It’s ‘resignation day’! But don’t quit your job before you read this…

Happy resignation day! On the day that the country struggles back to work, according to a survey, as many as one in 10 workers plan to quit their jobs this month – with a sizeable chunk of them planning to press the nuclear button on their careers today. The January Quit is a real thing – but it’s also the wrong thing to do.

If you’re among their number, a question for you: have you been watching the jobs market and/or the economy lately? I have, and it’s tough out there. Maybe just press pause, consider your options – and then try to make more of your current job?

I confess that my own bad career decisions have generally been made at this time of year. Maybe not in January – and certainly not on Monday 5 January, the Great Resignation Day – but certainly during the grim early months.

It’s dark. It’s cold. It’s miserable. You’ve have time off at home with your family – and now you have to go back to the grind. Watching the news only makes things worse. All this, and HM Revenue & Customs pestering you for a tax return. Small wonder that returning to work feels like descending into the pit of hell, and sending that resignation email snaps on a light at the end of a dark tunnel.

Trouble is, it that it might just leave you in another dumpster fire.

“People are very reactive in January and February. They think everything is rubbish. So they think, I’ll leave. But reactive leaving like this can be very damaging,” says careers coach Claire Kaye.

The former GP warns that leaving on a whim often leads to the departing employee taking all the noise from their last job with them to the next one.

“Think more intentionally. Take a pause,” she advises. “Then think about what is wrong, and how to address it. Is the issue your workload? Is it the that you you don’t connect with the people you work with? Is it your value system not aligning with your employer’s? Is it that people don’t value you – or is it an issue of boundaries, of people contacting you at 10pm and demanding emails are answered?

“Is it really that I hate my job, or do I just need to reshape it? Can I renegotiate and explore how to change my role?

“Pausing and then preparing can be rewarding. If you are going to leave, you should leave positively and intentionally rather than reactively.”

The study, conducted online by Perspectus Global for ACS International Schools, surveyed 3,527 people in the UK. It included 1,519 working adults; 1,004 parents with children aged 16-21 at school, college or university; and 1,004 young people aged 16-21. It found that a quarter of the respondents were unhappy with their jobs.

ACS argues that a big part of the malaise is down to specialising too early at school. Half (50 per cent) of working Britons felt they were forced down a career path that wasn’t their choice, perhaps by parents, while one in five (20 per cent) felt resentful about being shoehorned into their career.

Martin Hall, Head of School at ACS Hillingdon, says: “The research shows that the nation's workers feel like they have been short-changed when it comes to their careers, and the next generation fears the current system will send them the same way.

“What's concerning is that the same system that created these regrets is still in place. Our research shows 66 per cent of parents believe the English exam system forces children to narrow their subject choices too early – at 14 and 16 – often before they understand what opportunities exist.”

As a parent with a school-age child, I think Hall has a point. While we’ve never pushed ours in any direction, we know plenty of parents that do. However, being forced to abandon subjects in one’s teens inevitably closes doors, and that’s before they are required to pick just three, or at a push four, subjects at A-levels. It’s high time people stopped banging on about their being “the gold standard”.

Needless to say, unhappy workers aren’t the most productive of employees: this is an issue for employers, too. Changing the narrative might just be as simple as the boss waiting until 10am, rather than demanding a response to an email at 10pm. Sometimes the offer of training can make all the difference. This could be a solution for those who feel trapped after missing out on opportunities at school.

“Employers often forget what growth looks like for the individual, and to facilitate it,” says Kaye. “They often use brush strokes when it comes to training, so everyone does this course. That doesn’t always work. A good employer should ask people what is it they would love to develop. It’s not just good for the employee, it can be brilliant for a company, too,” says Kaye.

For those who, after taking stock, still decide that they need to change, Kaye’s own story shows the benefits of a pro-active and positive departure over reactive quitting. Offered a high powered position in the NHS, she says that every time she thought about her new role, she felt sick.

“So I explored what might fit. I explored everything. I stripped it all back I looked at who I am. I asked what does good look like for me. And I went on a coaching course,” she says, even though friends and colleagues were aghast. Now she has a successful business doing a job she loves.