You are not a quitter, never will be, never were, but every now and then you may find yourself staring at the office front door and wishing you could put it behind you for good. Here are six things to consider if you are seriously thinking of leaving your job without a better career prospect at hand:
1. Managers change:
Survey after survey shows that the prime reason for professionals quitting their job is a poor relationship with a direct manager. In fact, in a Bayt.com online poll, 8.5% of professionals said that a good relationship with their manager is what they most need to make them feel more engaged at work, and in a separate poll, 7.2% of professionals claimed that what they need most to succeed in their career is ‘a better boss’.
If you are in a company you respect and admire, doing work you find meaningful and satisfactory and that compensates you fairly, it is probably well worth your while to make a serious effort to address the issues and salvage that relationship via constructive win-win dialogue and open communications, before you think about throwing in the towel. Remember also that bosses leave companies, change roles and are promoted; so if the relationship is bearable, the bigger picture is attractive and your long-term interests can be protected, you may want to put up with a less than exemplary management style. A Bayt.com poll showed that most MENA professionals (63.2%) find senior management more stable than their junior colleagues; however as per the 2012 Bayt.com MENA Salary Survey, a quarter of MENA professionals don’t stay more than three years in a particular job.
2. Your lifestyle isn’t as healthy as it could be:
Sometimes you overlook the real elephant in the room. Is the source of your unhappiness really the job? It may well be that the real source of your discontent lies in a poor diet, exercise regime or a generally unhealthy lifestyle. You may want to revisit your lifestyle holistically and rebalance your physical and mental spaces, as well as habits and activities before you blame your job fully for your dissatisfaction. The Bayt.com ‘Work-Life Balance in the MENA’ poll, September 2012, shows that 57% professionals admit that they are unable to spend enough time exercising. In a separate Bayt.com poll entitled ‘MENA Professionals’ Health and Eating Habits’ (April 2012), 31.7% of professionals feel that their eating habits are not very healthy at work.
3. There is still some learning in it for you:
Have you really learned all there is to learn on the job? If the answer is yes, consider you may perhaps be limited only by the boundaries of your own initiative and imagination. If the answer is that there is still plenty of learning potential, you may want to really reassess the value of that learning to you before you consider quitting. Many job seekers, particularly in early stages of their career, or those considering career transitions, will actually pay for essential learning, especially if it is imparted from respected industry veterans and market practitioners, and will even work for free if the learning gradient is steep and the potential for growth and visibility is attractive. In a Bayt.com poll, over 30% of polled professionals indicated that what is most needed to succeed in one’s career is his ‘willingness to learn’ and 21% of polled respondents stated that what they most want in their career is ‘to be known and respected as a true expert’ in their field.
4. You own your job:
You may have a boss, but then so does your boss, and almost every other boss on the planet. No one really controls your job description, performance and upward trajectory in the long run as much as you do. So if you can be at peace with the fact that you are master of your own destiny, you can amend your performance and expectations, and with a little patience, planning, professional communication and prime performance, make of your job and long-term career pretty much what you like. According to the Bayt.com ‘Work Satisfaction in the MENA’ poll, November 2012, 79.7% of MENA professionals said that their job is meaningful to them, while 57.5% feel ‘very challenged’ in their jobs.
5. The grass is not always greener:
If you are leaving a job without truly understanding the reasons and without a constructive game plan for making the next career round better, you may well encounter the very same problems all over again. Understand exactly what irked you and how you will avoid that in the future before you seek to take the plunge again. Dig below the surface; it sometime isn’t what it seemed at face value and it sometimes is as much about you as it is about external factors. Taking a few psychometric tests is a good idea to reassess and reevaluate your career game plan and view matters with a fresh perspective.
6. The sun will come out tomorrow:
Working overtime and around the clock? It may be a productivity issue, a morale issue, a time management issue or simply poor planning on behalf of your seniors; but that doesn’t mean it can’t be sorted out. Results of the Bayt.com ‘Work-life Balance in the MENA’ poll indicated that 35.4% professionals very often end up working outside work hours by choice and 27.8% professionals admit that they work outside work hours due to necessity. If the overtime is chronic, talk to your manager and suggest an alternate solution you would be happy with; if it’s a seasonal or temporary issue, you may want to grin and bear it while you ensure that your efforts are not going in the least bit unnoticed, unappreciated or unrewarded. On the bleakest of work days remind yourself of all the wonderful reasons you took that job in the first place and think of all the different things that inspire you to a better life.
