#CareerDevelopment #EmployeePromotion #LeadershipOpportunities
🤔 Have you ever had an employee refuse a promotion because they felt they deserved more money without the necessary experience?
I’m currently dealing with a situation where an employee has been offered a promotion to a Lead role, with a 12% increase, but has declined because they believe they deserve the max pay in the range without meeting the experience requirements. 😬
Here are some key points to consider and a possible solution:
– Emphasize the importance of gaining experience in stepping stones roles before moving up to higher positions
– Encourage the employee to take on the temporary support duties to continue gaining skills for future growth
– Provide clear examples of how accepting the promotion could lead to further career advancement within the company
It’s frustrating to see someone throw away a great opportunity due to misguided expectations. Let’s discuss how we can help employees understand the value of experience and logical career progression. 🌟 #CareerGrowth #LeadershipSkills
I get your frustration. However, we’re all responsible for our own career choices. If they are really feeling this level of resentment, I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up leaving for more comp, and that might end up being the best for all concerned.
Is this some sort of a career chicken game? Maybe the individual knows you need that position filled and seeing if you will cave in?
Can you afford to freeze the position to get all parties to cool down?
Or maybe get a strong candidate into an interview and bring the individual in as an observer (only), then get their feel on the candidate?
Would that open up the eyes?
He’s the smart one in this situation honestly.
The old lead retired. How much lead time did you have on that? Folks mostly don’t just wake up one morning and say “I’m retiring in 2 weeks”. Why wasn’t there a replacement posting as soon as the old lead announced his retirement? What did your formal succession planning look like?
It sounds like your company made a false assumption that this current employee would just fall in line and be grateful for the opportunity without ever talking to him about that ahead of time. People are getting too smart for that shit and I don’t blame them.
If you need him, pay him. If you don’t need him in this role, let him go back to his old role, stop the supplemental pay, and post for a replacement lead. In the mean time, the lead’s manager should take over the duties. Sounds like a complete failure to plan/communicate on their part anyway.
So? Let him keep his current position and start searching for a permanent person to fill the vacant role, which frankly should have been in the works when the employee retired. The motivations or ignorance of others when it comes their own careers shouldn’t be this much of a concern to you. If you’ve presented all the information and arguments for why he should take it, and he still won’t, just move on.
So you’re mad at him for refusing to allow you to strong-arm him into a role taking on substantially more responsibilities with not much increase in pay? Got it. Employees are sick and tired of being taken advantage like this, so I really don’t blame him.
Sounds like they’re being pretty straightforward, they told you what salary makes the job worth it to them. You disagree, but that’s on you
Can you clearly illustrate why he isn’t eligible for the higher end of the range? And then provide feedback to him on how he can get there. Set goals with timelines so that he knows how he’s progressing.
How much will a lead on the open market cost you? That’s what you should be paying him
Crickets from OP after this feedback
Based only on the information I feel like you’re reacting to this wrong. The employee has expressed they want more money to take on the additional responsibility, that’s a choice and having an opinion about something like that reflects a maturity to say what you want and advocate for it. These ARE leadership skills.
It sounds like this puts you in a tough spot given how hard you have been pushing this employee to take the role, but that is more a failure between HR and leader than of the employee.
Not that I think money is the best motivator, but you should also look at your compenation ranges. A 12% increase to move from an individual contributor role to a leadership role is on the low end. Either you are misplacing this person in the new band, or your bands are tool close together.
Let’s talk data
1) what is the difference in amount between what you are offering v/s the high end of the pay band?
2) what skillset is this?
3) are you in a high opportunity city or state? (Ca, ny, nj etc)
You said he is doing well as the interim.. you are paying him a supplemental to keep him motivated
You also said that he can be promoted to leadership in a year.. that means he has potential
If he is performing, you all like him, he has potential and may be lacking a little experience (which he will get in a few months on the job) what is the harm in offering him slightly more?
The situation is now a little murky.. he has rejected the 1st offer and is declining to take the supplemental too and going back to his original role, he is completely demotivated and disengaged .. but at the same time immature and reactive and missing tact which is not a good leadership quality..
If you give him a counter, that will set the tone of how he can always just throw a fit and get his way.. may be others will start doing it.
So your option now is to let him go back to his original role, and open a new position for the lead role to hire externally.
If he turned it down then move on to the next suitable employee. You’re making it appear like he’s the only person who can do the job. So who can blame him for demanding more than 12% when he’s moving from doer to leader?
12% pay raise could bump kids off Medicaid, requiring a huge jump in premiums. Or something of the like, and the only way to justify a loss in benefits through promotion is to cover that cost with wages.
I know this probably isn’t the situation but consider this the answer when someone doesn’t look at 12% like a gift.
I suppose you should now try to find the replacement for the position. See if you can find the perfect candidate. You won’t, but go for it. Just pay them and develop the rest of your requirements.
I feel like the choices here are pretty straightforward. Either pay the employee and promote or allow them to go back to their role and find another candidate.
It could be argued here that the one being unprofessional is the one going on the internet to shit talk their employee for making a decision they feel like is in their best interest.
It seems like they feel 12% isn’t enough of an uplift for the additional work/hours/stress that comes from the lead position. I’ve certainly turned down higher up roles in the past due to this, as the small amount of extra money wasn’t worth the stress.
This is an employee who does not feel valued, and one that you are likely to lose. I am not reading ego in this, I am reading dissatisfaction that is leading to disengagement. Your disparagement of him here speaks volumes.
So because he’s not doing what you want, at your pay rate, you are being a whiny AH? Maybe your pay isn’t as good as you think it is for the tasks of the role. You sound terrible to work with, with your attitude
I’ve turned turn promotions many times and I’m the senior most tech in my department. I’ll help fill in for a sick lead for a day or two, but not for a long time. It’s not my responsibility to fill in for management. I’ve been offered good raises but turned them all down. Money can’t buy my happiness. I volunteer a lot outside of work so I only want to work 8 hours a day and no more. My life outside of work is so much more important and valuable than accepting a 12% raise for a position of lead.
Just, lol
You want the person? Pay them.
> he deserves the max pay, just because.
No, he deserves the max pay because you really want him to do the job, and he can clearly do it, otherwise you wouldn’t be so invested in trying to persuade him to take it. You want cheap labour. He wants his worth.
>Who lets their ego stop them from being better?! So contradictory and self-sabatoging.
That’s your view. Clearly the employee is playing you like a fucking violin because he got you wound up so bad.
Lol. I was recently acting up (and performing higher duties). I’d been doing the role formally for about 6 months, and informally for 12 before that. I withdrew from the recruitment process midway through due to burnout. I would not have taken it for any less than top of the pay band… by all accounts I did well in the role, but fuck me, the extra stess… it was killing me. Not worth it for a tiny pay bump.
(I ended up going the opposite way… negotiated my substantive role to be split in two, and took the one with none of the people management at the same pay).
Why have you taken this very personal?
LOL I love this. The game has changed people, you can’t rely on old “career progression” carrots anymore. The fact is you can do whatever you want. We do it for execs all the time and for some reason it’s fine when it happens for them.
You hace a need and one person who can do it in the immediacy, ofc he’s gonna leverage that as much as possible.
Talk about contradiction…he was doing awesome at filling in and learning, but it’s inaccurate that he was doing a great job?
Have you bothered to consider what the cost of acquiring an experienced leader is going to be in this niche market? It’s going to sting when you pay 25% of the yearly salary to your outside TA vendor.
Sounds like poor succession planning coupled with hubris.
I get a kick out of people taking business dealings so personally. That’s immature
His thoughts are “Here’s how much I’d consider doing all this extra work for.” If you aren’t offering that it makes sense to go ahead and stick with what you’re good at for the amount you’d accept for that work.
If he’s ambitious he’ll just take a job somewhere else for more pay and the title he wants.
You fail to understand that hanging the carrot in front of smart and ambitious people doesn’t work anymore. He already worked at a discount to “prove” himself, and now you aren’t ready to trust this person with the upper end of the pay range. You’ll probably end up hiring someone else for more money, and they’ll need 6 months to onboard and start contributing but hey, let’s not give the money to the guy who already proved himself and doesn’t need on-boarding. And then you think HE is being illogical LOL
Is he only doing 12%more work over his last job?
No is an acceptable answer to a promotion offer. I fail to understand your frustration. Offer someone else the promotion maybe? Or an outside hire?
So what this says to me basically is that your succession plan was either non existent or weak and not executed properly. You lost an experienced lead with adequate notice and failed to have someone prepared to take over, and didn’t post externally to fill the position. You were fortunate enough to have a team member with the skillset and the willingness to step into the role on an interim basis.
Your interim lead is performing well and either your best option or only option was to offer the position to the person who was filling in. You failed to state how long this person has been the interim lead, this context matters as it could be weeks, months, or more. Plus you mentioned a 12% increase but failed to mention how much the compensation for his interim status is or what pay rate the 12% is being added to, or what the increase percentage that the top pay would provide him. Is it 19% over 12% or 72% over 12%. This matters as well.
So rather than negotiate in good faith with an employee who has stepped up when it was needed and find a middle ground between the initial 12% offer and the position max that was demanded, it was 12% or nothing.
If you were to interview an external candidate with no in depth knowledge of the people, processes, and inner workings of your organization. Would your initial offer be non negotiable? If the answer is no, why wouldn’t you extend the same courtesy to an internal candidate that has already proven their reliability and competency in the position?
This is why there is so much job hopping, specifically in management roles. Internal promotion lands salaries that are consistently less than external hires. Which is strange because your risk is much lower with someone who has proven themselves to an organization through years of reliability and good work before being considered compared to a good resume with good feedback from the interview process with no working knowledge of the candidate.
I’d counter with a better increase and keep that knowledgeable person already succeeding in the role in place. Unless you have a rock star turnkey lead on deck that you’re not going to need the interim lead that you offered a lower salary than them to do the training for the new lead.
Do you think you can go to the market and hire someone who can perform as well or better for less than he’s asking for? If so, do that.
If not, give him the money.
It’s not our job to determine what someone “should” do for their career. This is no different from hiring an external candidate in that sense. Doing job X is worth $Y to me, if you can’t give me $Y, I don’t want the job. It’s not an unreasonable stance. Maybe it’s ego and hubris, maybe not. You can’t take it personally though
No pay no play. Seems pretty straight forward. Guess you need another candidate willing to do the job for cheaper
12% is pretty low for a promotion. Shooting for the top of the range seems excessive too. Is there no middle ground? 20% increase for a promotion with training and opportunity for further growth? Although he’s showing he doesn’t deserve the opportunity. Maybe just count your blessings and find someone external
You’re just going to end up with two vacancies at this rate. You can’t force the guy to take the job if you can’t pay him what he wants.
Fair play to the employee, sounds like he knows what he wants and is prepared to stand his ground.
Has it never occurred to OP that perhaps the guy just has his own evaluation of all of this? That perhaps the coworker has very little to do with it?
OP talks like he should be grateful for the chance to move up the ladder, but who says he even wants to move up the ladder? Not everybody is interested in the middle management bullshit games and sometimes a lesser role brings a better cost/benefit ratio. For this guy perhaps the max salary might justify it while anything less does not, he is not necessarily wrong to think that.
OP just wants the job done for cheap and is pissed that the wage slave isn’t playing the game. Maybe the OP could learn a thing or two from this.