Strategic Communication when Quitting in 9 Months
September 9th, 2007Here is a real-life situation for our Sunday morning strategy discussion:
A friend of mine was planning on attending Law school, and was advised to notify his employer, which he did back in November 2006. Nine months later, he isn’t going, but is looking to move on.
One of the major reasons for wanting to leave the company is that since telling them he was going to law school he has been more or less marginalized and consequently has become demoralized and no longer motivated.
Let’s go back to that fateful day in November…
The Situation
You work for a company that is average. Average in that it pays ok, gives good benefits, looks reasonable on the resume, but is hindered by excessive middle management and organized in a way that actively discourages independent thought and initiative.
You’ve applied to a program or a job that won’t start for nine months. When and how do you tell your current employer that you might be leaving?
The Strategy
I don’t understand why anyone would suggest notifying your employer when there is any uncertainty. Doing so is basically an act of good faith on your part, but with no guarantee (and a lot of evidence to the contrary) that your company will return the favor.
This is a situation between two actors that lends itself very well to a game theory approach.
Your basic choices are to:
- Give no indication except your two week notice (no cooperation.
- Notify once you’ve been accepted at the new position (partial cooperation).
- Notify after applying (full cooperation).
Upon hearing that you are leaving, your employer has the following choices:
- Treat you like a valued employee, still giving you raises and responsibility (full cooperation).
- Downgrade your status and marginalize you until you leave (partial cooperation).
- Fire you (no cooperation).
It’s a three by three matrix with payoffs that look like this (employer choices are in each column, employee choices are in each row):
Job Strategy: Employer in Columns, Employee in Rows
| Full | Part | None | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full | 0, -2 | -1, -1 | -2, 0 |
| Part | 0, -2 | -1, -1 | -2, 0 |
| None | 0, -3 | X | X |
If you don’t know how to read a payoff matrix, the first number in a cell is the payoff to the employee and the second number is the payoff to the employer. Each cell corresponds to the choice made by employee and employer. For example, If the employee cooperates fully and the employer only partially cooperates, the payoff to the employee is -1 and the payoff to the employer is -1.
I doubt the payoffs correspond directly, but they approximate well enough. We can see here that the employee wants fully cooperation from the employer, but he can only ensure that by not cooperating at all (to the greatest cost for the employer). If he cooperates partially or fully, it is in the interests of the employer not to cooperate at all.
Of course, this may change if you trust your employer. I’ve notified my employer of the possibility of my joining the Peace Corps, but that’s because I trust my current director to consider my welfare and recognize that it is in the organizations benefit to keep me involved (and I need her recommendation).
What have all of you done in this situation? How has your employer responded? If you have suggestions for modifying the payoff matrix let me know.
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