Has your role / tasks ever been changed without management asking you?

N2IT

I'm just curious if it has happened to you and what did you end up doing? Essentially being told and not asked. Thanks.

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marmot42

As others have said, I have run into this nearly everywhere I have worked. The last place it occurred, there wasn't enough of the work that I wanted and was hired to do, so I ended up doing the work that needed to be done. I think that the nature of IT kind of lends itself to employing people who are good at finding solutions, learning on the fly, and getting things done so you end up getting asked (or told) for help outside of your role.
In my situation, I responded by continuing to do quality work and be a team player, but I also made sure that as a salary employee I was not giving away my time. I have reflected on the situation quite a bit since then and I have a lot of responsibility in landing myself in that situation. I think it's very important to interview your potential employer thoroughly, set clear expectations from the beginning, and keep your long term goals in focus. With that particular situation there were red flags starting with the interview process that I ignored. Those little warning signs turned out to be indicators of things I really couldn't live with down the road and I now feel like that was a setback in my career. So I would say if your situation is tolerable, stick it out, try and keep a positive attitude and be ethical in your actions and communications. Use your personal time to hone your skills and resume. Think about the qualities of the ideal company you would like to work for and start seeking out companies that meet that criteria and find out what it takes to get into them. Then be relentless in your pursuits.
EDIT - ps - If you already don't like the company you work for, don't negotiate, just work on getting out of there. If you do like the place, when you end up with another job offer or two, make sure to plan for a situation where your current and prospective employers may want to negotiate. This will ensure that you don't get caught off guard and have to make hasty emotionally charged decisions.

paul78

N2IT wrote: »

No one ever said that a company was run by the HR department but the metrics should be available for the HR department to make decisions.

I have never been in a company where HR departments make any of those decisions. Interpretation of metrics is not an expertise that HR staffers or leaders possess across a complex organization. Goals come from the business and it's functional management's role to manage budget and resources to that goal - never HR. My current employer is no different than any previous employer.

And to be honest, I would never hide behind HR. If the technology group that supports the business doesn't make the numbers that we committed to - that is my fault - not HR's. If we have to make hard-decisions to move re-arrange budgets or at worst implement a RIF - that is not a HR decision. They may support the implementation of the decision or sometimes even carry out the decisions - but the decisions are never made by HR. If anything, the pressure comes from Finance. Incidentally, at the various start-ups that I've worked at, we seldom even had the notion of HR. We may have had a HR administrator of sorts but that individual was usually part of finance.

I wholeheartedly agree that a company isn't run by a single department. The company decision-ing process is made by those at the business table. At the line-of-business that employs me, the CIO is at the table along with sales, account management, finance, and product management. I have only ever worked at technology service companies so technology is always at the table. At these types of companies, we are the biggest expense to the business. And allocation of those resources is driven by our bottom-line. At that table, there is seldom discussion about headcount allocation, it's about hard dollars and budget (usually top-line) only. Resource allocation and budget management is managed at a level-down from that table. The business sets the goals and we implement and execute on it.

IMO - that model works well. Smaller companies may have the luxury to have everyone at the table but in my experience that doesn't scale as well.

BTW - I know that it sounds incredibly callous and uncaring to refer to actual humans that do the real work as "budget", "resources", and "head-count". The truth is that when we conduct these types of resource allocation and budget exercises, we can only get through these sessions if there is some distance. We do drill down to names but that usually ends up an argumentative discussion.

Also - I'm not trying to defend your management's decision. On the contrary, I will always think that the circumstance of what occurred in your situation as distasteful and disingenuous on the part of management. If you were hired into a role and it was changed so drastically without much discussion - and without an understanding by your management of your career goals and aspirations, that's just plain bad leadership. I don't equate management and leadership as the same thing. Your managers may be good at management and have a successful business. But that doesn't mean that they are good leaders. Leadership is a talent. Management is a skill.

N2IT

@ Marmot and Paul I really like the company however I find it poor hiring practice to bring someone on for position X and then have them work position Y especially within a 6 month period. That too me doesn't settle easy. I realize that high level executive positions don't have that flexibility (e.g. going from HR director to VP of operations). You don't say no thanks I'll wait for the CIO position it doesn't work that way at that level, but project managers, analyst, engineers etc I believe should have a certain scope set when they get hired on. I've seen some replies that disagree with that and I find that fairly egregious. If you are hired to configure and set up networks "but the business doesn't need that now" tough crap you eat that cost. Now there is an element of time and eventually that may no longer fit in the project or operation . That is fine and called doing business but to swing that quickly is done in poor taste and any management team that disagrees imo lacks tact and ethics. @ Paul your last sentence IMO is right on the money. I agree "Leadership is talent and Management is a skill". Just for the record I would rather have my role changed than be fired (well within reason I am not cleaning toilets).