Articles From the Team

Things to consider when you resign

Often the easiest parts of wanting to join a new business are interviewing, meeting the new people, planning a start date and accepting the offer. Then comes the moment when you have to put in your notice. This can be hard because you may be moving for professional development rather than any adverse reasons against your present employer; indeed you may even feel guilt that you are letting your soon to be previous colleagues down. As with everything in life there is a right and wrong way to do things, as the old saying goes: “Be nice to people on the way up because you may meet them on the way back down”.

Here are some handy tips:

1. Explain yourself: There needs to be a degree of understanding from all sides as to why you are leaving. The best place to do this is somewhere private with the people who you need to discuss it with. There may be animosity between yourself and those you are leaving behind but now is the time to let bygones be bygones or your leaving may look churlish and ill-considered. Equally it could be about career advancement, work life balance or you may even simply have been in the business a long time.
2. If things get heated: It helps to consider the outcomes of your discussion before hand, if you have a feeling that things may get heated then prepare appropriately and you will remain calm and rational where others may not.
3. Are they going to counter offer? Any rational person will already be prepared for a counter offer, the only way you should accept this, if you have thought things through properly, will be if the whole attempt to leave has been a clever ruse to raise your salary.
4. Emotional draws: It may be that this serving notice meeting turns into an emotional drain; a desperate boss who genuinely appreciates your work would do anything to keep you. At this point it is important to reiterate your reasons for leaving but be prepared to be challenged on all of them and politely spurn the advances.
5. Who knows if you`ll meet again? Always end in the politest possible terms, the in house legal market is smaller than you think and you may very well find yourself in need of these former relationships in the future.

For more information please contact Mike Huggins at BCL Legal.