Change in Job Role *UPDATED SUSPENDED*

PrincessPlaty

Just after a bit of advice OH works for a small but rapidly growing IT company he has been there for 5 years in as a senior support manager.

He has been off sick for the past week and has returned to work to be told by his employer that they have changed his role. He has been given no opportunity to discuss it and has basically been told to accept it or the door is there!

They have changed his role to senior project manager. Which in itself isn't an issue however although he can do the role he doesn't have the qualifications to do the role, and the average wage for the role is £13.5k more than what he is being paid!

He is also losing £200 a month on call allowance for no longer being in the support role.

His job role and job description have quite clearly been changed from what is stated in his contract of employment. Is there anything he can do about it?

He is actively looking for another job as he feels there is no further career progression within the company.

Any advice?

Notmyrealname

You don't need qualifications to do a role, experience counts just as much. He should negotiate for more money if the average wage is more.

Whilst he can challenge the change, the ultimate end game from his employers side is that they can offer him a new contract and if he refuses to sign it, they can terminate his employment so the reality is put up with it or walk.

On the subject of that, if he doesn't want it, he needs to stop working or notify in writing that he is working under protest in dispute of the change. If you continue working under the new terms, you are deemed to have accepted them.

However they seem to think he's a good employee capable of it otherwise they'd not have made the change. What he needs to do is maximise the opportunity. Gather plenty of evidence of the average wage for the role and make an appointment with management/directors/HR to discuss remuneration for the new position.

He is actively looking for another job as he feels there is no further career progression within the company.

How does that conclusion come to be given that he's just been promoted? And once you're in a senior management position, there's usually not much scope for career progression anyway other than the board so what would changing employers achieve?

PrincessPlaty

Notmyrealname wrote: »

How does that conclusion come to be given that he's just been promoted? And once you're in a senior management position, there's usually not much scope for career progression anyway other than the board so what would changing employers achieve?

He was already running the projects anyway as an aside to his role as support manager although this was not in his contract. They now only want him to do the project side.

When he started he was told that there would be progression in various aspects of the business. They have put him on to do do things and then when he has built them up to how they want them they tell him they don't want him to do that anymore and take it away from him.

This includes over £1 million in sales last year without even a thank you and then it taken away from him and they then took someone on to do the sales role.

This seems to be the breaking point in a long line of things

getmore4less

But changing is they way forward build up something then hand it over to other to run, move onto the next project

seems if he was allready doing the project role and it pays more why has he not negotiated better terms allready?

InsideInsurance

Does he want the extra £13.5k you say a senior PM gets compared to his currrent/ old role?

If yes, get the experience, push for getting training and ideally something like Prince2 then go out to the market as an experienced PM and get that extra income.

PrincessPlaty

They are not willing to negotiate full stop.

They are quite happy for him to keep building their business up for him whilst only paying him at his current salary. Lining their pockets forever more whilst he sees no benefit from it.

He has asked them this morning about Prince2 or any alternative and they have said they are not willing to fund it despite the fact they fund qualifications for everyone else in the business! :mad:

paddyrg

PrincessPlaty wrote: »

They are not willing to negotiate full stop.

If they won't negotiate, might I suggest leaving? Or at least hitting jobserve.com and seeing what the options are.

PrincessPlaty

As i stated in the OP he is already actively looking for a new job.

He reuploaded his CV to various sites last week and applied for a few. He had 2 ring him last Friday who told him he is too qualified and worth far much more money than the roles that he applied for but have put his CV on record and will be in touch if any higher positions become available. He has had another 2 try and call him this morning however he can't answer as he is at work.

PrincessPlaty

Following on from this, my OH's employer has been making life extremley difficult.

They had him still doing customer visits yet were not telling him what was happening with the customer support, making him look rather stupid when he got to one customer and found that the company had cancelled their contract!

The guy that they have running the support team (the role that my OH was doing originally) isn't happy that he is being made to do it, he has also been given the oncall work that my OH was doing with no training or support in how to do the job.
They then informed the admin assistant that she was to start doing the customer visits, not telling my partner this. Then asked my partner to take the admin assistant along with him. They still have not told my partner that he will no longer be doing them. The admin assistants words were 'I don't understand any of what you have just said how do they expect me to do this on my own?' she is purely admin not technically minded at all.

They have refused him time off work for a doctors appointment for essential medication which they know that he requires daily. He leaves for work at 7am and doesn't get home from work at 6pm so no way of arranging it for before or after work.

This morning they then logged into his works computer whilst he was at a customers site, over rode and reset the password for his machine and also his email account.

On getting back to the office they have told him that they had to go on to his machine to look for something. (They didn't ask him for the password, and due to the nature of the business all machines can be accessed from any of the machines in the office).

They stated that they were suspending him on full pay whilst they investigate something concerning that they found on his machine.

When he asked what it was that was concerning they stated 'accounts for another business'.

What they actually found was a copy of a programme called QuickBooks with very little information in it, as my partner was testing it as a possible programme to do the accounts for my business.

I sell toys, childrens bedding etc. Nothing that would conflict with an IT business. I think the only entries into the programme were for some high school musical bedding just so that he could see how it worked. All of this was done in his lunch hour and not during work time.

He is still looking for another job, however he feels that he is being forced to leave.

Who should he contact? What should he do? Any advice appreciated.

InsideInsurance

Most companies have an IT Policy, many of which would normally cover things such as installing additional applications onto a computer, using company computers for personal use etc.

Does the company have any such policies? Does he have the wording? What does it say about these sorts of topics?

PrincessPlaty

There is no such policy in place.