Thinking about quitting your job? Go tell your boss!

Let’s assume the following scenario: you decide to quit your job and start looking for a new one, confidentially. After you sign a contract with the new work place, you notify your current boss.
Sounds familiar?
Yeah, well in my opinion, that’s wrong.

I’m not sure why people are afraid to tell their boss that they are looking for a job. It’s not like they will fire you because of that, on the contrary! Here’s what will happen:

• Your boss will take you for a 1-on-1 talk, to try and understand what is bothering you that makes you want to leave.
• He (or she) will try to change things to make you happy. It might be a salary raise, change the tasks you work on, move to a different team or even change your role/title.
• If you are determined that it’s time to move on, he will offer to give you a recommendation and perhaps help you find a job.
• You’ll be able to freely look for a job, which is very important especially because your network can now be fully exploited.

Your work place will also benefit from this, because they can now look for a replacement for you, and maybe even have time to train them while you’re still there.

From my experience this works very well — sometimes I was able to preserve an employee because of adjustments we did, and sometimes the employee left but it was on good terms.

It’s important for me to say that this relates to employees who are good at their job. If you aren’t — just do everyone a favor and quit..

Last note goes to the managers reading this:

• It’s your responsibility to make your employees feel open enough to tell you what’s on their mind, like wanting to quit.
• If you’re surprised by someone quitting then you’re doing something wrong. You should have a good enough connection with your people to know what’s going on with them, and get hints if something is not to their satisfaction.