AIBU to ask for clear career progression plan after 3 years at company?

[Bitesize89]

As the title says I've been at my current company for three years, I took a year off for maternity leave. I work in a consultancy so it's not like a role has to become vacant to get promoted. I was told upon hiring that there was lots of opportunities to grow into project management and varied roles. Since I've left for maternity and come back my current LM seems to have stunted my opportunities.Shes put me on mundane tasks and I've told her recently I would like to take on more responsibilities. I've had a few conversations with her now about career progression and what I need to do to develop into a junior pm. Everytime she is very vague and never giving me concrete goals to work on or anything specific to improve.my performance review have been good and feedback good. So I'm just getting fed up and I feel like she won't give any clear things to work on to move up.i recently got a mentor in the company who happens to be her bosses boss and she gave me a competencies checklist that I had to fill out and share with her to get approved. I'm hoping with this clear guide she will have to either give me clear feedback on what I need to develop or a promotion if she agrees I meet all criteria. But am I unreasonable for expecting a clear path to progression or at least feedback??

No you're not being unreasonable at all if you work in an industry where promotions is based upon experience and responsibilities and if you aren't reliant on a position becoming vacant before progressing to the next level.

Do you have annual review or appraisal? As part of this are you required to set objectives for the coming year and set out a plan for how you will achieve them? If so then can you set objectives relating to the competencies?

Yes we do and that is what I want to do to add objectives about competencies I'm missing but I don't think I'm missing any for the level one up. The one two up I definitely am. When I mentioned I was going to send her the form with the competencies for a promotion she said she would want me to find my own knowledge gaps and also suggested looking at it after the promotion deadline. I was really annoyed as she said we don't need to rush it as it will affect my pay.

It doesn't sound like you have a very good or supportive line manager. Is the promotion window once a year? When are you due your annual review, is it before the window closes?
Is the promotion process formal, do you have to provide written evidence, similar to if you were applying for a job?

YANBU at all, this should be absolutely standard in that type of situation.

Do you know enough about the promotion terms to be able to say that you think you've done everything and there are no gaps? If so, can you go ahead and schedule a meeting with her and invite your mentor too, with the specific purpose of assessing you for this promotion? If she tries to push it back, don't be bashful about clarifying that you need it to be before the deadline.

If you're not sure you've met them all, can you ask your mentor to help you go through the criteria, cross referencing it with your recent appraisal info/feedback etc. You could also ask a colleague who already has the grade you're after to help you, or if you're a member of an industry network they sometimes offer coaching.

I've been told the promotion window is three times a year. I've just had my performance review and got all good everywhere and good feedback. Feeling really down about it as I feel stunted, she is not supportive at all. Its sort of a formal process, well they just started formalizing it. Basically I filled in this form and submitted it to her basically summarizing how I met the next level. I told her I'm putting myself forward for the next promotion and that I'm awaiting her feedback.

You might want to look at a project management qualification such as PRINCE if you want to progress in that direction. You could try asking your manager directly if the company would support you to do it.

I've already got one and my line manager knows about it

That's exactly what I've done and put all my evidencing and support but I know she hates me but has no real evidence against me so I'm worried she won't do it anyway in which case I'll be super depressed. I'm not sure why she is so unsupportive, she gives me positive feedback about my work.

Might have missed it but when did you come back from mat leave? If not very recent then YANBU. Do you have HR and could you have an informal chat? Pushing a line manager to promote you who clearly don’t want to usually doesn’t lead to good working relationships. So unless she says what her problem is and you can address it, or line manager leaves, it’s hard to see how you’d stay in the same role and be comfortable. Are there any sideways moves to another more supportive manager you could make?

I came back a year ago, mind you some of it has been part time but still have been working hard. I'm thinking of asking for a new line manager if she doesn't help as I find her exhausting.

If promotions are based on competencies, and you meet them all, you should put in writing to your manager to understand why you have not moved up. If you don't meet them, ask to do an exercise where you rate yourself against each competency and she does the same. Then make sure there is a plan on gaining these skills.

Everything in writing, so you have an audit trail. If she doesn't respond, or says no, take it to HR.

Although it seems personally unfair to you, the hard truth is a company can keep you at a hold in a level they deem appropriate within the company as long as they like, and sometimes it can be the source of confusion about lack of progress.
Although no one needs to leave, look at your colleagues, are there others at your level who 'should' progress first as politics can sometimes come into it. Would they possibly leave if you progressed and they didn't?
Perhaps budget for promotion has gone somewhere or to someone else.

I would suggest stopping having conversations that are all about you, and have them about the business. If they promote you, they’ll charge out your work to clients at a higher rate. Is the problem that they don’t have a balance of clients or projects that can be charged out higher? Is it that they need more people at your current level?
If you can get to the bottom of the business’ position, you may be able to come up with a compromise or a timeline for your personal progression that also works for the company and its clients.