Internal promotion/restructure

[acatcalledjohn]

I can't quite find a clear answer online, so thought I'd ask here:

Team of 3, one supervisor and two employees. Supervisor moves to a different role in the company, tasks now split between remaining two employees.

One of the two remaining employees is made supervisor. Job was never advertised, neither employee found out about it until the decision had been made.

Is this legal?

I'm assuming that you are the other one.

What a difficult situation. Is there someone in a managerial position who you could talk to about it? I'd do that first, before looking into the legalities of it.

Presumably, even if they had advertised it internally, they would have picked the same person anyway.

I am. This happened a number of months ago with the message that there may be a pay rise in it.

There wasn't. I was holding out hope, but the extra pressure and stress for a bog standard inflation pay rise is simply insulting.

Do you mean you were promoted and you didn't want to be?

There's no requirement for them to advertise, no. But similarly, if you didn't want the job change, you could have refused it.

What, in reality, is the difference between the role you're now doing in this "supervisory" capacity and what you were doing before?

It sounds like being "made a supervisor" is a change in name only, a bit of a fudge. It's hardly a change from 0 reports to a team leader role of 4-5 people, which would be a meaningful change that would warrant a formal review of your grade and the role spec compared to your legacy one. They're playing games.

No, I am not the one who was promoted.

I suppose it's compounded. First I am not even considered for promotion, followed by not getting the suggested pay rise for doing a significant amount of extra work.

Ok well they have no obligation to advertise promotions. Yes ideally they should, but in reality if there are two internal candidates, the outcome would have been the same.

In terms of whether they can change your own job without a payrise, well, probably yes. Unless your job description is comprehensive and contractual, which it probably isn't, they can add stuff to it.

Have you sought feedback about the situation as to why they made the decision? The least they can do, if they want to retain existing staff, is to provide you insight into,what additional skills you need to build to progress to the next level.

When you say you have a significant amount of additional work, what effect does it have on your hours? Is it just a temporary "spike" in activity or are the tasks going to involve long term changes to your hours?

It might be time to refresh your CV if they've saved the costs of 1 x FTE but making no attempt to recognise the additional contributions you're making.

Thanks @flowery, that answers that question. I thought that was the case but struggled to find it in black and white.

@daisychain01 I haven't been in the right place mentally to add that to my plate.

My job before the change was easily FT, and now I could easily work more than that. Thing is, after being told we need to work more effectively in order to fit the additional work load in to our days, I refuse to work overtime as that is unpaid. They want more for nothing and I don't get paid enough to sacrifice my precious spare time for a rich yet greedy business.

I am indeed job hunting. A shame, because most of my colleagues are really lovely.

(The additional workload is permanent.)

So you are doing 50% more work for 0% more money? No wonder you are pissed off.

Is the other person your immediate supervisor now then?

A little less than 50. Probably 30%. But still. That's 30% extra work for nothing.

No issues with other colleague being my supervisor, we get on really well. It's just the sour taste of being dismissed off hand by management, followed by no pay rise for extra work we've been doing for the last 6 months. We are forever firefighting because we simply cannot keep up.

It's not all about the money, but there are limits to how much extra I will do for free.

More fool them, thinking they can dump on you and not reflect the additional work in some enhancement to your existing pay. The fact is they want something for nothing, but they are failing to appreciate that the employment contract is a two way agreement and that you have just as much right to leave for a role that pays fairly and recognises contribution,

unfortunately it is very much a sign of the times with all the uncertainty atm.

I'll caveat my earlier comment. - be cautious in your job search to ensure it isn't out of the frying pan into the fire, especially if you have your 2 years' employment rights. But in bad times, employers need good skills for a stable workforce, so that's in your favour!