If your face fits...

[Juganet34]

Hi all,

I feel that over the last few years my line manager has been giving extra opportunities to my colleagues (Same grade but some on a lower grade) which is usually in the form of each colleague line managing a junior member of staff together with full training through the Open University. It seems everyone has been given the opportunity- Except me! I should say that I have a lot of hard earned experience in the industry, am told I'm extremely approachable and love passing on my knowledge and guidance!

What also annoyed me was that this allocation was done through one to one meetings. There wasn't any prep saying there's an opportunity and some would be chosen for these extra responsibilities and some wouldn't. It all seemed very cold and that those not chosen would just find out about it and deal.

I just feel like moving on, but without this formal experience I think I'm stuck forever on my grade.

Is this management style standard? I'm NHS (Band 7)

Have you asked for the opportunities and training. If its done in 121s then your colleagues may have made it clear that that was how they wanted to personally develop and if you haven't done the same then there may be an assumption you are not interested

I'm not saying this is good management to be this way, but at the same time I always take my development as being my responsibility and I like to put myself out there instead of waiting for opportunities to come to me personally

Thank you Confused NT. From what I gather any opportunity was offered rather then the employee wishing to develop themselves.

Am bumping for a few more opinions

I remember one of ds's direct reports complaining to him that she hadn't been recommended for a secondment - the person who got the secondment has found out about it and asked to be put forward for it - they had used their initiative which was a quality that was going to be needed for the role they had put themselves forward for.
In our organisation, we ask our team to come up with their objectives - you take responsibility for your personal and career development, you don't expect everyone else to do the hard thinking for you...you'll get guidance and coaching to on the objectives you choose but for us if someone wanted to do a course and it was relevant and the costs were realist for the business to pay we'd talk about it. Take some initiative, request a course, do some thinking about where you want to go in the organisation and plan how you get their and what support you need.

@Juganet34 I agree with @500thousand you need to take the initiative and manage your own career development.

Start by asking your manager if you can line manage a junior colleague and do the open university course. You may be surprised by their response.

One of the best pieces of advice I have been given are, if you can’t be bothered to manage your own career and development how can you expect anyone else to be bothered as it matters to you. Plus the worst they can say is no but they may remember you the next time.

I agree with the other posters I think OP, so definitely mention that you want to gain this experience too.

What's the OU course that your colleagues have done?

Managing your own career is the first step you make into leadership. Forget leading other people if you have no vision or plan on how to lead yourself. I get so frustrated when I interview people and I ask them how they manage their own career development and most have no idea, they stumble along hoping someone else does it for them. Which they might do - but if they don't initiative is needed. I often hear conversations between the senior managers - X was looking for more opportunities to learn to build models, manage a client account. work on their presenting skills etc and they are the people who are chosen to do the tasks because they said they wanted to - they are easy to ask because the response is going to be an enthusiastic Yes, I'd love to! rather than a - "I have enough to do...grumble, grumble, grumble...." And if your tone in your OP is reflective of the attitude you display at work, they'd be expecting a grumble response from you. I say it often on this board - but maybe it's time for a fresh start somewhere else - you have lost trust in the relationship with your employer.

Face fitting is a tale as old as time. No matter where you work it always has and always will be the case.

The opportunity may have been offered rather than asked for, but that particular employer may have made it clear they were interested in progression preciously and therefore seemed like the obvious choice

When I go into my 121s I have a clear plan of how I want to develop and what I want to learn over the next six months, what I need to do to achieve that and what support, if any, I require from my manager. Which means they are absolutely clear on my areas of development so if something comes along that they think will help with that they send it my way