The dolphins kept it simple when they left the planet just as it was about to be destroyed to make way for a space super highway. (Hitchhikers’ Guid to the Galaxy).
Keep it simple is good advice for the standard resignation email. Just announce your giving in your notice, you’ve enjoyed working here, even if you haven’t, you appreciate the support provided., even if it was in short supply, and feel you have learnt a lot, some of it useful and appropriate. However sometimes that simple note to your boss is not enough. There are things you want to get off your chest, things you want a wider audience to hear. It happened to me. So this is what I did. I could have sent a resignation email to the chief executive and copied it to everyone in the organisation, saying how unfairly I felt I was treated, saying I was victimised for standing up to a bullying regime, for speaking the inconvenient truth to those in power .That I was forced out of the organisation having done nothing wrong, no allegations, no hearing, no appeal just an interview with the chief executive and the head of HR at which I was informed I have no future in the organisation. But a bitter rant from a disgruntled departing manager is easily dismissed. In fact acting in such a manor would only reinforce the view in the hierarchy that they were right to get rid of me. My resignation letter took the form of an article on the obstacles to modernising Housing Associations as the government sort to replace Local Authority housing provision with the not for profit sector. Using my own recent experience as a case example. I detailed how the culture and management style was resistant to change. That far from being efficient and customer focused they survived by cross subsidising from private tenants, arbitrarily closing unprofitable schemes and suppressing wages by refusing to recognise trade unions. The board was only interested in the bottom line, met infrequently and took little interest in how the organisation was run. The article was published in The Guardian. I did not mention the organisation by name but referred to it as a national Housing Association the biggest provider of housing and care for older people. So not only did the leadership of the organisation know it was about them so did every one else in the business. I mention this now as commentators refer to the Great Resignation noting the numbers of employees who following the pandemic have decided that they are not prepared to go back to their former job and way of working. In response organisations need to change, to reflect on why people are resigning and not simply dismiss this as a short term phenomenon or disgruntled minority.
Blair Mcpherson former Director author and blogger www.blairmcpherson.co.uk
