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How to handle this situation

4 replies

Howsitnearlyxmas · 31/07/2025 09:59

I'm in a middle management role, with a small team who provide a series of specialist services to the business. Each of these services are unique from each other (skillset, experience) but have a similar application hence being in same function.

Last year I gained a team from elsewhere in the business, which made sense and it required some attention to get it better aligned with business objectives. So my role in theory was to transform it.

Since that point I've lost 2 Senior colleagues on that team to redundancy and now in reality I'm doing the transformation and day to day running of it, with only 1 other colleague working on it who is new to the role.

It's massively underresourced, we run the risk of not getting any return on the tech we pay a lot of money to enable it to run, I'm up the wall, it's not fair on the broader team as my attention is spread too thinly and the colleague new to role is shouldering too much.

HR will not budge on getting more resource (1 year recruitment freeze owing to redundancies) - but my issue is it was them that made the redundancy decisions in the first place without understanding impact or appreciating the specialist nature of the role. Recent discussions with them have resulted in suggestions that I move colleagues from elsewhere in the function to this area, which just wouldn't work.

As a side note, I've had no change to my job title to reflect new function I manage or pay change. I've tried to get rest of my team modest pay increase to reflect the additional work they're doing which haven't been approved.

Just wondering how best to navigate this when the decision makers don't understand the implications to the business and to colleagues. I feel like at this point downing tools, reducing hours to give me some semblance of work life balance or looking elsewhere.

OP posts:
FloraBotticelli · 31/07/2025 14:05

Have you spelled it out to your manager? (or the right risk owner). Spell out how much resource each bit needs, how much resource you have, what risks the business runs if each anctivity were to stop, and put it to then to make a decision about what gives. Spell out the options - accept x risks, or fund more staff, more expertise etc.

FloraBotticelli · 31/07/2025 14:06

Point out that indecision is not an option as it would mean defaulting to x risk.

CMOTDibbler · 31/07/2025 14:08

Look elsewhere. I hate to say it, but they are getting you to do all this extra work with no resources and no recognition for you or the team - and as long as they get away with it then they will. At the same time you'll get dinged for not doing the transformation and things will get worse.

Howsitnearlyxmas · 31/07/2025 18:34

Thanks everyone.
I've lost count of how many times I've documented and shared the requirements and risks with decision makers. There's a cultural challenge here whereby my manager (part of SLT) doesn't have enough sway with their SLT peers to get things through coupled with a disregard for specialisms within the business, hence being told to shift bums around to make things work.
Other parts of the business are bloated which makes it harder to tolerate.
I think I'll need a frank conversation with my manager that this isn't sustainable for the team or from a business perspective.

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