# Surreptitiously introduced change in line of reporting, should I raise a grievance.



## x-factor (19 Feb 2011)

My job description states that my position reports to the Assistant Manager. I have been in my present position for a couple of years now. 

About a year ago, by oral notice, I was told by the General Manager that I would be reporting to a different individual, who nevertheless held the same position as the previous person I was reporting to, that is the one of the Assistant Manager. As the line of reporting was upheld in terms of organisational hierarchy I did not seek any further clarification at the time and happily went along with the change. 

The two Company’s Assistant Managers are now gone, one having left the job for good and the other being on maternity leave. Again, by a very short oral notice, from Monday to Tuesday, I was told I would be in a different team. Again, I did not seek any further clarification at the time. I believed I would be reporting to the individual covering the Assistant Manager who is still with the Company but who has recently had a baby and is on maternity leave. Surely, if such an important aspect of your job was about to change, it would have been formalized through an amendment to your job description – that was my line of thinking.

This, however, turned out not to be the case. I have only recently learned that I am expected to report to a supervisor of the new team and no longer to the Assistant Manager. I have never been formally advised of that change and I consider it a considerable step down and demotion rather than a lateral move, although my job title has stayed the same. Over the last couple of months I have been experiencing a considerable lowering of my status and prestige within the Company. 

I am thinking of bringing this as grievance to the employer, but my experience shows that the Manager is an expert at evasion and telling you it is you who are the problem, so any issues are usually left at that if you want to keep the job! Should I take this as a clue for dropping this altogether and suffer in silence till retirement?

On the other hand, if I ask for a meeting, what do I do in the meantime while my Manager is contemplating for a day or two whether to see me or not, or using excuses of other business priorities to be attended to for not seeing me at all? - go on holidays? get a sick leave? (I am actually experiencing some psychosomatic symptoms because of the situation, including headaches, loss of energy levels, anxiety, shallow breathing and general mental torment). Isn't my carrying on with my duties regardless validating and sanctioning this detrimental change in the eyes of the employer? 

Can the employer actually use me against me, so to speak, by refusing to give validity to my grievance on the basis of the fact that I did not bring this issue earlier? (it is been now almost three months since the change, during which, curiously enough, no effort has been made to inform me of the change, and it is only by accident, through what has been taken apparently as an act of insubordination, that I actually realized the change). Am I at fault here? Was I totally wrong to assume that my reporting line will stay unchanged although I was orally informed I would be in a new team? And what could have been done earlier to make it known to my employer that I am not happy with the change? 

What does the employment legislation have to say about the employer's responsibilities in a situation where there is a change to the line of reporting for employees? 

Should I just shut up and carry on, given the current impossible labor market and the fact that I have family responsibilities?

However, if it stays like this and I do not speak up, I am afraid I will get sick, with the moral damage aggravating and building up every single day, what good will I be to anybody then? 

Any comments or advise, please?


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## ajapale (19 Feb 2011)

Are you in a trade union?

I notice you spell labour as labor, are you in Ireland?

Having said that I think your company can reassign and change reporting lines as they see fit from time to time.


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## x-factor (19 Feb 2011)

I am in Ireland. The industry I am working in is not trade-unionized.


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## Purple (19 Feb 2011)

OP, is this a serious post?
Are you realy saying that you are "actually experiencing some psychosomatic symptoms because of the situation, including headaches, loss of energy levels, anxiety, shallow breathing and general mental torment" because you have to report to a different person? Has your job changed? Are you getting paid less? I really don't see what the problem is.


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## x-factor (19 Feb 2011)

This is a serious post and yes, correct, this is what I am really saying.

The problem is that I am directly reporting now to a person in the organizational hierarchy who is lower than the previous individual, and that in effect decreased my formal and informal influence and prestige within the Company. I am taking it as a comment on my prospects with them: instead of moving up in my area of expertise I am being put on a shelf to be dusted and forgotten!

My main motivation for work is recognition for knowledge and expertise rather than money.


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## Mommah (19 Feb 2011)

This happened me a few years ago.
It takes a little getting used to but can have its advantages.

I would just accept it and move on.
If your job is unchanged then your prestige and self esteem should remain intact.

From what you say there seems to be a logical reason for it.


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## seantheman (19 Feb 2011)

x-factor said:


> My main motivation for work is recognition for your knowledge and expertise rather than money.


 
Maybe you could try and work with a charitable orginisation at the weekend or after work,I've heard that volunteers feel a great sense of worth after spending time with those less well off


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## Jim2007 (19 Feb 2011)

x-factor said:


> This is a serious post and yes, correct, this is what I am really saying.
> 
> The problem is that I am directly reporting now to a person in the organizational hierarchy who is lower than the previous individual, and that in effect decreased my formal and informal influence and prestige within the Company. I am taking it as a comment on my prospects with them: instead of moving to up in my area of expertise I am being put on a shelf to be dusted and forgotten!
> 
> My main motivation for work is recognition for your knowledge and expertise rather than money.



I don't really see what you expect to achieve with this complaint.... formal notice that you must report to this person or what???

If you say that your motivation is recognition for your knowledge and expertise, then why should it matter whom you report to?

More than likely we are in a similar situation, as a senior technical expert I'm often moved around the organization to work on various projects or issues and as a result I often end up reporting to more junior people than me and it never really bothers me one way or the other.... they have a job to do and I have a job to do, so we just get on with it.

I think that before you go making any waves, you should be very clear on what you want to achieve and how to go about doing it - if you are employed as some kind of professional expert, then you need to realise that very often your reporting lines may not be what you would like them to be...

Jim


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## x-factor (20 Feb 2011)

Thank you. What I want to achieve is to have clarity on my responsibilities and know exactly what the Company's expectations are at the moment now that I have been assigned to this new team. For the very first two months my new supervisor did not even try to communicate with me on the subject.

My working conditions have also deteriorated, sometimes I think it would be better for me to work at a lower grade and position altogether: that at least would save me the never-ending surprises and being moved around like a pawn on a chessboard, for which I have unusually low "pain" threshold level!


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## irishmoss (20 Feb 2011)

Is it a case that the company are just doing this temporarily until the assistant manager comes back off maternity leave?
It sounds like your job hasn't changed at all but rather the company has cut costs by not replacing the assistant managers so perhaps it is just as simple as this and nothing whatsoever to do with you or your work performance.
What will be the position when the assistant manager comes back from maternity leave?


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## x-factor (20 Feb 2011)

It is not a temporary solution, but a permanent change. While previously I was reporting to the Assistant Manager in the operations, I am now supposed to report to a supervisor in a business support unit. 

That takes me away from the operations, while my job is relying on the first-hand information on what is going on there, rather than on the sort of input filtered through the eyes and priorities of a supervisor in the business support. I just know that her priorities are going to be at odds with my priorities if I want to continue to 
deliver at the level that had been calibrated when I took over the position. 

My job title will remain the same when the Assistant Manager comes back from the Maternity leave but I will no longer be expected to work toward the operations unit priorities but support unit priorities, which changes the very nature and perhaps also the scope of my job altogether! And in my eyes it is not a change for the better!

I will have to work on the change copying mechanisms more I think.


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## millieforbes (20 Feb 2011)

Would it be typically that someone at your level would report to a supervisor rather than an Assistant Manager? this used to happen a lot where I worked - people might report to someone two organisational levels above them and over time this might change to them reporting to someone just one level above them - some people would be more upset than others about this, it depends whether you view your role as your distance from the top of the organisation or from the bottom. 

Its now not uncommon for people to report to someone the same level as them. But usually getting stressed out about it doesn't do any good. Sometimes there is a message in it and sometimes there's not - for example it might be a reflection on the supervisor rather than on you - maybe your expertise is needed in her area?

I think you seem to have two seperate issues here - one being that you have moved "one down" in the organisational structure and the other that you have moved to a different area of the organisation and you would prefer to remain in the previous area. Can you have a conversation with the supervisor? You mentioned disciplinary issues - what happened there? Have you clarity of your priorities and role? do you need to discuss this with your supervisor? 

I understand your frustration, but in the long run its going to be easier to try and work with the change than against it


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## x-factor (20 Feb 2011)

I just went with a particular work area straight to the Manager, which under the circumstances was construed obviously as going over my supervisor's head. 

I do not believe there is any down-to-top communication channels open in the Company, unfortunately. I only regret I had not spotted what was cooking in time, as, in retrospect, the first question I should have asked when the change was announced should have been: "Whom I am going to be reporting to now?".

The most difficult thing for me to come to terms with is that I had believed all that time that I had been contributing critically to the operations, and now I am expected to work around them, rather than with them! Even the way the change was announced is a comment on the importance (or rather lack of it) of my contribution in the previous unit.

The whole situation is so totally unbearable to my mind that I am seriously contemplating applying for a lower grade position that seems to be permanently open there as the job is so repetitive nobody stays for longer than a year or two. That at least will take out all the guessing out of the equation: is it about me or is it about someone else, these permanent changes.

Can the Company refuse to move me to a lower position that I have experience in, and if I properly follow the application procedure as this position in announced internally from time to time, I wonder.


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## Purple (21 Feb 2011)

x-factor, it sounds like the management have screwed up. Good communication and assessing the impact of changes on people is a key part of their function. I'm still not 100% clear what the problem is though, are there personality conflicts in the equation as well?
Without knowing the particulars of the job you do (which you rightly have not revealed) it's hard to understand what the specific gripe is.


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## liaconn (21 Feb 2011)

I think you're reading too much into it. Your title hasn't changed and you're still reporting to someone senior to yourself. That kind of thing would often happen in the Civil service, where I work. You could be reporting directly to a Principal in one section and then, when you move, be reporting to an Assistant Principal. It just depends on the make up of the team and I doubt it's anything personal. 

I agree with Purple, though, that management seem to have created a situation where you are anxiously adding up 2 and 2 and coming up with 5.


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## x-factor (21 Feb 2011)

Thank you. I am not sure now whether I am reporting to someone senior, I am reporting to an individual who joined the Company three years after I did and has come to us as a "ready-made" supervisor just because she is a national of the country of the Company's main business Partner. So it all adds up, I guess, the resentment, the feeling of constantly hitting some sort of a glass ceiling and uncertainty as to the value of work I do.

I generally go along well with all sorts of people, and I like what I do for the Company, but this situation makes me just want to take a long hard look at the true nature of this position and its future in the Company as well as myself in it.


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## Purple (21 Feb 2011)

We all derive a part of our own self worth from what we do for a living, some more than others but to some extent what we do defines us. It probably should not be that way but...
Try to step back from it and not let it get under your skin.


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