I recently had a head hunter reach out to me with an opportunity for a mechanical design engineer position. I've been with my current company for 4 years and I wasn't actively looking to change jobs, but I decided to explore this. After some interviews they made me an offer for $96,000 and 3 weeks PTO. I'm currently making $82,000 with 4 weeks PTO. After I informed my company (it's a small company \~40 employees, I work directly with the owners daily) about this outside offer the owners group got together and came up with a counter offer. I was expecting them to bump me up to about $90,000 with a plan in place to have me take on more responsibility tied to another compensation review in 6-12 months, and I would have accepted that. The actual counter offer they presented was to make me hourly at $47 per hour (effectively \~$97,500, all benefits stay the same, and I could work over time if I want to) I'm thrilled that they are willing to make such a big adjustment to retain me, but I'm hesitant about moving to hourly. Over the 4 years I've worked here I've settled into a schedule of 8:30am to 4:00pm with an hour for lunch. No one has ever complained about my work output or my attendance, and I get all the work asked of me done. I value that autonomy and freedom greatly, and don't want to lose it. How can I bring this up with management without sounding like I just want to work less?
TLDR:
current job: Salary $82,000. 4 weeks PTO
outside offer: Salary $97,000. 3 weeks PTO
Current job counter: $47/hr. All other benefits the same
I want to stay salaried to maintain my working style and freedom. How do I broach that with management?