Earning a large salary for your role, and having great benefits is a blessing, but it can also be a major curse. It can lead to the so-called “golden handcuffs dilemma.” The term “golden handcuffs” refers to a situation that employees can sometimes find themselves in where they have a superb salary and benefits, stock options, tenure, commissions and more, so much so that it is difficult to leave the job and go elsewhere. It can seem hard to justify leaving an existing position like this. One of the challenges with golden handcuffs is that behind them are sometimes weighty monetary responsibilities such as a large mortgage. This can make it very difficult to move on from a situation that you are not satisfied with.
Golden handcuffs can weigh you down, yet a great salary and pension scheme and good benefits are not everything. Being satisfied at work is also important for health and wellbeing. If you’ve had enough of your job, staying in the role may not be very good for you. Over time, feeling dissatisfied and trapped can also affect your motivation and engagement, affecting your performance in the job. In these circumstances, finding a way to move on is probably best.
If you want to free yourself of the golden handcuffs, you’ll first need to fully understand your financial situation. Developing a budget that shows non-negotiable outgoings each month will help you get to this point. From there you can calculate what you can afford to live on. You will want to factor in making sure that you can still have the lifestyle you desire to avoid further unhappiness down the road. These calculations will inform your salary choices moving forward.
Before jumping from a position of financial comfort you may also want to bolster monetary security nets, making sure you have savings in place to support a change. Getting a plan in place to build these up before you leave will help. Another good step is to network. This can help pinpoint opportunities that are not advertised that you were not aware of. It could mean that your financial loss may not be as great as you anticipated.
For some people, having financial comfort is motivation enough to stay in a role. However, if you are dissatisfied with your job but still want to stay, you’ll need to figure out how to bring back the joy at work again. Options might include talking with your manager about how to evolve your role. Perhaps there could be opportunities to get involved with new projects or take different responsibilities that might reinvigorate your interest once again. Finding a mentor to talk issues through or to think more broadly about the situation may help.
Either way, sitting put and saying nothing is likely to be detrimental to your long term health and happiness. Finding a way through the golden handcuffs dilemma is important.
SureSkills has expertise in helping high calibre candidates get placed in exciting new roles. If you’re feeling trapped by golden handcuffs, why not get in touch to explore ways we can help?
