Should you stay or go?

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I’ve worked with a number of clients who’ve battled with a quandary, that they’ve gone backwards and forwards on many times:

Should they stay with their current employer and role, or move to another?

There are a number of experiences that typically prompt this deliberation.

For Kate, she felt she was being unfairly treated, and taken for granted by a manager who wasn’t fighting her corner enough.

For James, he was missing a clear development plan and path, and felt like he was standing still.

For Michelle, she’d been promised a pay review and promotion, but six months had gone by and it still hadn’t materialised.

And for Jen, she’d been headhunted to another role, but she wasn’t sure if it was the right one to take.

All four wanted to make a firm decision about whether to stay or go, but they were wary of making the wrong choice.

They were worried about prematurely leaving jobs they’d built credibility in, and jumping from the firepan into the fire, as well as missing out on the right opportunity and slowing down their future prospects.

If this conundrum sounds familiar to you, fear not.

There are one of two approaches you can take, depending on your situation, to ensure you make the right decision for you :)

1. When things aren’t moving

If like Kate, James or Michelle, you feel stuck, unsupported or messed around, it’s time to take some clear, unemotional action.

• This means laying out?in factual terms?what you want, stating your case with any supporting proof points, and making your fair ask.
• It’s best done on email first before requesting a follow-up meeting, so that you can take the time you need to present the information, outlining what you are asking for from your line manager or boss, and by when.
• If it helps, get someone you trust to read your email before you send it to ensure it doesn’t contain any emotive language (which is easy to include when you feel highly frustrated!)
• Once you’ve done this, ensure the follow up meeting happens. Book it in yourself if you have to, and take your email points in with you, using them to lead and guide the conversation. This will help if you're?feeling nervous about the discussion and what to say.
• The overall goal is to lay out what you want, why, and to ask for concrete confirmation one way or another in a specific timeframe on the change or improvement you seek. This way you will know for sure whether anything is going to change with your current employer.
• If the answer is no, then you will know for sure that it’s time to move on and take your awesome talents elsewhere :)?

2. When you've been headhunted or offered a new role

If like Jen, you’ve been offered a new opportunity, but you aren’t sure if the role or company are right for you, it’s time to do some personal analysis.

• This means getting clear about your natural strengths, the skills you enjoy using most, and your values, and using this information to benchmark your existing job against the new opportunity to see which is an overall better fit.
• If you struggle to articulate your own strengths, check out?Gallup’s CliftonStrengths assessment . It?will tell you what your top five strengths are?and the insights can be invaluable. Whatever your strengths, these are the ones you’ll want to ensure you get to use every single day in your role, so consider how the two opportunities stack up.
• With your skills, make a list of the hard and soft skills you’ve built up over your career, and then highlight the ones you enjoy using the most. These are the ones you’ll want to be using on a regular basis.
• With your values, take some time to determine what’s important to your sense of well-being and happiness at work, taking into account what your values mean you need from a job role, working environment and the types of people you work with. Then consider how aligned each job opportunity is with your values.
• When you compare this data, whichever role best aligns with your strengths, skills and values is the one to choose!

Now, in case you were wondering…

Kate chose to stay. She laid out her requirements, directly asked for fair treatment, and secured a ￡20K pay rise and a large reduction in her sales quota.

James chose to go. After determining for sure that his prospects were limited, he secured a new job with a much bigger salary and serious development opportunities.

Michelle chose to stay. She laid out a compelling case for prompt action on her company’s pay rise and promotion promise, and secured a ￡15K pay rise and 5% bonus increase.

Jen chose to stay. After analysing her strengths and skill set against her current role and the one being offered, she recognised her greatest opportunity lay where she was, so she confidently turned down the new role.

Alison x

P.S. If you’d like help making a clear, confident decision about whether to stay or go, book a free consultation call with me. We'll chat about your situation and I'll explain exactly how we'd bring you to a firm conclusion??