Leave nothing on table when you exit

When it’s time to go, it’s time to go – right? Well, maybe not. That may be true for things like leaving a party that’s gone flat, but when it comes to the workplace, planning a long departure instead of a quick exit can pay dividends.

For the most part, the payoff won’t come in the form of severance or extra months of health coverage. Those considerations are usually tied to a layoff or other involuntary parting of the ways. When it’s the employee cutting ties instead of the employer, any “extra” compensation needs to be strategized as part of the regular working relationship.

Which brings us back to the value of a long goodbye from your job: When you know several months or a year in advance that you plan to leave, you can utilize the time to achieve specific goals. The benefits to this concept are easy to count: You can make a controlled exit that leads more smoothly to your next engagement; you can build targeted skills that will matter to your next employer; you can use the time to build your finances; and so on.

Nor is this a one-way street, in terms of reaping benefits. Goal-oriented employees are more useful to their bosses than those who are just counting time on the job. Most employers prefer motivated workers over those with no vision for the future.

Wondering how this would look in practice? Following are four brief examples from my counseling table in the last month alone – I’m changing enough details to preserve privacy, but each of these is an actual situation in which a worker would benefit by staying in the job longer. A free Master’s degree.

Benito works for a forprofit university whose degrees are free for fulltime employees. He has been with this employer three years and would consider staying, but he’s concerned about the stability of the industry. Although he was originally planning to launch a career exploration process and leave as quickly as possible, he has now decided to complete a Master’s degree that could apply to a wide variety of career paths. If he stays on plan, he’ll have his Masters in a year, positioning him for higher-paying jobs while saving him thousands of dollars in education costs he might otherwise incur later. Excellent networking. Jackie works in a highquality catering operation where she has monthly contact with a number of the same business clients – all of whom praise her attention to detail and customer service skills. As a new parent, she’s eager to find work with higher pay and better hours. Rather than competing with other job seekers by responding to posted openings, she now has a networking-based job search plan. She will use the next few months to communicate with key customers that she would be open to conversation when they are next hiring in their firms. This gives them time to develop an opening while observing her work more closely; it also frees Jackie from an otherwise disruptive job search process. Better mortgage opportunities. Carol was planning to quit her job, then relocate to another city, closer to her aging mother. In the new location, she would rent an apartment, seek work, and eventually purchase her own home. Her new plan? Continue working for her current employer while completing the purchase of her “vacation” home in the new city, leveraging her decade of continuous employment at a high salary for better mortgage opportunities. Since her new mortgage will be less than rent, and far less than the motel costs she’s incurred for visits, she’ll save money whether she moves immediately or waits awhile. With more time for planning, she may also find a way to work remotely for her current employer, precluding a job search in the new location.

Work-life balance. Living at home and using his parent’s health plan, Stephen doesn’t need his job at a small shop to pay well – but he would like to learn things that he could eventually apply to other career paths. Initially his plan was to quit work and return to school, although he wasn’t clear on the program. Now, instead of incurring those costs and losing his wages besides, Stephen has a plan to apprentice next to the shop owner, learning how to keep the books and order inventory. He’s not sure how he’ll eventually use these skills, but for the moment he’s content to “learn and earn” while he continues to explore new career ideas.

If you’re interested in applying a stay-strategy to your own career path, stay tuned. In next week’s column I’ll provide steps to help you organize your own employee retention plan, letting you leverage your current job while attaining your goals. Amy Lindgren owns Prototype Career Service, a career consulting firm in St. Paul. She can be reached at alindgren@ prototypecareerservice.com or at 626 Armstrong Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55102.