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Hi Everyone! Warehouse and Operations as a Career, I’m Marty, is everyone wrapping up their year? Was it as prosperous as you’d hoped? Not just monetary wise but did we achieve the growth professionally that we aimed for? If not you’re ready for 2020’ though right? Well I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s put all that on hold for a bit. Earlier this week I noticed several articles along the lines of How to Leave a Job. That got me to thinking about one of the opportunities I hear from Recruiters almost every week! In our chosen fields of Operations, Warehousing, and Transportation not only do we, as employees have the ability to move around a lot, but so can members of management. Every week I hear about someone I’ve worked with that’s left company X and started with so and so company. As we’ve learned this year, advancement, new positions and reaching out for opportunities are how we can climb that corporate ladder. Of course, if we love our jobs or our task, and it provides us the income and environment we’re looking for I think that’s a perfect fit too! Where things can get sticky for us, with either scenario, is if we’re unhappy with our employer, or maybe a supervisor or maybe the drive is just longer than we want for now. For whatever reason, there really are right ways and wrong ways to leave our jobs. I want to go a little deeper than just saying we should always give a 1- or 2-week notice, so let’s talk about that for a few minutes today.
Wither we’re seeking employment through direct hire with a company or utilizing a staffing agency, the job market is tough. We always hear about low unemployment or high unemployment rates meaning jobs are hard to find or easy to find blah blah blah . When we’re the one looking for a job it’s always a task for us. I mean first we have to decide what we want to do, then we’ll spruce up our resumes or clean up our work histories and get out there and put in applications. We’ll probably have several phone interviews and hopefully we’ll get the opportunity to go out to facilities and have a sit-down or that face to face interview. And when we get the job it may not be what we thought we wanted! Or let’s say we’ve moved, now we’re living 10 miles farther from our workplace we’ve been employed with for 5 years and it taking us 30 more minutes to get home every day. Maybe our old supervisor’s been promoted and the new one, well let’s just say we’re no longer happy where we’re at. Back to what I was saying about recruiters earlier. One of their biggest struggles is with hiring people that really want or need a position and then the new associate doesn’t show up on the first scheduled day or maybe quits showing up after the 3rd day. No phone calls, no contact, no information shared of any kind. I’ve heard that less than 10% of exit interviews are ever responded too. I know of a couple of companies that utilize programs for texting or emailing out exit surveys even. We wouldn’t even have to speak to anyone from the company. And I’m told those responses are even less than 10%. Isn’t that the opportunity for us to explain how the hiring agent may have missed the high points of the position, or our chance to explain why we felt the job description did not match the expectations explained to me during the interview. Or maybe that we just changed our minds and went another direction. A short apology from us may go a long way with the recruiter! Anyway, so why is it important to quit a job the right way? Well, I have quite a few opinions on that subject, most of them from experiences and I’ve gathered a few facts on the subject as well!
Ok, so let’s look at a few of the don’ts or things that can really come back around to haunt us on down the road. Ok, what’d I do with my bullet points, here I got’em.
Ok, there is never a good reason for walking off the job at lunch. Just disappearing. This seems to be a big one nationally, most of the articles I ran across mentioned this one. Last week I had an order selector, on his first day, he didn’t say anything to anybody, just didn’t come back after lunch. Left his selection batch and pallet jack in the aisle for someone to find it about an hour later when they were looking for the pallets to be loaded on the route truck. Do you think his recruiter will ever place him again?
Recruiters and hiring agents really get frustrated with us when they’ve spent time with us on the phone and interviewing us, they’ve taken us through the on-boarding process, committed to their customer or their operations departments, and their bosses that they have a great candidate starting tomorrow and then we just never show up. No phone call, no communication and no further contact. It happens all too often! And I’ve actually taken calls from those same individuals 3 and 4 weeks later asking me if I have any work for them! I guess I’m a little more understanding than most because when I check with the recruiters, they look at me like I’m crazy and just kind of shake their heads.
And as a long-term employee, and I can understand we’re leaving one employer because somethings happened. We’re excited about our new job of course but, now’s not the time to start slacking off or talking bad about our management or even the company. We may be frustrated to the point of showing them or trying to screw over our supervisor and just quit coming in. I assure you we’re not causing any long term hurt to either.
And then there’s the employee that quits showing up, but they don’t have another job lined up even. Who have we really hurt there?
It’s important that we give that 1 week or 2 weeks’ notice anytime we can. Oh, and if we have some time off or vacation in the bank, don’t take it as our 1-week notice. Our jobs not going to get done, we’re not helping our former employer by doing that. In most instances we’ll get any vacation owed us when we leave, we’ve already earned it. Most companies are going to honor that commitment to us as employees.
So, what’s wrong with doing all the above? Well, you’ll be surprised how many of your fellow teammates, leads, supervisors and Managers you’re going to run into throughout your careers in this industry. Recruiters may not want to give you another chance. Our old teammates may not give us a stellar recommendation if there asked by their new employer. And you’ll be surprised at how many of our old Supervisors you’re going to run into down the road.
What we do is hard work, can be long hours, and It’s so easy for us to get frustrated on the job, and too easy for us to make a really bad decision by just
ghosting our jobs. I found a few articles that are along the lines of How To Leave a Job.
https://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/not-burn-bridges-when-you-quit
25 ways you might accidently burn bridges when you quit a job
And I found a really good article on Facebook, actually it came from a posting on the Las Vegas Job Board and More group. It was published by PrideStaff and you can find it at https://www.staffinglasvegas.com/2019/11/20/never-burn-bridges-with-temporary-employer/?fbclid=IwAR1rgEFIR1zm8RLFIjZtn6Jad1v-PAOW5dPmWc9hZn9B8U2Qcu5_eopBNa8
Another good one is at https://www.projectmanager.com/blog/quit-job-without-burning-bridges
How to Quit your Job without burning bridges
I’ll add these links in today’s show notes but there’s hundreds of these type articles online, you know how I am about a little self-education, check out the 3 I mentioned and look a few up on google. They’ll definitely point you in the right direction!
I’ll blame human nature on all these kinds of decisions! https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/human%20nature
Tells us that human nature is: the nature of humans especially : the fundamental dispositions and traits of humans
If we’re just looking for a great job that fits our lives, everything we’ve talked about today is fine for us. We have a skill, it’s operations and we can just go someplace else, we’ll find work and a job. It’s so easy to take the easy way out of a bad situation and just walk away from it. And in many instances or situations that’s exactly what we should do! In my experience though we will be limiting our careers and our futures professionally by taking the easy way out or leaving a job the wrong way. Never burn Bridges, as I mentioned before, I run into people that I’ve worked with 3, 5, 10, even 20 years earlier almost monthly. And in many instances, they can help me out with new business or referrals!
Well, there’s a few thoughts on how to leave a job and that’ll wrap up episode 166 of WAOC and the 48th week of 2019. WOW, 4 weeks until 2020!
Until next week, remember where Safety is concerned human nature does not figure into the equation. Always put Safety First, professionally and in our family lives!