I have been in my current role for 17 months where I am the sales manager, company have been good to me so far, get on with my manager and colleagues also in May I enrolled on a level 5 operations/department manager apprenticeship which finishes in Feb 2027 and at the moment that is going well.
now a branch closer to home (8 miles instead of 20) the branch manager role became available so I enquired with one of the directors and they said they have already filled the role with someone external but call me to discuss other opportunities so I did. They asked me why I applied for the top job and I said this is what I am working towards and why I enrolled on the apprenticeship and also joined the company because I want progression.
They were happy with my response and said look there are other roles here and I’ll be compensated if I went over, then after 1-2 years if I do well, will discuss promotions. Sounds good but this place is an absolute mess, I’ll be having to learn something totally different and use a system I haven’t used before and I am wondering if it’s worth it?
The previous manager of this place was my old manager at my last company. I asked him about it and he doesn’t want to talk about the place lol, other colleagues have said it’s a poison chalice. Speaking to my wife and an old manager from my last company they both said if you can survive that toxic environment you can more or less survive here as it won’t be as bad as that place.
Not sure what to do, if I should ask for any assurances and will it speed up my career?
main reason for going into leadership is it seems to pay more and I want my wife to step back as here job is very physical and she’s not getting any younger. But I’m a bit afraid of going over hating it and then I am stuck. My last company promised making me sales manager and like a fool I did the role for 5 months to then be told we’ve hired an outsider and we want you to train them. So I joined this company who made me manager straight away.