So I work as a senior manager for a larger corporation with a team of about twenty people. A year ago the company decided to kick off a big savings initiative with hiring freeze, rehiring freeze, purchasing freeze, and so on – essentially we're not allowed to spend any money at all.
The past few months, I kept telling my boss we are headed towards a a really bad standing with our KPI, and we need a short term external help to so we can fix it, before it becomes a problem – I was denied several times.
Then, 2 months ago, my boss started pushing for us to improve these KPI because, guess what, they went downhill, and now he's become a focus point in his KPI meetings.
We were recently informed that our department (Mine, and a few other larger groups) is headed towards exceeding the budget by several employees woth of money (About 10% of our people) – this is mainly because our budget was cut, and not because we hired more people. We already tried hard to eliminate some positions this year, but the department is made up of many small groups in entirely different fields, and not some large groups where you could simply increase everyone's workload a little – Essentially, you can't eliminate one position from a two person team, because the remaining worker would burn out, or quit, and we definitely don't want that to happen – Also, they've always been tight with new positions, so you had to prove that you really need this person, before it was granted.
Meanwhile, we are supposed to push through some improvement measures to meet our goals – I pointed out in a meeting that with being several employees worth over budget, this is no longer in the realm of improvement measures, but requires layoffs (Which we can't afford either), and that we're wasting out time with minor tweaks – I was told to just do what I can, because we're mostly working on damage control.
Also, we were told that the budget for trainings is now also at zero – So much for crossqualification to take over different jobs.
I took this job two years ago, and was told that I'm supposed to develop my department, and promised that I can shape our system from a senior position. I am however not given any tools to do this job. The only things I can do are tasks which i can execute myself without any help from my team – This is just not how a manager's role should work.
On one hand, I'm hopeful that this is just a painful time, and will pass – On the other hand, I've been with this company for a lot longer, and we never had a lot of funds to spend on anything.
Personally, I'm losing motivation, because I'm not getting much done. The few things I would like to improve require a temporary headcount increase, which is being denied, and my positive outlook is darkening more and more.
What do you guys think – How much longer should I play this game before moving on?