HELP is this title change allowed now I’m back from maternity leave!?

[AlphabetSpwp]

I’m just off maternity leave so not sure if I’m being overly sensitive or whether to start pushing back.

I wasn’t treated overly well during maternity leave by HR/the wider business (despite it being a big company and I’d have assumed would be on the right side of the law regarding this kind of thing)

My current job title is that of a manager, since coming back off maternity leave my team has merged with another, in this other team my counterpart is an ‘analyst’ as her title. Since we both do the same job we’ve split the workload and now have dedicated responsibilities.

An example would be if I was Recruitment and onboarding manager and she was recruitment and onboarding analyst. We were both responsible for recruitment and onboarding, now one of us is responsible for recruitment only the other onboarding only.

My new manager notified me last week he wanted to speak to HR to get my title changed to more accurately reflect one of us now does recruitment and the other onboarding. I assumed this would mean my role would now be ‘recruitment manager’

however I’ve just been sent (unofficially) the new org chart my manager has created and I’m listed as recruitment analyst.

To me the term analyst seems a lot less snr than manager, and it seems to be the case across the business and in other businesses within the sector.

Am I right to be annoyed about this and can they effectively ‘downgrade’ my title if all other benefits stay the same?

I realise that. Just saying that some organisations may want to confine the manager title to people managers.

As the OP's recent update shows, that is not the case in her organisation.

This happened to me, not after mat leave but it was a decision made by a senior manager about the titles I and a few others had. We were called “<subject> Manager” and it was changed to something like <business unit><subject> Analyst. No change to grade or pay.

It did affect us badly. I wish we had all pushed back at the time. Ever since then we have been seen as more junior than others in the same role in other parts of the business. This has resulted in people trying to push routine tasks to us that are not part of our job, and other people being consulted on things we’re expert in because we’re not seen as senior enough. Some people even asked whether it was done to pay us less. It was and is incredibly demoralising.

Words matter - fight!

Is your band that of a manager? If so I would ask that it remains as titled and the other person's is changed if you are doing the same job. If it's not a manager band, then the new title reflects that

Also, as someone who deals with recruitment it’s doesn’t look great on your CV as the perception will be that you’ve gone from manager to non manager at the same organisation, whether that means you’ve taken a step back in responsibility or had a demotion. Even for internal recruitment it’s got connotations for the hiring manager. We get a lot of negotiation on job title and I understand why.

I’m not sure how your organisation standardises their roles. Ask your HR. Many organisations (all the ones I’ve worked with) use Hays. If your organisation uses this then I would ask whether the responsibilities of the new role have been benchmarked against your previous role, and if they’ve come out at the same level/band then it’s another argument that they should amend the title.

If it’s come out as below the manager role you are currently in then that’s a different problem, and if it’s not been benchmarked at all then I’d be asking why they feel it’s an equivalent role given the perceived disparity in seniority.

I was suggesting it might be a change in policy. I also said she should fight it, regardless.

@AlphabetSpwp definitely push back and insist you retain the title manager. If not, when there is eventually a restructure you'll be put in an analyst pool and potentially be at risk of redundancy. Especially if for example you are higher paid than others with the analyst title.

We are both the same band anyway, her title seems to be the issue if that makes sense

Will see if pushing to get hers changed will be doable

I think it's a good idea to explore that. I would be miffed to go from manager to analyst as in my line of work before I became a SAHM I was a manager and analyst was a level down. I didn't have direct reports but I managed the segment I looked after and my title reflected that. If you're confident enough too then I really don't think it's unreasonable to have a conversation to explore the other person's title changing and express that you feel the change to analyst firstly doesn't reflect the true nature of the role and secondly sounds like a demotion and you're not comfortable with it. Good luck!

That should say confident enough TO

Nc'ed for this.

Just how important are job titles in your org OP? Were you the only one who hard yours changed?

I work for a Fortune 500 company, you'd have thought they were big on titles but really nobody cares. We can change them on our internal org profile anytime. Only corporate grades matter.

The question is whether your title was overinflated and how terms are generally used. Of course you are only using recruitment as an example but, I had a quick Google, and it seems to me that a 'recruitment manager' runs a team. This is different from say 'finance manager' which can be a solo job.

You definitely shouldn't accept analyst though. It's clearly a downgrade. If you do ask for a job re-banding and it turns out that it's below 'manager' something like 'senior recruitment consultant' gets the message across perfectly.

Are you and your colleague on analyst or manager corporate grade? If manager grade, insist that you both get the title. If on analyst corporate grade, then the title change IMO is fair game and your title used to over inflated.

I've seen the latter (actually analyst grade but job title says manager) in practise at my work (a big corporate) and it causes some confusion and those analysts doing the same job without the manager title have been quite unhappy when they've realised.

Not really relevant to the OP but
My big corporate has 5 which roughly map to 'analyst', 'junior management', 'middle management', 'senior management' and 'executive'.
In reality most experienced hires come in as junior or middle management depending on the role and years of experience. Nothing to do with whether they manage anybody.

There are very few 'manager' titles after analyst I see the words 'senior', 'lead' along with 'consultant' or 'specialist'. They also use the word 'partner' instead of 'manager' e.g. 'HR business partner'.

Really though if titles are taken seriously there should be a stringent review process which takes the current postholder's evidence into account. There are entire teams which specialise in this, in HR consultancies.

There aren’t grades for the roles per se.

my pay grade is the same as many other roles, some have manager in the title others do not.

It just so happens bar one specific position in another business unit all other analyst roles (except my counterpart) are lower bands for pay

I’m the only person whose had a role title change during this process, as it’s a large company I can’t say whether other similar team mergers aren’t happening in other areas and it’s happening there as I just don’t know.

Internally it’s not that big of an issue, but my role is heavily dependant on change management and influence, I need people to ‘respect’ my specialism if that makes sense so I do think even outside of it being shitty, the change will negatively impact my ability to influence at the levels I currently do if the title is ‘downgraded’

Are there any internal policy documents regarding title changes?

I have thirty years experience in very senior finance positions in multinationals. I would firstly not jump to any conclusions about job title and would look at structure and responsibilities to be honest. But at first glance, I would presume "Finance Manager" to be quite lowly in the ranks and in practice, I have always found this to be the case, particularly when they are managing processes but no people. On the other hand, Finance Analyst might suggest to me expertise and technical skills. Analyst has never been a word used for lowly members of he finance function.

I think this is a non issue, there is no demotion, just a department tidying up and normalising their job titles.

IME they are sometimes used interchangeably (civil service for example where. Lot of the criteria crosses over) but where we have an analyst who owns a process, they have always been titled manager.

I’ve worked in banking in the past where finance analyst is less senior than finance manager (Lloyds and Barclays for 2 - big gap in salary of about 30% to reflect this). Other banks have salaries published on glassdoor and they all look around the same.

Jib titles matter.

I agree with this, although I'm surprised she didn't complain long ago if you were both doing the same job!

The timing is sus here. You've been back 6 weeks so its not like they imposed it on you after maternity leave.

Ask why the other persons title isn't being upgraded to manager

In my organisation analyst is lowest role.

I'd push back and insist on retaining manager. I don't think maternity leave makes a difference here. It's a restructuring.

She isn’t fussed, issue is I think she likes the analyst title as in her region it apparently isn’t seen as a negative!

Analyst is lower than Manager where I work. Is there a different job description for the analyst role?
I would also be concerned that the role would be reviewed, recalibrated and downgraded in the future (our company does this sometimes using job title and JD).

You would struggle to claim this was maternity discrimination. You took a full year off so you’re not entitled to return to the same job, and in any event, this has happened 6 weeks after you returned from leave and has been designed to put you and another colleague of a same level at a same level.

You could try and argue that your role has been made redundant and due process was not followed (weak argument as your job and pay is still the same, just the title has changed). All you can really argue is that you’re unhappy with it and see where that gets you.

You need to talk to them and tell them you feel you have been demoted in status. Explain your feelings on the matter and that you're concerned that this has happened now you've returned from Mat leave. If they've restructured and consulted with you then this may not be the issue you think it is, especially if no change in pay and you can see the new structure, but talk to them. Don't let it fester.