Subject: Elective Demotion

Any HR bods out there? I'm thinking about requesting a revision downwards to technical manager without responsibility for man management, PDPs blah blah. Is this likely to be well received, or am I doing myself out of a job?

In my experience a move like this, whilst possible will be frowned upon by your bosses and workmates.

I'm head of a department of three, plus occasional temporary staff. My line reports have no problem with the idea, apart from the fact that they might be managed by my manager - a man so stupid he wrote in my latest appraisal 'I have no idea what he does, it is something of a dark art'... probably a good thing I set my goals for him and tell him if I achieve them or not.
I'll be doing virtually the same thing, just without a bit of extra nonsense, so it shouldn't be too radical a move. I hope.

Sounds good. And with such an inspirational leader to manage your folks, what can go wrong?!

I'd suggest you'd want to explain why you want to make the change & how it will organisationally provide an advantage. If it's about your current role being impossible then that's also good.

I expect your boss may not be keen, as he struggles to know what you do he'll have no idea how to manage your underlings.

In my company, I've seen people do exactly this, but also take a grading & pay cut for the honour...

I expect a pay cut, but given my sub-inflation pay award last month I reckon I'm already used to that...

As far as my manager goes, I've always had to manage the department, even before it was recognised as a department. I've also always managed technical development, so no change there.

My motivation is partly because I'm being denied extra staff despite a 30% increase in workload and an imminent 40% drop in available manpower (calculated in person days per week). I figure if I step back and take a paycut, it will become apparent that the cost to provide an equivalent level of service will more than exceed the cost of recruiting the one junior member of staff I have requested.

And, we've just been asked to sign new contracts waiving our right to a maximum 48 hour working week, plus agreeing that no overtime is payable in the event of working such hours, unless at the company's discretion...

On the bright side, the chairman has just given me all four of his tickets for the Arsenal-Newcastle game so I can treat my nephew to a game..

Hmm.

The 48 hour contracts thing is a big change to conditions - and if relatively junior people are being asked to work >48 hours unpaid, I feel they have a strong case for being unfair. I work in a role which is 37 1/2 hours per week, more if necessary, and that translates to "more by a wide margin most of the time" - however as I'm in a management role, I get compensated reasonably with my base wage so am willing to do that.

4 tickets to Arsenal vs Newcastle = £200 worth. 1% pay rise on a £20k job = the same and you get it as a baseload for the following year etc. "perks" are given cos they cost the company bog all. But it's nice at least that there is some acknowledgement there.

My general comment would be, the more unhappy you are, and the stronger your position, or ability to move somewhere else, the harder you can push. Just remember that they might call your bluff, if you are bluffing. if not, you can always tell them politely to swivvel and do an equivalent job somewhere else...

Look for other jobs then first, perhaps, rather than go through an awkward process in which the best case senario seems to be that you demote yourself to working under an idiot.

If you have another job lined up, or know they are plentiful, then are in a strong position to ask for whatever you want and walk if it gets difficult. If suitable jobs are hard to find then perhaps reconsider a bit

I read a survey that said that IT staff are working longer hours than ever recently, so this kind of thing appears to be becoming if not the norm, then more common place. Still, at least the shareholders of the companies that squeeze 50 hours a week out of their staff are happy.

I'm in a not dissimilar position to you in that my base hours of 35 are regularly exceeded, but I don't feel too badly compensated. I just don't like the idea of formalising the 48 hours and no overtime clauses, although in reality overtime probably would be paid at some point.

I've been here for 10 years and have generally had significantly above inflation annual increases, so my salary and bonus package would be hard to replicate elsewhere, and I have been looking.

I think I need to have another attempt at persuading my manager to revisit staffing levels. Maybe brightly coloured crayons and small words of no more than one syllable will help him see the light.