Negotiating job role - how to make a bad job into a good job

jayknee

Hi all,

I wonder if anyone has any experience in negotiating changes in your job role to make the feeling of "I hate my job" into "I'm happy in my job"?

I've worked at the same place for 4 years. Its a fabulous company with great people and I love that side of the job.

I was promoted after 2 years and I've not been happy in this role for at least half, if not three-quarters of this period. At the time I had specific project knowledge but they couldn't create a job role dedicated to that during a re-structure of the company.

So for the manager to keep me under their area, they gave me a small team to manage (N.B it was in an area unrelated to what I had done before). I was naive at the time but I now realise that this was their way of keeping me for the specific knowledge I have. I had never managed a team before and I haven't been given much help in the basics of "how to manage a team". It is this side I don't enjoy. I don't have the time or knowledge or ability to manage a team effectively, especially when I'm still being involved in large projects to do with the knowledge that I do have (I'm about 1 of 4 people in the company that do) and it would quite easily fill the majority of my working days. To sum it up, I've realised I'm more of a technical person rather than a motivator of people.

I have tried to get this across to my manager, but its getting to a point where I've got to admit to myself and others that I'm out of my depth.

We're coming into a performance review period. My boss hasn't told me that I'm doing badly at any part of my job, so I'm not concerned about the outcome of my performance review per se. But its probably the right opportunity for the "talk" and lay my cards out on the table regarding this.

I want to stay at the company and continue to work on the projects I have the knowledge for, but I don't want to manage a team. I won't be swayed by a bigger pay packet to stay in the current role, and if they can't help me out I will be leaving (albeit a scary situation to put self into).

Has anyone got experience of a situation like this? How did they phrase it to their manager(s) and what the outcome was?

Thanks in advance from a newbie

getmore4less

One way is to create the opening in the side of the work you do like,

if it is a different manager/section you ned to get them to need you more.

A slightly more risky option is to be available less so you can focus on the part of the job(managing) to at least get on top and be more productive at it.

Even if technical you need skills to be able to scale your skill by using others to take on work(team/technical lead).

poorlittlefish

At one of my previous jobs it turned out that the woman who'd been doing it, much like yourself, didn't enjoy the management side of things and wanted to revert to officer level. Fortunately HR and management were sympathetic and were able to slot her in and recruit someone new (me). I was never given any management training there, but thankfully the team didn't give me any issues I couldn't handle.

Is there anyone within your team who might relish the opportunity to step up? If so, might it be feasible to put that sort of suggestion to your manager? If that's a no-go, then at the very least you should be asking to go on some management training or have a mentor to provide some support.