Change of JD and job title with no consultation?

[codenameduchess]

My manager has taken it upon herself to completely change our teams function, which involves our job descriptions being changed substantially to include a significantly increased amount of responsibility and workload, job titles have also changed.

I'm confident I can do this new role, however none of us have been consulted or even seen this new job description and only know what she has told us verbally (and it's different every time we ask her). We were informed last week the new roles were in effect immediately... but still no info on what is expected.

Manager has also created a new role, only 1 position but it's a potential promotion to a senior position for 1 of us and another possibility for the admin to move into an officer level role.... however she has changed the entry requirement effectively blocking any of us from getting the jobs for no reason.

The officer level now has an entry requirement for a professional qualification higher than any of us in the position have.

My concern is, firstly we have not been consulted on or even officially given info on the new roles we are apparently now in, from what we are told the responsibility is significantly increased but there has been no pay review (other similar jobs in the industry pay more) and our manager has effectively blocked any of us from progressing while securing herself a pay rise. She has also made huge efforts to block improvements so we cannot provide the services to the business we should have been doing before the change.

There are other issues around my manager and her behaviour, such as we all know she has been fraudulently claiming huge amounts of expenses and TOIL, she is unprofessional and petty, often sends sweary and unnecessary texts to us over nothing and plenty more. It has been noted by a few more senior people that I work with often but I haven't said anything officially.

Any experience or advice on how to handle this? In terms of the job role change is there something obvious I've missed that I should be doing?

Speak to HR but tread carefully as this is all hearsay at the moment. She may be manoeuvring towards making people redundant. But the sweary texts are completely unprofessional so show those to HR.

Thanks @Triglesoffy I was considering an informal chat with someone I know in hr who would know what's happened on their side of things and maybe show me the JD they have.

We'd all wondered if she was working towards getting rid of us, but she has to know she is unqualified and can't do the actual job so would risk exposing herself. she's only still in it because the rest of are good at what we do and she sucks up to the right people (only last week I had to step in and stop her doing something hugely illegal and potentially putting several people in real danger because she didn't understand the very basics of what we do. At best it would have resulted in crippling fines to the business).

”My manager has taken it upon herself to completely change our teams function”

I doubt very much she’s done this completely herself. Presumably your team’s function has interaction with and impact on the rest of your organisation, and a complete change of function of one team just isn’t something she could decide in isolation.

”which involves our job descriptions being changed substantially to include a significantly increased amount of responsibility and workload, job titles have also changed.” Job descriptions are usually not contractual or exhaustive so a reasonable amount of variance within your capabilities is unlikely to be problematic. If the increased workload is such that it is not doable in the hours you work, you need to flag that up. Job titles might be contractual though. Does your contract say anything about changes?

”I'm confident I can do this new role, however none of us have been consulted or even seen this new job description and only know what she has told us verbally (and it's different every time we ask her). We were informed last week the new roles were in effect immediately... but still no info on what is expected.”

Presumably you have asked her for the job description for the new role? If you are unclear on the requirements of the adjusted role, you need to be very clear about that and say that without clarity on exactly what the changed role comprises, you are unable to fulfil it.

”Manager has also created a new role, only 1 position but it's a potential promotion to a senior position for 1 of us and another possibility for the admin to move into an officer level role.... however she has changed the entry requirement effectively blocking any of us from getting the jobs for no reason.

The officer level now has an entry requirement for a professional qualification higher than any of us in the position have.”

Presumably it is her decision what the criteria are for these new roles? As long as they are additional and not making your own role redundant, that’s ok. She is not required to set the criteria for new roles based on the qualifications of staff who may be looking for promotion.

Is there any kind of salary structure where you work, where the new roles should be assessed in terms of where they should ‘fit’?

I think talking to your contact in HR might be a good idea, especially about the expenses issue, texts etc.

@flowery she has just taken it upon herself, she informed hr of her plans but no one else was made aware or consulted and it hasn't come from a business need. She heard about what another company we're doing and thought it could get her a pay rise... it hasn't, and still no one else actually knows what her plans are or how they affect the business. Done right it can be a good change, but she's not doing it right and some of what she's said is illegal but as the 3 people who understand the job are officers we aren't listened to.

I'll check my contract, but basically as an officer we were brought in to do X job. the changes mean the job is now something completely different, if the 2 roles (old and new) were advertised they would be completely different and command very different salaries but no review has been done because my manager informed hr 'it's not a big deal' .

How do you know what conversations she did or did not have with her own boss? Or with HR for that matter?

If your boss is doing all these things and has no oversight or controls on her actions, then the power structure at your organisation is fucked and you will need to leave.

She doesn't sound like the best manager, no, but most of what you're describing here is just bad management and governance rather than legally actionable by the sounds of it. JDs are always subject to change and "other duties as required".

If she asks you to do illegal things and persists despite you telling her they are illegal, you can try whistleblowing to someone above her but ultimately if your organisation is as bad as you're saying, you're unlikely to be able to do much about it, so you can polish up the old CV or put up with it.

It's a shitty organisation right now, there's no management or direction at all. The high levels are only bothered about hashtags and gimmicks rather than the actual output of the business.

I'm updating my cv, but at 20 weeks pregnant there's not much I can do for a little while so maybe I just have to play along until I can leave.