Managing job transition—Part 2
We continue from last week when we began looking at the mechanics of deciding whether to take a new job offer and how to manage the transition should you decide to move on.
As you hold the conversation with your boss, be prepared to address his or her fears. Be ready to compromise on notice to be served if he or she needs you to add a little more time to allow for the logistics of your replacement. At the same time, be prepared that some bosses and sometimes other employees in the company may not take your resignation kindly. Some get offended, angry or even feel betrayed at hearing of your resignation. Do not worry about that. In that case, just be professional, calm and focus on being available to work and deliver on your job requirements all the days of the notice period until the very last day. And this should be the key priority of your management of your exit from the current job.
You may find that within moments of resigning, you are being cut out of the system, segregated, avoided, not invited to meetings or literary being ignored completely. Be ready for this, it can happen. It all depends on the personalities of the people around you, the nature of the job you are doing and sensitivities around your next job and many other factors. This is why it is important to only decide to change jobs if you really have to. If you know that you made the right decision, such kind of transitional pain will be light and soft. But if you make a wrong decision, you will really feel the pain. As always, focus on positive energies and so when you feel bad, focus your attention on the positive ideas, including the great moments you had in the company, the positive expectations of great moments in the next job and any major milestones of your life.
Keep doing your job to the best of your abilities. Do not reduce your work-rate just because you are serving a notice. Work at the normal pace. If you are not getting much work, ask what else you can help with. At the same time, start tidying up your desk and your information. Pack the information and documents you need to handover. Write handover notes clearly and in detail. If the company or organisation wants you to help them with training and coaching your successor, be kind enough to do that to the best of your abilities. If the employer wants you to help them recruit your successor, help without any grudges, without personal interest and only with objectivity while putting the interests of the company at the centre of the exercise.
Ensure that you do not burn any bridges at all in case you ‘need them’ in the future. Be nice to all people all the way. Be the one to compromise where necessary if that is what it takes to maintain good relationship. Maintaining long-term relationships is more paramount than winning short-term battles when you are transitioning jobs. This is a very small world. The people you upset in the job you are leaving behind may have a bearing on you tomorrow in other places or when you may need to return to the job you are exiting from.
Remember that when you want to change jobs, you need to look beyond the comparison of salaries. Consider other intangible, but more important factors like job security, job satisfaction, career growth and so forth. Once you make the decision to change jobs, make a plan and check list of all the things that you will need to do to exit smoothly. Maintain your old relationships and do everything possible not to make enemies in the process. Be patient and keep working as hard and as normal as possible. If you do this, you will be respected as a professional and you will leave wide open many future opportunities in many places. Good luck!
