To refuse to do this work?

[Timeforabiscuit]

I feel absolutely trapped and cant think of a way out of this without wrecking my work reputation or leaving.

Ive been nominated to lead on some departmental work, but after two days working on it its become apparent that senior leadership have sat on this for months and its only since a key deadline passed that its been passed to me. Its a beast, the work area has been neglected as a whole and it means getting lots of senior heads of department engaged in a very short space of time.

The role was meant to be voluntary and absorbed as part of existing grade, but apparently i was given as the person responsible at a meeting, but i was just told later in the day that this was now my responsibility.

IF I do a proper job on this, it will take masses of time but as its a compliance area it dosent directly impact our key deliverables. Its also working well above my pay grade which has been frozen for five years.

I had a formal meeting with my manager who said while its unfair, we can just take off some of my objectives (the bits I really want to do!) knowing full well i'll do my best to do all of it. He also made it clear there is no possibility of a payreview even though its warranted.

I cannot suck this up, i feel either look for a new job or just have it out that im not happy taking this on with no change to my job description/pay - job suicide.

To add insult to injury, individuals in the department are thrilled that im working on this as i'll do an excellent job - but i know i wont get any senior management support,recognition or uplift - its the work equivalent of a siberian gulag.

Is there a magic way out of this?...

This isn’t an easy one. IS there any way the project can be split between you and a colleague so that it doesn’t stop you working on some of your key objectives?

It can definitely, but this job has got a stink on it so everyone will move very quickly out of the way if they think they will be asked to do anything.

They are more than happy to contribute, just not lead or have any ownership of it.

That does help thank you faerie, at least it helps with work being split out more equitably!

Could you start on it and look for another job in the meantime? Would it be easy to get another job quickly?

If not, could you argue that you don't have the necessary experience to ensure this meets Compliance?

shumpa the thing I would be giving up are perfect part time hours and walking to work - things more important to me than strictly pay, but I suspect work also know that im less likely to kick up a fuss because of this.

I have as much experience as everyone else, but more of an interest, enhanced training will be provided - but I could argue that the knowledge should be spread round the department rather than one person to improve resilience.

Okay feel less desperate now!

If it will take masses of time, how that impact on workstreams for your actual job description?

Could you ask for some of the more boring/onerous stuff to be taken off you?

How will leading this project look on your CV?

Could you look for another with suitable hours in the meantime as well? Sounds like you're more than due a payrise.

Yanbu, talk to ACAS and ask about constructive dismissal.

Have you heard of the glass cliff? Its when women are more likely to be given jobs at which its not possible to succeed.

What will the penalties be if you don't meet the targets of the project? Is this going to affect your next payrise? Can you delegate some of your normal role so that you have more time to lead on this departmental project? Your manager has admitted it's unfair, do you think they really expect you to do an amazing job given that the key deadlines have already passed?

I'm really sorry for you, I hate this sort of thing at work.

shumpa if i do it properly it will take alot of time, I could just skim over the top and just send a load of emails to people telling them compliance is important - but the organisational risks wont be addressed. My actual job will be "de-prioritised", but ill still be expected to fit it in.

Cv wise, i have lots of stuff i would rather put on it and i have already got good experience of the more technical work in my service area, going into cross departmental work and wrangling heads of service areas is something id seek to avoid in my next job!

Gdpr?

It sounds like you’re handling it well - don’t panic and don’t let them know you won’t lesvd

Leave *

Is there anyway you could just effectively pay lip service to the whole objective but not actually get too involved? Get a load of nominees from each affected dept, they define objectives/action plans and you just monitor/report as needed? It is likely to be a fair bit of work at first but should hopefully keep itself ticking over. This was my approach when in a very similar situation - management didn’t really care about the detail or whether great progress was being made, they just really liked that it had ownership and the PowerPoint updates (!)

Penalties are unlimited fines, but risk of that occuring is low as long as somebody doesnt do something incredibly stupid, but as knowledge of obligations is generally poor and with lots of staff able to access the potentially compromising stuff in the course of the job, it feels like a when something goes wrong rather than if.

I will not have any responsibility though, my role is simply to flag and manage (with no one listening at senior level, and no capacity to work on problems at the operational level).

Bingo Haggis,

Oh dear, it’s a mammoth task. A lot of it can be sourced online but If youre a big company it’s mammoth.

2 things - get the GDPR audit sheet from the IC website and cascade it with a time line to all department heads and put the onus on them identifying compliance issues.

Also, depending what field you’re in I’d be recommending that they get an external consultant. It’s just so massive and there’s no hands off way to do it for a full organisation while doing another job or being heavily involved

In theory not much has changed since DPA 1998 but in practise...

If it is GDPR then you need to drive home to senior management that the penalties for non compliance are chunky, will that make them sit up and take notice? Also, there is huge competition at the moment in the market for providers of outsourced GDPR compliance training and audit so you might be able to get some external help at a reasonable price?
Sorry if barking up wrong tree.

Cross post!

boopear ive been known to do a flash powerpoint , that will definately work for many of the department heads, but there are several who are completely silent who I know have massive problems and they are at the limits of what they can handle. These are all senior to me, to do a proper job i would take this approach and then give more support to the struggling ones.

Do you have a DPO? BTW mine was

There is no budget, absolutely none, compliance must be managed in house - and to be fair it should be, the problem is capacity.

Ha! I knew it would be GDPR.as soon as I read your op- they've obviously been putting it off for a long time.
Good luck, whatever you decide to do!

Yes, this is the way the DPO is making the work manageable across the orgnisation - they have no ability to take it on single handedly, so voluntary champions are being recruited - but the champion role is the size of an actual job.

Not sure what happened there! Anyway - a DPO apt and a GDPR external risk review (against each dept) should be the first step. Then hopefully (!) dept heads can see the risk to their respective depts and get someone from their dept bedding in GDPR into THEIR processes ASAP, with DPO writing policy/sorting out training as needed. I feel your pain - mine was GDPR too. Trying to run a massive change programme and suddenly GDPR dumped on me anyways - two months down the line am in ticking over phase which is approx a day a month. Hurrah..