I have been working from home since the Covid stared and now it has been already 2+ years. I work in software development and basically all I need is my PC and MS Teams. The company seems to have accepted that remote working is here to stay and has not made any plans yet about bringing us back. There has not been any major drop in productivity and everyone (i.e., management) is happy with how things turned out. There have been several surveys in the meantime about working from home and most of employees are happy with it and reasons for it are mainly spending more time with family and spending less time on a daily commute. HR and management have done some trainings about work-life balance and that is all. Everything is fine and keep-up-the good work
But lately I am thinking more and more about how there aren’t any promotion opportunities or career development activities… there have been some new hires, some people left, but no promotion from the pool of current employees. It seems to me management is looking at us now as a a contractor, above-and-beyond work is not rewarded, and over the Teams it is hard to show any management and leadership skills. I get my task and I must deliver them on time. Only when I miss the deadline it is a problem but delivering on time and above-and-beyond efforts are not noticed.
I understand that at the beginning of the Covid we all had make certain sacrifices, but it has been 2+ years and it feels I am getting stuck at work and the company seem to be clueless about this aspect. Most of the articles online still talk about the benefits of remove working and how to balance work-life aspect, but nobody is saying anything about lack of career promotion opportunities. Has this been discusses anywhere, how to best open this discussion with my manager or HR, and not to be offered a counter-offer: “If you're not happy, you can always leave!” I like the company, and would like to stay, but cannot see where my career could go in next 2-5 years.
I tried to talk about it to my manger, he started stuttering and quickly changed the topic, HR said they’ll think about it (that was 1 year ago), other colleagues seem to not have any desire to leave the current job or weren't thinking about it, etc.
Am I the only one feeling like this, i.e., out of sight out of mind. What can I do to change that and how to initiate a discussion? Has there been any articles/advice dealing with this topic, etc.?