A salaried person always looks for better opportunities to advance their careers in the hope to receive better pay for the services they offer.
However, sometimes the reason for changing the job is different.
You may be fed up from your boss, you might have location issues, your spouse might be working in a different city, or you are not promoted for a long time.
Your boss just doesn't like you or you’re messing with his secretary, hey this could also be a potential reason.
There could be so many personal or professional reasons that may force you to look for another job.
However, all those reasons are genuine and you must consider for a change but you need to think thrice not twice before really submitting your resignation and planning to say “GOODBYE” to your current job.
I want to share you here some key points that could help you to figure whether you must change your job or staying with the current company is financially better and good for you.
1. Don’t look for CTC (Cost to company) instead look for how much you would get in hand after all deductions and taxes paid:
Cost to company is a very confusing or misleading number in your salary document.
I have seen many people with higher CTC but their take home is lesser than someone with a lower CTC. Look at your CTC document suspiciously and calculate whether you’re really going to get more or less from your existing pay.
Doesn’t compromise on your pay, if you would not get paid better you would start regretting until you find another job with better pay.
Don’t run for one job to another but make very informed decisions, take time before submitting your resignation.
2. Does it provide free medical insurance to all your dependents?
Take this seriously, not all organizations provide medical insurance to your dependent parents.
There may be some organizations that don’t provide medical insurance to you too.
Clear this with the HR team well before you even negotiate for the salary.
However, you earlier never took benefits of medical insurance provided by your employer but that does not mean you would never need it.
In an emergency, this is the best thing that could save burning your emergency fund. If the company where you’re planning to join does not provide such facilities you need to take medical insurance for your family. This would cost you more money that would really impact your in-hand salary.
3. Does the company provide housing facilities?
Most of the large manufacturing companies have their own townships where the housing facilities are provided to the employees.
If you’re joining a company that does not have such facilities but your current organization has such facilities. You need to calculate how much money you have to spend on housing facilities.
Keep in mind when you get housing facilities by the company where you work you get it at a very affordable price. Also, the company provided accommodations have usually better facilities than the accommodation you get on the rent in the city.
If the company where you’re going to join provides housing facilities, check the condition of houses and confirm they are in better conditions.
Also, confirm with the HR team, how much house rent has to be paid for the company provided accommodation.
There are many organizations which deduct all the housing rent allowance from your salary. But, there are some companies that deduct only a notional value of your housing allowance.
I want to tell you from my experience here; I once joined an organization which has housing facilities for its employees but the condition of the houses was pathetic.
But that company was deducting Rs 6500 for the accommodation. However, my last organization was deducting only Rs.1700 for accommodation and the facilities and the condition of the flat was much better.
4. Know how far your work location from your house is.
Check the commuting time, and compare it with your current organization.
You don’t want to waste time in commuting to earn your daily loaves of bread. If the commuting time is going to be more prefer staying at your current organization and wait for another opportunity.
5. Education of your Kids.
You want a better school for your kids. You also want that the school is nearby your stay so that your kid could reach school safely on time.
You don’t want your kid to roam around the city on a school bus for hours.
Also, confirm with schools their fees because the fees of schools are different from city to city.
6. What is working time in the organizations?
Not all the organizations have 9-5 working culture for all the employees. There are shift duties also.
If you’re working in a 9-5 culture it would be difficult for you to adjust in shift duties which are usually 8 hours and shifts change every week. Ask the HR team about this point.
7. Reimbursement of relocation change charges.
Ask your HR team and confirm about relocation charges paid by the company. There are many companies who do not pay any relocation charges for shifting of household items. Those who pay for shifting of household items have some terms and conditions, understand those terms and conditions.
If you have to pay from your wallet, negotiate for the same with the HR team.
A few companies have very ambiguous terms on relocation charges for example once a company asked me to submit three quotations from different logistic services. They wanted to pay from the lowest quotation.
Your goal is to get the HR team convinced to pay for shifting of all your household items along with your car.
Either clear it well in advance with HR team or be ready to pay from your wallet.
8. What are the fixed and variable components on your salary?
Get a clear picture of your salary by looking at variable and fixed components. There are many companies whose fixed component is lesser than the variable component.
Get this checked and confirm with the HR team how much percentage of variable component has been paid in the last 3 years.
Once I joined a company where my variable component was over 40% of my total package. In the first year, I was paid only 81% of variable component, in the 2nd year I was paid 74% and in the third year I was paid only 62%.
I was also employed in a company where my variable component was only 10% of the total package, but I was paid only 22% of the total variable package.
If you know someone in the organization, you can talk about the variable component and how much they’re getting. I think the HR team may not help you more here.
9. Get the feedback from 3rd party websites.
You may not believe it but if you don’t know anyone in the organization where you’re going to join you must read reviews about the organization at glassdoor.com or indeed.com.
You must read reviews of people who had left the organization due to some reasons, read those reviews carefully. You may know lots of things about the organization through those reviews.
10. Is the organization financially strong?
This is one of the most important parts that you must not avoid checking. You can get more information about how the organization is working financially by visiting moneycontrol.com or morningstar.com.
Access the balance sheet and look at the financial figures and employee expenses. Here you can know how much the company is spending on employees. Compare the employee expenses for the previous 3 years and find whether they are increasing or decreasing.
If the employee expenses are decreasing, it seems there are some types of lay off going on. However, the lay off is usually for people who don't perform, but many times it affects all employees too.
Conclusion:
We change jobs for better opportunities but opportunities must be realized in the next job. You don't grow if you change jobs often without any better opportunity. This is the reason you need to work out before resigning. Above parameters will help you in the assessment of new job offer.
What is your experience in job changing? Do you find above things beneficial for assessment of new job offer? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.