Promotion - WWYD?

[GetOrfMyBin]

I work in a sales environment and with the new financial year coming up there has been number crunching from the SMT about raising the targets for the (small) team that I'm on.

The company is currently projecting a deficit for the next financial year so we're currently going through a 'restructure' where a small number of roles are being made redundant. My role is not one of these.

I currently earn a basic salary and then have the opportunity to earn commission on top of this. For the first part of the financial year it was very tough and I earned only a little bit of commission, though the other two people on my team ended up not earning anything. Since September though I have been doing very well and the commission I am being paid reflects this. I have worked very hard all year and I always put in 100%. Near the end of the year we lost two team members and new ones started. In the time between staff leaving and starting I was pretty much on my own for a few months in terms of the team I work on. When the new people started I ended up effectively training them to do the job and they still ask me questions when they need help. Sometimes this has take up quite a bit of my time. Anything our manager doesn't know how to do he asks the new members of staff to ask me.

So due to the commission scheme being a bit ridiculous if you're working hard they are scaling it down quite a lot, as it's not sustainable for them which is fair enough. Our targets are also being raised, which was expected. It is all a bit of a blow to be honest. The new people employed seem to have what it takes to do the job but this comes with pitfalls I think of areas being saturated. The sector I work in is also facing some big changes this year, which I believe will impact on income. I am reducing my working days to 4 instead of 5 for personal reasons, though I still work at full time capacity. My manager knows this.

After the meeting today I was asked by my manager to stay behind. He said about how appreciative they were for all my hard work, which I've been told by our director, and that the company wanted to look after me. He's offered me a promotion which would come with increased responsibilities - supporting colleagues, which I'm already doing. They'd give me an increase of £2k and a new job title but my target would be raised to be equal that of the full time target. I have already worked out that if I stayed at the lower target for working four days and didn't agree to the increased target that comes with the promotion I'd earn £2400 over the course of the year, which is £400 less than they're offering to give me as a pay rise. So essentially they want me to do what I'm doing in less time, with increased pressure/responsibilities and a pay cut.

Now don't get me wrong I am grateful to have been offered this, I have been with the company just over a year and I think this would be great for my CV, but I'm feeling a little bit disappointed about the whole thing. DH thinks that I should go in with a couple of options for them:

A) I take the promotion but I ask to be paid the same amount of my colleagues as I am still going to be doing the same amount of work as them, even though it's in less time, and I ask for the original £2k pay rise on top

B) Agree to the promotion but ask to stay at the lower target

C) Stay as I am

I have a sneaking suspicion that they only want me at the higher target to reduce my potential for earning commission. My manager, after telling our team about the changes to target and commission where I had been referred to constantly 'because GetOrf has done do well' etc etc, jokingly said to me 'if only you'd not worked so hard'. It feels like I'm being punished for working my socks off and it sucks. My team is going to exceed the target because of me - I'm already over £60k over my annual target with one month to go until the new financial year.

It's kind of like a fake promotion as I don't feel at all appreciated or valued. I need to give my manager an answer as soon as possible but I just don't know how to approach this - what would you do if this was you?

Any suggestions very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance

They havent exactly set the world alight with their "promotion" have they! Thats about 140 quid a month after deductions

A few thoughts come to mind

Only you know how realistic your new target sales figure is. It could be that when you think about it the target is more achievable than you think. Therefore it may be better over the long term to accept your new ts and cs as offered. They might start comparing you to the new team members as they increasingly build their experience (in terms of value for money)which could become demotivating to you. Going onto shorter hours might not be your friend (like for like productivity more difficult to compare realistically)

If your sector is as challenged as you mention in your OP maybe you have to be willing to respond to market conditions and accept whats on offer at least you have a job. Quibbling could destabilise the situation for very little benefit in real terns. Sales as a function will always be about shifting of goalposts and the more success the more they shift Theyll never be happy and will always try to squeeze the last drop out of you.

Probably not a lot of help but i tend to think 80% of something is better than 100% of nothing so to speak!

Also i think you are perhaps expecting a lot after onky 1 year in the company. Might be better to jeep you head down and give them at least 2 maybe 3 years solid and consistent performance to judge you on.

Sorry re typos. Fat fingers on my mobile

Thank you for your reply, it's very much appreciated

My target would be achievable, but at some points in the year I may struggle to get much over it (mainly Christmas) as would my colleagues. The sector I'm in is facing massive changes, but the changes impact our customers which in turn could impact on the business. This would show in terms of the money we bring in and I'm just concerned that when the changes come in later this year it will hit our targets thus reducing our chances of making commission. In terms of going down to four days I have agonised long and hard about it and the reason I decided to do it is that my husband has a long term illness and for the sake of my own health I needed to reduce a day. When I made my decision about this I did factor in the commission aspect and the change in the structure of commission is going to have a big impact to me.

I had a talk with my boss yesterday and asked a number of questions and gave my thoughts. Basically I wanted to try gauge their main motivation to offering me this position. My boss fudged his answers a bit - he hadn't realised I'd lose out over the course of the year by taking the promotion as he'd not looked in to the figures fully. He also said the main reasons for a promotion were a) to increase my targets and b) to reward me for a job well done. It just seemed like overall as we were talking through things that it was more because of a rather than b, which is what I suspected anyway.

I gave him my options and as I outlined in my first post and I was quite honest that I'd like to accept the promotion but in its current form it doesn't work for me and that I was open to discussion. He seems to have taken this well but he needs to speak with our director before that discussion can progress further.

We are currently in the consultation period, which is one week, for the change to our commission structure and we need to bring anything to the attention of our director by Tuesday. My colleagues don't know about the offer I've been made yet so any discussion I've had with them I've had to keep that bit to myself. Today we spoke to the director and raised some areas of concern and at the end of all of it she reiterated that if we weren't happy with the commission structure she was open to suggestions and she wanted to know. She said it might not work but she wanted to hear it anyway in case it did. Now I want to discuss it as part of the offer I've been made but I don't want to go over my managers head as he's not had a chance to discuss it with her yet, but we've only got til Tuesday and that's when my manager is back in work. If I did go to talk to the director about the new structure should I talk about it and reference the offer I've been made or should I just refer to that solely?

I would channel your concerns and suggestions during the formal consultation period through your line manager rather than having this separate conversation with your director. As you've recognised, developing a discussion with the director goes over your manager's head and that could risk losing your LMs good will.

That's only my impression, you will know best if it is part of the process and if you already have your LMs support to discuss in his absence. If you do have his support you may as well discuss the whole situation so the director has the big picture.