Work taken off me and given to someone else

qetu1357

Can anyone please help?

Half of my work responsibilities and tasks has been taken off me and given to someone else to do instead. I, and only I, have been doing these for a few years and they are detailed in my job description.

There has been no discussion or agreement by me that this is OK

This has left me with not much to do and as the organisation is doing a restructure soon I am concerned that this will put me in a much weaker position.

Can my employer just take responsibilities off me without any discussion?

Horace

Have you been struggling at work? That could be a reason why some of your responsibilities have been reduced. Your employer should talk to you and you should be asking them why your workload has been halved and given to someone else.

Rockporkchop

When you say they are doing a restructure soon, how soon is that?

If you haven't already, maybe you should take out some income protection or unemployment cover, preferably a company with a 30 day exclusion period, just in case they do start to make redundancies.

qetu1357

Thanks for the replies.

I haven't being struggling but management would rather someone else does my job rather than me (it's mostly personalities rather than performance).

I have asked them (through the grievance procedure) why work has been taken off me and I haven't received a satisfactory reply. Their reply is "it's not permament" but if it was proposed to be they would formally consult. They give no indication however when the work will return to me.

Restructure starts early November.

jazzyman01

I would move the grievance to the second stage stating that you were unhappy with the response from your original grievance. Highlight that 1) you were told it was not permanent but that no end date was given and 2) that you were happy doing the job, were not struggling and have never had complaints about the job you were doing (if that is the case).

qetu1357

Thanks.

I am in the process of taking the grievance to the second level.

bendix

Yeah, there's nothing like a good grievance to put you smack-bang in the middle of the radar when it comes to restructuring time.

As a manager, who am I more likely to look at building a business case to rid of? The person who quietly gets on with their job, or the employee who is forever in the HR office, taking up their time with pseudo-grievances.

Here's a taste of the real world. In virtually EVERY restructuring or redundancy process I've been involved in, we've known months in advance who we are aiming to get rid of.

Rockporkchop

Agree with Bendix - personally I wouldn't have started a grievance procedure, just insured myself up to the max, got on with whatever work I had left and sat tight.

But good luck with it all, hope it works out for you.

jazzyman01

It is that sort of mindset that allows employers to get away with treating people with little or no respect. Telling someone that they are a trouble maker for raising what looks to be a very, very reasonable grievance smacks of something from the dark ages.

Get u has already raised a grievance. With evidence of grievances raised and responses in writing etc, there is a better chance of getting the Company to think a little before making any redundancy decision, even if it is to pay a little more? After all, according to Bendix they are likely to have made the decision already because of the transfer of work and why make it easy?

loopy_lass

and there was me beleiving the grievance proceedure was there to help sort out issues and one could safetly instigate a true grievance without fear or reprisal. I say put your concerns in your grievance and that way if you are selected you can go to a ET.

I would rather be sat on the dole living on spiders and cockroaches than work under bad conditions with a boss who says "complain and your out"... you just cant get away with it...

loops

Rockporkchop

I wouldn't ever say that someone should work under bad conditions or tolerate being treated without respect, but I don't think that taking some tasks away from the OP falls under either of those descriptions.

The OP has said that his firm is doing a restructure soon. There are all sorts of reasons why his boss could have taken work away from him temporarily. Maybe they need to assess the person they have given the work to, rather than the OP? They may have had something better in mind for the OP, you just never know. All I was saying was that I would have sat tight for a while before raising a grievance.