This one will make you laugh.
Preface: I’m currently managing two departments after moving across from another division and have turned them both into top performing departments, stopped the mass exodus of staff and several people retracting their notices or taking pay cuts / demotions to either stay in the team or transferring in from other teams.
Story time…
I was called into a meeting by my VP, who informed me that another department was severely underperforming which was affecting sales, project deadlines were being missed etc. and for that their manager would be going on a PIP. I was asked to ‘support’ this other manager and help with best practices and what not. ‘Fine’, I thought, always happy to help a colleague.
Now, I speak to this other manager regularly and have a good understanding of why they are underperforming. In essence, the company took on 7+ new contracts in the span of a couple of months and the team simply does not have the headcount to cope with the workload, even with daily overtime and working weekends.
The manager of the ‘underperforming’ department was called in to a meeting at head office. Seeing the writing on the wall, the manager put in their resignation at the end of the working day, stating in no uncertain terms that they find it impossible to work under this level of pressure and with the limited resources available.
Shortly after receiving the resignation, my VP phoned me and said “change of plans, we need you to fly out next week and begin transition for the department to report to you”. ‘Fine’, I thought, I’ve spent a lot of time making the other departments stable and can afford to take on this project until they backfill the managers role. In the meantime, I just need my salary adjusted to cover the (not insignificant) additional work I’ll have to take on. Knowing that it usually takes 3-6 months to hire or transfer managers for that level, I’m sure that’s a reasonable ask.
How wrong was I. When I asked my VP to update my job description (in my company, job description determine salary), they not only stated that the company will not be backfilling the role and I would permanently have to oversee the new department on top of my existing workload, they also stated that there would be no option of salary increasing and to “not ask for more money”.
The role I am covering is a +$90k role, meaning they were just going to have me absorb that work for no additional compensation. I am handing in my resignation next week.
TL:DR
Company refuse salary increase after not backfilling a role and dumping the workload on me.