I recently coached a millennial through a job change, and one of our learnings was that the obligatory two weeks notice tradition is dead. I no longer believe that a such a standard exists. The time, place and manner of quitting one’s job depends entirely on the context and the circumstances.
The young man I was coaching had been working in a midwest marketing company for a little over a year. The company promised him a bonus for meeting or exceeding certain metrics, which it then failed to pay when earned (it did pay later, upon being reminded). The baby boomer leadership group was incredibly self-centered— they made it clear that they were far more concerned about their own millennial children’s success outside the company than the success of the people working for them. Power politics, ham-handed employment policies and palace intrigue fueled a top-heavy, bureaucratic and authoritarian structure. Bosses chastised subordinates in front of clients during meetings, to the embarrassment of everyone present. The concept of career development was nonexistent.
Managers attended secret meetings to decide who would get the axe, after which employees would huddle in fear wondering who it would be. Morale tanked. My coaching client spent the better part of his tenure fruitlessly asking for the “leaders” to make good use of his considerable skill set, which they consistently failed to do. His in-depth knowledge and advanced technical ability would have provided considerable value for many accounts, but management largely misused and wasted his time and talent. He was bored beyond belief.
He finally reached a point where he had literally nothing to do. He was fully caught up on all current account correspondence, had prepared a tiny spreadsheet of potential follow-up calls for someone else to handle in his absence, and set out to find another job. The job search took almost no time at all, he landed a great job at a profitable and growing startup for an immediate 25% increase in pay and great benefits (including stock options) where he could use all of his considerable skills and more.
How to break the news to his current employer?
Doug Kirkpatrick is the author of Beyond Empowerment, The Age of the Self-Managed Organization. He is an organizational change consultant, TEDx and keynote speaker, executive coach, writer, educator, and SPHR.
He played the first season of his business career in the manufacturing sector, principally with The Morning Star Company of Sacramento, California, a world leader in the food industry, as a financial controller and administrator. He now engages with the Morning Star Self-Management Institute, Great Work Cultures, The Center for Innovative Cultures and other vibrant organizations and leaders to co-create the future of management. Contact Doug at Twitter @Redshifter3.