leave than to keep a cantankerous worker around. Offering money means a dissatisfied employee won’t need to stick around for just a paycheck.
It’s not the first time a company has offered its employees and incentive to leave. Riot credits Zappos and their CEO Tony Hsieh, who awarded $2,000 to employees who quit way back in 2009, for giving them the idea. Amazon also added a similar program, with up to $5,000 available to disgruntled workers.
The mantra from all three organizations is the same: they only want people who really want to work there sticking around. And what better way to ensure that than cold, hard, cash?
Photo by Chris Yunker/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Photo by Chris Yunkjer
