Is It REALLY Time To Quit?

A conversation series between Lindsay Boccardo and Lauren Moffatt, HR expert.

Lindsay: I feel so lucky that we get to work together in companies that we love that want to treat their employees with a ton of respect. We like to use the word "humanely". Companies that understand human nature and want to take care of their employees. Those are the companies we love to work for. And we also work with clients too who are trying to figure out their next career steps. Sometimes before they should quit, I see that what they really need is a little more time where they're at to grow and to learn how to communicate and self advocate for themselves.

Lauren: Yeah, that's true.

Lindsay: But then sometimes we also see that people really do need to leave. So what's a sign that somebody really does need to leave their job? And you're working with C-suite, people that are seasoned in their career.

Lauren: Right. So for with my clients that are actually evaluating this, I think of it in terms of energy. If they are feeling drained more than they're feeling energized. And there are seasons in our job or jobs like accounting, they're going to feel a little
bit more drained during January through April. But I'm talking about if it's ongoing beyond that and you're constantly feeling drained. You have the mopey Mondays...and the mopey Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Thursdays... then it's really time to think about whether the job is going to work for you or not. If you walk in every day and your energy is dipping. This is not good. A lot of the time, people stick that out. It's like a badge of honor sometimes.

Lindsay: "I'm staying, even though I'm suffering, and nobody's asking me to stay!!"

Lauren: Yeah! Because the unknown is much scarier than staying in. It's amazing to me though, once those individuals get that new job, they're like, "Oh my gosh, I wish I
would have done this six months ago."

Lindsay: Yeah. What's another sign that somebody should probably leave?

Lauren: If they have a toxic boss.

Lindsay: How often do you hear about a "bad boss", and you're actually like, "Uh oh, you're in trouble. This really is bad."

Lauren: I would say about half the time. If that boss feels threatened, if that boss is a micromanager, if that boss doesn't have a development plan for the employee as an individual, if you barely see your boss and when you do it's a negative experience...

Lindsay: If they're not interested in you growing. I had a boss once say, "I am actually not interested in you growing. I want you to do exactly what you're doing right now cause I want to go to grad school." And I quit on the spot. It's so important to me. And if it's not important to you that I grow, I'm out.

Lauren: One of my clients right now, she is in an experience where she had a former boss that was toxic. She got a new boss that totally changed the trajectory of her career. That boss is now leaving. She's got to go back to the old boss, and she's like, "I got to go." So you gotta go!

Lindsay: You gotta go. So the last sign is if there's no more head room for you to grow. That doesn't happen a lot for people that I coach because they're in their first decade, so there's probably still room for them to move up in their org or have more leadership. But you've definitely seen situations where there's just no more room for your client to grow. If they want an elevated position, they have to go somewhere else.

Lauren: That is the way right now, if you want to go after a promotion and there isn't something available then going outside of your workplace is the way. I think that happens
a lot more frequently now. It's probably every two to three years unless there's a lot of visibility for where you can go next, or your manager works with you on that.

So I would say that if you're not feeling like you're being grown and developed, and it can be with skills, it doesn't have to necessarily always be up. It can also be expanding. You have exposure to sales and maybe you're in marketing or a leadership class or whatnot. So I think the future of growing at work is not just based upon hierarchy.

Lindsay: It isn't, it's about going wide, having more experiences, which is cool.

Lauren: So if that's not happening, it's really time to go...cause you're wasting your time at that spot.


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