I don't think that is why you made a suboptimal choice; I think that's why you incorrectly think you made a suboptimal choice.
They might regret losing you, but that doesn't mean that good things would have happened if you tried to apply leverage before.
The act of trying to force someone to do something, whether by (implied) threat, logic, emotional manipulation, or whatever, can mortally wound a relationship making getting a concession you want moot.
As you say, the new job was "a lot better substance-wise", so it's a good thing you didn't try to hold their feet to the fire.
Also, the counter-offer to stay is not always that great either:
1. The underlying problem was still there — the management did not value your work to have a thoughtful policy that worked for both you and your employer. Rather than working with you, they chose an adversarial approach.
2. If you had gone back, they now know you can leave, so they will be looking to replace you as soon as they can, possibly even have you train their replacement.
3. Some independent contracting work for continuity may be appropriate if you care about the team and they had treated you well.
4. It is easier to get hired while you still have a job than while you do not.
> 4. It is easier to get hired while you still have a job than while you do not.
I'm curious about the reasoning behind this opinion. As someone outside of the US (UK), I've interviewed a few people who were unemployed at the time but with a good level of experience and track record. People deciding to take some time off to do their own thing has never bothered me, if they can afford it then I think everyone deserves a sabbatical option.
I don’t know how it is in the UK. Here in the US, a hiring manager sees a gap in the resume and asks about that. This has been a problem for say, women who exited the workforce to take care of their kids and then attempt to reenter it. I suppose, even if there is no negative mark, if you have a stack of 30 or 40 resumes, you start using “relevant recent experience” as a way to filter down to the people you want to interview.
There is also a tendency for agism, worse in some industries or disciplines than in others — maybe some kind of cult of youth thing going on. (I have found that development teams favor younger developers, even for senior developers, while ops and devops tend to favor a slightly older crowd).
I think one of the reason is that you have the leverage when negotiating the salary that you expect because you can always walk away and continue with your current job.
> The act of trying to force someone to do something, whether by (implied) threat, logic, emotional manipulation, or whatever, can mortally wound a relationship making getting a concession you want moot.
Precisely.
If you want to keep somebody on your team, you don't play this kind of game. These sort of zero-sum take-all-the-marbles negotiations are reserved for when you don't care at all about any future relationship (which should be very close to "never").
It's a dangerous subject, but it only takes a slight change in wording to turn a take-all-the-marbles conflict into a positive example of you offering them an opportunity. See,
"Give me remote or I walk."
Versus,
"I found this great role at this other company, and the work they do satisfies me on a deep personal level. However, it's not remote, and if you let me stay remote, my present position would be way better. What do you feel would be right?"
One is an ultimatum/threat, and the other is simply expressing facts/position as part of a negotiation (it also reserves your right to act however you choose, and does not immediately put the relationship in jeopardy). The former is not advisable, ever.
Except the second one is only useful if you actually do have another offer, so the two are not equivalent.
What you should actually do is politely request that you be allowed to work remotely, as you "realized that you are not looking forward to spending a significant chunk of your day commuting, and have realized that remote work is much better for your mental health". This is still a polite request, but fairly clear that you'll probably start looking for another job if they deny.
Exactly. Being assertive and firmly negotiating doesn’t mean you have to be a jerk. Just the opposite, actually: if you’re being a jerk, you’re probably not not negotiating well.
> The act of trying to force someone to do something, whether by (implied) threat, logic, emotional manipulation, or whatever, can mortally wound a relationship making getting a concession you want moot.
Yes, so, present the initiative not just or even primarily in terms of your own preferences, but in terms that highlight the benefits to your employer.
How would working remotely make your contribution more valuable and more flexible to your team and your org?
Sell that first. There's no risk. Even if it doesn't work first time, if you present it as part of an open discussion about their interests, needs, and pre-conceptions you'll learn something from their response.
If you feel that being on the spectrum limits your ability to see things from their point of view, depersonalise it by getting some help from a friend to divine your employer's perspective, and then take that view and treat it as an intellectual exercise for you to optimise a scenario. You're good at that.
> How would working remotely make your contribution more valuable and more flexible to your team and your org?
You're suggesting negotiating with a hard sell, but the benefit should already be obvious to a good employer: your employee is asking for this, because they deeply want it, and it's essentially no problem to give it to them. Making the effort to ask is already a hard sell.
An employer saying 'no' thinks they have the power in this situation, and is choosing to express that power over an issue which primarily affects their employee's happiness.
> You're suggesting negotiating with a hard sell, but the benefit should already be obvious to a good employer
In a theoretical world, everything would be obvious to everyone. The real world is not like that, because different people see things differently, because they have different vantage points, different interests, and different constraints. Most importantly, they have different pre-conceptions, because they have different experiences.
Selling a proposition that makes sense to both parties is not about exerting will over someone. It's the opposite. It's about searching for ways to do things differently that results in mutual benefit.
Traditionally, employers in all industries have conceived of their role as commanding and monitoring employees to ensure they do work, which, they tacitly assume the employee wants to shirk. It is the role of an enforcer, and it is based on a simplistic paradigm that's now officially out of date.
In 2021, the pandemic has shed new light on that relationship.
With no choice but to work from home, and with new tools such as Zoom and Teams, workplaces in all industries have found new ways to do things, and changed their conceptions about what works and what doesn't work.
The first thing people noticed is that some people are more productive working from home, and experience greater satisfaction. They are able to balance their roles as homemakers, family members, employees and change agents better because they can slice time more effectively.
They regain all the hours lost to commuting.
They gain some of the hours lost to unnecessary interruptions from colleagues.
For responsible employees who don't shirk work, the reasons for productivity gain aren't difficult to explain. What percentage of employees is that? It was already more than 0, and it's only growing higher with better tools and more knowledge of remote work experiences.
The next thing organisations learned is that not all employees had the same experiences. Introverts welcomed the isolation. Extroverts felt diminished in the absence of the energy they gained from interactions with colleagues.
The longer the pandemic went on, the more we learned. Institutional learning is still occurring because it takes at least a year for some metrics to even be accumulated and derived. The impact on the bottom line of the change in real estate requirement e.g. CBD towers will be profound, but it hasn't even been calculated yet, let alone analysed by accountants and executives.
What ftf meetings are necessary, and what meetings, virtual and ftf, are a waste of time? We started to learn that only when ftf meetings were impossible for an extended period.
> The real world is not like that, because different people see things differently, because they have different vantage points, different interests, and different constraints.
Sure - but this doesn't change what I said.
You're saying that an employee is obligated to sell this (what they are currently already doing for employment) to their employer. But... the employer has already proven that they value this work, paid at that rate.
Surely, instead, the employer ought to sell coming back to the office to the employee. The employer can't depend on this being the default any more.
> Surely, instead, the employer has to sell coming back to the office to you. The employer can't depend on this being the default any more.
I think you're right. It's just a matter of how long it takes for the change to filter through to different industries and different levels of management.
How long does change take?
It depends on the org. Small businesses see the impact straight away. Their capacity to react appropriately depends on their resources. No small company could have developed their own effective videoconferencing tools, but any small company could adopt the technology once it existed in 2020, and many did. Many failed. It depends on industry category, and individuals.
For large orgs, it's difficult to see anything clearly in under 2 years, because the metrics have to be accumulated from regions, deciphered by the accounts department (using out of date filters), and then interpreted by the C suite (using out of date compensation metrics).
The fact that different individuals respond differently to workplace changes makes it even more convoluted to sort out the gains from the costs in this situation, and reconfigure executive information systems and management practices.
I think it's a shame, that negotiations have to end up so... damaging.
There's no reason for it, but ego, and emotionalism on both sides. Saying:
"I'm at a point where remote matters to me quite a bit, and I won't sacrifice pay for it. If you can't do it, I'll start applying with those who will, but I thought I owed you the honest truth."
It doesn't need to be emotionally driven. Just honest truth.
And I get that, as you say, bizarrely negative consequences can follow.
Me? I respect the truth. I can work with it. I want to hear it.
Many don't.
Yet, maybe this is an additional indicator of employer value, and potential toxicity?
> There's no reason for it, but ego, and emotionalism on both sides. Saying:
That is what people say when they have options and can dictate terms. It only gets emotional when one party does not have the clear upper hand and so tries to “feel” the other party out to see what they will yield.
Right, yet the employee's emotionalism here, stems from many employers making this an emotional event.
So my "no reason for it" was stated with this in mind.
As an employer, I'd like to know. Other employers seem to be vindictive, which I find bizarre. Worse, enough employers act this way, that they poison the pool.
Then these same employers act surprised, and wonder why they get little warning when an employee leaves.
I don't think that is why you made a suboptimal choice; I think that's why you incorrectly think you made a suboptimal choice.
They might regret losing you, but that doesn't mean that good things would have happened if you tried to apply leverage before.
The act of trying to force someone to do something, whether by (implied) threat, logic, emotional manipulation, or whatever, can mortally wound a relationship making getting a concession you want moot.
As you say, the new job was "a lot better substance-wise", so it's a good thing you didn't try to hold their feet to the fire.