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Most everybody has been there: you've decided to quit your job and now you have to inform your employer that you're leaving. So what is the best way to resign?
Turns out, there are generally seven ways in which people quit their jobs, and there are two key factors that determine whether a person resigns in a positive way or in a way that could have damaging consequences for the business, new research from Oregon State University shows.
[...] Through a series of studies, including interviews with employees and employers, the researchers found that generally, employees quit in one of seven ways:
- By the book: These resignations involve a face-to-face meeting with one's manager to announce the resignation, a standard notice period, and an explanation of the reason for quitting.
- Perfunctory: These resignations are similar to "by the book" resignations, except the meeting tends to be shorter and the reason for quitting is not provided.
- Grateful goodbye: Employees express gratitude toward their employer and often offer to help with the transition period.
- In the loop: In these resignations, employees typically confide in their manager that they are contemplating quitting, or are looking for another job, before formally resigning.
- Avoidant: This occurs when employees let other employees such as peers, mentors, or human resources representatives know that they plan to leave rather than giving notice to their immediate boss.
- Bridge burning: In this resignation style, employees seek to harm the organization or its members on their way out the door, often through verbal assaults.
- Impulsive quitting: Some employees simply walk off the job, never to return or communicate with their employer again. This can leave the organization in quite a lurch, given it is the only style in which no notice is provided.
The by the book and perfunctory resignations are the most common, but roughly one in 10 employees quits in bridge-burning style. Avoidant, bridge burning and impulsive quitting are seen as potentially harmful resignation styles for employers.
In addition, the researchers found that managers were particularly frustrated by employees who resigned using bridge burning, avoidant or perfunctory styles, so employees who want to leave on good terms should avoid those styles, Klotz said.
Have any Soylentils seen employees quit in notable or epic ways?
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday September 25 2016, @10:46AM
But many years ago, I worked for a company whose products were quite popular because we'd "reverse-engineered" the big dog in the industry's proprietary code, thus relieving us of paying royalties to the big dog. Needless to say, our product was much less expensive than our competitors', and we sold a lot of product!
The truth was that one of the original employees had actually gone to work for that big dog and "appropriated" certain information which allowed us to "reverse-engineer" the proprietary code. He then resigned and returned to help develop the product in question and was well compensated for his endeavors.
A number of years later, a new manager was placed above him and actually required him to do a variety of tasks he found distasteful.
The new manager was quite firm in his desire for this employee to perform the tasks asked of him (I'd note that subtlety and tact were *not* this manager's strong suit), which enraged said employee.
So one day he walked into the manager's office and during a discussion, he screamed "Fuck You!" and stormed out and back into his own office, slamming his door along the way.
I was rather amused by the whole thing. However, the company's senior management were much less so.
I believe that he was "terminated for cause," but in truth the "fuck you!" was code for "I quit." As such, this guy really gave them no choice. I suppose this would go into the "Burning Bridges" category.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 25 2016, @01:02PM
Management antagonized and then fired the one guy who could tear down the company by proving he stole info from their competitor so they could clone their product? That seems unlikely.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 25 2016, @01:40PM
Some people are just idiots. Some of those idiots somehow find their way into management positions. So it seems plausible.
That employee could (most likely) provide evidence of the stolen information, but given that he was directly involved in it he probably would have landed himself in jail by doing so.
What is perhaps a little less believable is that "big company" didn't cotton on to this employees movements between "smaller company" and "big company" and back again and the development by "smaller company" of a similar competing product and take legal action. Though I suppose they may have thought the likelihood of winning a lawsuit would be high enough given that they probably only had circumstantial evidence and would have to rely on finding incriminating evidence in the discovery phase of the lawsuit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 25 2016, @02:23PM
Suing would probably be overkill and not worth the effort but I think you began to get at what's unlikely here.
What's slightly unlikely here is that the big company didn't catch onto the fact that one of their employees was taking code and giving it to their competitors and hence the big company didn't simply fire the person that copied their code and gave it away.
But big organizations can be like government, a big giant slow monolith that takes forever to catch onto anything. Also there is way more to a product than simply code, there is the service that backs the code. So if the little company wasn't really affecting the big company that much it might easily slip under their radar for a while.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday September 25 2016, @06:05PM
What's slightly unlikely here is that the big company didn't catch onto the fact that one of their employees was taking code and giving it to their competitors and hence the big company didn't simply fire the person that copied their code and gave it away.
As I understood it, the employee (he didn't take code, rather proprietary info used to write the code) took the info as he left the big dog.
So it's wasn't as cut and dried as you're making it out to be.
Regardless, the point was that this guy felt entitled enough (given his past activities) to assume he could to whatever he wanted (and not do whatever he didn't want to do).
I suppose that might fly in some places, but I think he got what he richly deserved.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday September 25 2016, @02:23PM
You can choose to believe it or not.
I was there. The company (in fact the big dog too) is long lost to the dustbin of history.
I wonder if anyone on SN was there too. If so, they'll know what I'm talking about.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Sunday September 25 2016, @03:22PM
SCO?