The last time I emailed you, it was to talk about the launch of our first community event. We had lined up a cracker of a topic (if I do say so myself) and hoped that you’d find it interesting enough to sign up and share your thoughts with the rest of our community. Well, even half-drenched and stuck in miserable Delhi traffic as I am, I’m super stoked to say - we did it!
We received over 500 registrations after that first email went out last week (we actually had to close registrations early because there were so many). And on Thursday evening, we held our first live community event on The Art of the Great Resignation Letter.
Imagine over 170 unique attendees—from people just a few months into their first jobs to veterans who’d spent years shaping their career. There were people who’d hadn't resigned even once, and others with a cool handful (or more) resignations to their name. Founders, leaders, HR hands, and executives of all stripes… across gender.
All on one platform.
If it sounds exciting, it's because it was.
The session went on for over an hour, but we had no idea where the time went. And man did we get some interesting insights.
For instance…
Don't burn any bridges!
Even before the session kicked off, those of you who registered were asked to fill up a pre-event survey with some basic questions. Here are a few results from that survey I found very intriguing.
We asked attendees about how honest one is/should be in a resignation letter. Do you lay it all out front and centre, feelings be damned. Or do you take the diplomatic route?
There was a clear winner here.
Only 12% of respondents believe you should state your actual grievances in your resignation letter. About 16.5% think you shouldn’t mention any reasons at all, and the rest believe you should just keep it cordial and diplomatic. There were other interesting results too.
Over half of those who took the survey say they just freely draft a letter when required, but about 6% have a ready template in case they ever need it (!) One of those who had a resignation letter always ready had a fascinating reason for it - this was his way, he said, to keep a level head while making career decisions. And he regularly updates his letter to reflect changes in his experience.
Also, nearly 90% of respondents believe you should speak to your manager first before sending in your resignation, but the results aren’t as clear cut when it comes to deciding on a last day.
Not so irreversible The survey was just a kick-off point for the live discussion though. Many people had great stories to tell, but one quip by an attendee took us into a particularly alluring rabbit-hole: “I am,” they scolded us, “someone resigned took back the resignation on the same day itself.” This raised a very interesting question for us to review.
Are resignation letters reversible? A majority of subscribers who attended the session believe they are. It seems to be a more common occurrence than I, at least, believed. Because a senior HR executive who was part of the discussion told us that she sees resignations practically every day(!). And that it’s often clear from the letter whether the person really intends to quit or not.
People, she told us, often actually want a better manager, more money, a better team, and so on… and that can become clear from their resignation letters. Sometimes, a resignation letter just seems to be a way to vent frustrations.
But it’s also common, a few attendees told us, for resignation letters to be largely ignored and treated as just paperwork. So the feedback you leave in your letter, however well-thought-out or crafted, may never be taken into consideration (yikes!).
Before we could bury ourselves in that particular rabbit-hole though, time ran out and we had to wind things down. It had been over an hour, but for those of us from The Mumbai Multimedia Studio at least, it was a night of new and exciting learnings. The event was moderated by Team, and yours truly, of course. And we received some excellent feedback. Some of those who attended thought it was a great topic, but felt the discussion could have been more focused. Others found it real and grounded. We’re also going to conduct more of these events in the future, and regularly. So let us know what you think. Do you have a topic in mind that we should put up for discussion? Should we try out different formats? We’re in the process of planning our next community event right now.
So if you have any ideas, don’t hesitate to email me at multimediastudio9gmail.com or just reply to this email.
To wrap this up, I’ll leave you with a rather thought-provoking resignation tale from one of our attendees:
I do have one resignation letter that stands out in my mind from a youngster who'd threatened to resign from my team (with a rather angrily drafted email). I watched how it all played out and how it seemed to boomerang on him. The incident stands out in my mind because he not only withdrew his resignation but also agreed to work without conditions. He went on to become one of the most prized team members in my team, and has gone on to do some wonderful things in life thereafter.
