Wow, what a week that has been. On a high note, us Cantabs had our annual Cup and Show week. On a not so high note, I spent the majority of the weekend with a stomach bug. And on a really low, totally over it note, most of New Zealand woke up to some serious rumbling in the early hours of this morning. Kaikoura is essentially cut off due to land slides and damaged roads, Wellington CBD is a mess - For once, it seems like Christchurch was resilient to the brunt of Mother Nature's force.
Today, I'm sitting on the couch working from home, and it got me thinking…
For some of us, it’s near the end of a miserable year at work, you’re over it, and the decision has been made that 2017 is the year to move on to (hopefully) better things. Believe me, I have been there. A couple of years ago, I was working for a company where I was bullied, where there was no career progression, all in all – no future, and funnily enough that took me into an eight month stint in recruitment.
By no means am I an expert, but I wanted to use my experience to share the factors I weighed up, and often ask others to weigh up before making the decision to move on.
Never ever, EVER let money be your main driver.
There’s a saying that you can only accept a counter offer once, and there are a few very good reasons for that. For one, if you’re already unhappy in your role, it’s only going to be a matter of time before the financial benefit is outweighed again by the environmental factors. Secondly, there’s the boy who cried wolf story, and we all know how that ends. You “threaten” to leave thinking that your current workplace will fork out an extra few thousand to keep you without actually having an opportunity lined up - Na ah honey, it doesn’t work that way, and you’ve already made the decision to leave so what is going to change to leave you fulfilled in your role? It’s a road I like to call the “emotional journey” and it is particularly applicable if you have another offer on the table. You have gone through the motions of determining why you want to leave, you’ve secured interviews, you’ve invested a great deal of time and effort into researching and interviewing with a new company and you’re excited about the potential opportunities. To sum it up, you’ve checked out from your workplace, and you’re no longer interested in their story or what they have to offer.
There’s two things that aren’t going to look good on your CV. One is taking a “fill in” role until something better comes up. You need to sit tight and wait for the right opportunity. The second is getting to the offer stage of the interview process only to turn around and take a counter offer from your old work place. That’s why a good recruiter will a.) take the time to have a conversation about why you are ready to move on, and b.) won’t put you in a role below your skill set because they know you’ll be itching to exit the business within months.
Which is why it’s so important to firstly weight up the pros and cons of your current role, and ask yourself some serious questions.
You’re feeling stuck. Have you had a conversation with management about progression?
Progression doesn’t even have to mean a complete role change or promotion, it can simply be adding in some course work relevant to your role, or taking on a couple of extra tasks from another department. Maybe that means some tertiary papers, or mentoring a junior team member.
With the evolution of HR, many companies have invested greatly in improving culture and longevity in the workplace. They want to hold on to their top talent, but you need to let them know that you are invested in the company and are one heck of a motivated individual who wants to progress, and you will need to have a strong idea of how that may look. Obviously there are companies that are going to be the exception to this, but if you are in the lucky position where you enjoy your place of work, talking to management about progression opportunities is a good first step before throwing the towel in.
There are real cases out there where people are taken advantage of financially, but are you really being underpaid?
I once had to write my boss a three page essay on why I deserved a raise. I was 18 then, on minimum wage, and the following were all things I had to consider to aid my case. Take a look at salary surveys, talk to friends in similar roles. If you’re going to take this up with your boss, you’re going to need to be far more prepared than “I work hard so I deserve a raise”. It’s only human to go for a little extra in the back pocket, because it’s a factor we can control unlike the people we work with and company culture. It’s so easy to convince ourselves that we deserve something if we know it’s going to be of benefit, but how are we to know if we really deserve to be rewarded? How have your performance reviews gone recently, have you had any good feedback? Where have you taken measures to go above and beyond the call of duty and improve yourself professionally? You need to be brutally honest with yourself about these things, and at the same time identify areas of improvement.
So you’ve gone through all of this, and the answer is still looking like you're ready to move on. Now you need to determine a few things about the non-negotiables for your new role. The below are some questions I would ask every candidate I spoke to:
1. What type of culture are you looking for in a potential company?
2. What size company do you like working for? This is more important than you may think - IE a big corporate, or do you prefer a smaller company where you can identify issues and rectify them easily?
3. How do you want your new manager to treat you?
4. What field/industry do you want to be in?
5. Think long term about progression opportunities, where do you want to be in X years time? Bearing in mind an offer to progress may involving starting from the bottom again.
Now I’m not saying you should expect everything to be handed to you on a silver platter, especially if you are of a younger generation. GEN Y’s in particular have a reputation for wanting reward before the work is done, and that's just not going to fly. I worked pretty damn hard to get where I am. Countless weeks working 60+ hours, always putting my hand up to learn new tasks. I put up with 18 months of being held back and being told I wasn’t ready to progress by my own manager, despite competently taking over the tasks he was failing to complete while he was taking his daily three hour lunch break. People saw I was a hard worker, but I was miserable. The way I was feeling at work was creeping into my personal life and that made me re-evaluate things.
6. What does work life balance mean to you?
Ah, work life balance – what does that mean to you?
I am a huge believer in work/life balance and making it work for each individual, because it needs to be tailored to our specific needs. For me, it’s an earlier start, early finish so I can get to the gym at a reasonable hour and have dinner before eight. It’s being able to work flexible hours, if I had a few appointments one week. It’s being trusted to do your role and not having management clock watch when you come and go. It’s the ability to work from home if I need to, and do my role from anywhere. For others, it may be fitting work around children, not having to travel more than 20 minutes to get to the office, having the opportunity to travel – or not at all. When you’re considering what balance means to you, be mindful that to tick all of these boxes, you may need to lower your salary expectations slightly, depending on your requirements. Also bear in mind the flipside – are you happy with where you are personally? Yes, a toxic working environment can make you miserable at home, but it can has just as negative an effect if you’re struggling to leave your personal life at the door before you enter the workplace each day.
I once interviewed a man who told me a story about being in a room full of people who were asked if they had their work life balance in check. He was the only one to put his hand up. He was also the only one who had been in a life threating accident, and apparently the only one to have his priorities in order. You don’t need to have a near death experience to get yourself in check, simply take some to figure out what is important to you and move forward from there.
Are you feeling like 2017 is the year for change? I'd love to hear from you and talk about your plans!
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