Managing Change: New Job, Same Company

Guest Contributor: Kat Morrill

A lot of us reach a point in our careers where we realize that we love the company we’re at, but maybe not the job we’re currently in. We’re left in the position of finding a new role within our current company. The day comes and you sign your offer on a new position, but now you’ve got to find some way to smoothly transition out of your current role and into your new role.

There are two things to consider when doing this. First, you don’t want to burn any bridges with your current group or manager. You might still be working with that group or need their good graces in the future. You want to make sure that they don’t feel like you’re just dumping your old workload and moving on without looking back. Second, you want to make sure that your new team and manager know that you’re excited about working in your new position and aren’t dragging your feet leaving your current role. A great way to accomplish both of these goals is to write a transition plan. List out your current responsibilities and how you think these can best be transitioned to either a new employee or existing coworkers. Establish a timeline for this transition of your tasks. Give a comfortable enough time for the transition to occur, but be reasonable. Things to consider are:

• Does the person just need a quick rundown of what you’ve been doing?
• Will the person need additional training that might take a few months? 
• Does a completely new person need to be hired?

This timeline could be as simple as 2 weeks or could be as long as several months, depending on the complexity of the job and the amount of work you’re transitioning away from.

When you’ve got this down on paper (electronic or physical), set up a meeting with both your current manager and your new manager. Go through the transition plan with them, explaining that as you shift away from your current job, you can start ramping up on training and new tasks with your new job. The transition plan might shift a little bit during this meeting depending on how your managers see the transition occurring. Work with them, but be firm on a timeline in which you think this transition can occur. No one knows your job as well as you do. Depending on how long your transition is planned for, you can also agree to revisit the plan after a certain period of time has passed and re-negotiate as necessary.

Once you’ve obtained an agreement between the three of you, stick with the plan. It’s sometimes hard to move away from your current role, as you’ve comfortable with those responsibilities and new positions mean the challenge of stepping out of your comfort zone. Use your transition plan to make that transition smooth but also firm. The next thing you’ll know, you’ll look back months later and you’ll be integrated in with a great new team and a new job that you love.

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This guest article is part of SWE PNW's Contributor's Choice series, where section members submit a topic/article that they'd like to share with the section. This contribution was originally featured in our Notes from the Northwest (NftN) newsletter, Volume 01, Issue 04. Find past issues of NftN here.