New job is not what was stated

[nicknick1]

I work as a contractor, and for the last 5 years in IT projects in the financial services industry. The average contract length is about 2 years. I got a new contract in March this year and the agreed duties were that I would perform a "CSIP" of the IT organisation of one of the companies clients i.e. perform a review of all of the activities, processes, staff, costs, partners, products etc. and recommend and progress changes against the ITIL framework and for the purpose of bringing about process improvements and cost savings.

I started doing this as soon as I started work, and quickly noticed that this IT organisation faced a major problem. They had offshored many of their roles, and there was not much confidence in the offshore staff to deliver quality. Many of the "Business as Usual" / operational functions such as managing server incidents or network incidents were being performed by executive level staff. It was agreed that a right-to-left shift would be one of the key transformation activities that needs to make place and its something I am attempting to work on.

The problem is that in week one, they asked me if I could go on call "once in a while, just to help out a bit and take some of the pressure off the BAU service manager" (who like I said are usually acting as incident managers). The next thing was could I run the 9am operational conference calls. The next thing was could I manage incidents once in a while. The next thing was, could I do all of the incident and change communications.

I pushed back on this to my line manager and his line manager, however they overrode me and told me that the most important thing is BAU work. He has a very strong personality, and way he dumps more BAU work on me is very much like something out of the workplace comedy "Office Space". When I push back he just doesn't listen and states some reason.

Right now I have the list of activities that I should be doing and am attempting to progress these activities but 75% of my time is spent taking enquiries from the business, being chased by the business on behalf of the IT organisation, having people send me emails to send out communications and expecting me to be looking at their requests in real-time. The rate that I am being paid is higher than that which would be required for BAU staff because I have experience of projects, business change, and task tracking.

It's very difficult to get anything done because everyone is working "in the now" in this BAU mindset, and they never follow anything up, get back to you with work promised on time, if at all etc.

I phoned my HR manager today (as opposed to line of business manager) and discussed these issues. I told him that I would not be able to meet my objectives unless I relinquished all of the operational duties. Furthermore I had asked him to get me a pass to a different building in London which he agreed to so that I can work on my actual agreed tasks rather than this additional work that is being pushed across. He seemed to acknowledge that this was a nightmare scenario and said that he would have a chat with my line manager.

I know very well that my line manager is not going to want to agree to let me get on with the agreed duties, partly because they lack management experience; they would not be in this position otherwise. Everyone is walking all over everyone. Someone must have walked over this to organise an offshoring arrangement that is unworkable as it stands today.

The only way that I am going to be able to "CSIP" the IT organisation is if I turn around to my line manager and say "No, you listen to me."

Does anyone have any tips for dealing with this situation. I acknowledge that the best thing to do might be to hand in my notice. One thing that worries me slightly is that I have had numerous contracts with the company with many different clients of their, and where this might leave me with a reference.

[Galahad]

Re: New job is not what was stated

Sounds to me due to their general incompetence over time, you're in a proper quandary.

You could ignore what your actual job title is, and do whats asked of you, but then you leave yourself open to being accused of negligence and not doing your titled job properly which could leave you without a contract, and these particular companies and contracts all seem to be very connected (i.e. you leave one place but find out another potential contract is linked to the employer you left!).

I would suggest a meeting with HR manager and your Line manager to thrash out what it is they want you to do.

Do they want you to perform your duties as per your contract, or are they in more need of you performing the duties they've got you doing now? If its the latter, then either you hand in your notice, or if you're happy to actually do it so long as pay isn't affected, get it all down in writing that for the time being, the main core duties you were contracted for are sidelined whilst you help in other areas and that come contract renewal time, or a time when things calm down a bit, you won't be penalised for not doing what it was you were initially contracted for.

Sounds to me that you're onto a loser just going to your Line manager, sounds like he/she is getting it in the neck from above, so get them in the same room as the HR Manager and then you'll hopefully be able to get something in writing, or at least have HR be able to get a proper answer out of your line manager.

[Johnboy007]

Re: New job is not what was stated

Hi,
What you need to do is raise a formal grievance (complaint) with your company.
By doing it 'by the book', it strengthens your case.
First bit of advice.......
Never refuse a request from your line manager/company.
If you feel the request is unreasonable then you raise a 'grievance' with them.
Put it in writing so that everyone knows exactly how you feel, and what you have stated.
Keep a copy for yourself, this is important.
You should state that you consider the requests to be unreasonable, in that it has a detrimental effect on your main tasks, in that you are unable to complete them.
Give the reason/s why you cannot complete the tasks.
Request that they rectify the problem as soon as possible.
A strong personality cannot override something that is written on paper.
A piece of paper doesn't have a personality to fight against, so you are on equal terms from the start.
Make sure you have copies of the company's disciplinary and grievance procedures.
Most procedures have time limits for the company to respond too.
If they fail to respond, or you are not happy with any response, then you take it to the next level in the procedure.
This in effect, bypasses the line manager and his manager. Always follow procedures where possible.
Also check your contract of employment, to find out if their requests are allowed within the terms of the contract.

[nicknick1]

Re: New job is not what was stated

Hi,
What you need to do is raise a formal grievance (complaint) with your company.
By doing it 'by the book', it strengthens your case.
First bit of advice.......
Never refuse a request from your line manager/company.
If you feel the request is unreasonable then you raise a 'grievance' with them.
Put it in writing so that everyone knows exactly how you feel, and what you have stated.
Keep a copy for yourself, this is important.
You should state that you consider the requests to be unreasonable, in that it has a detrimental effect on your main tasks, in that you are unable to complete them.
Give the reason/s why you cannot complete the tasks.
Request that they rectify the problem as soon as possible.
A strong personality cannot override something that is written on paper.
A piece of paper doesn't have a personality to fight against, so you are on equal terms from the start.
Make sure you have copies of the company's disciplinary and grievance procedures.
Most procedures have time limits for the company to respond too.
If they fail to respond, or you are not happy with any response, then you take it to the next level in the procedure.
This in effect, bypasses the line manager and his manager. Always follow procedures where possible.
Also check your contract of employment, to find out if their requests are allowed within the terms of the contract.

Hi Johnboy / others,

I have raised a grievance/ complaint. My line manager thanked me for the statement and said that he would get back to me. I have raised with his line manager, and his line manager's manager, as well as with my HR manager. The collectively said that they would get back to me. This was several weeks ago. I recently pressed my manager's manager about this and his response was simple that he is in the same position personally himself. "We are all in the same boat". And it is true that this is the case. They are burying their heads like an ostrich to my complaint just like successive management in this particular organisation have buried their heads to let it get into such a state. They went ahead and asked me if more money would fix the problem, and I said that money is not the problem, its the scope and the situation. They don't seem to even care about burning through large amount of man hours from people whose roles are more senior to that required to keep their broken ship floating and everyone who gets pulled in to try to fix the ship, ends up joining the sailors trying to plug the holes, so the ship never gets fixes. This has become so ingrained, that one guy who is a process specialist, got marked down in his performance review because he did not want to get involved in BAU, which is the correct position for him. There is no a new senior person who has been pulled in, and he is writing a report to senior management in the outsourcing firm about the state of the account. There are several workstreams including my official role to try and fix the situation but it is not getting fixed because the we can't get the engagement from the required people because those people are all in crisis mode. It seems the only way out is to physically not turn up or engage with emails, calls etc. as they are just ignoring my notice to perform correct role or quit. But then I fear that the manager who marked down the process expert for not doing BAU, will leave bad feedback about me in the company.

[Johnboy007]

Re: New job is not what was stated

Well I think you will have to show a tough stance on these issues.
Write to the senior manager, stating that despite raising a grievance with (name of your company), no-one has replied to it and so nothing has changed.
Explain that you are informing him, that any downfall in performance by you in the future, is not of your doing and is beyond your control.
Tell him that you hold the company responsible for this, as the problems were highlighted by you in the grievance you raised with the company.

Keep a copy of this letter and post the original by 'signed for post'.
This way, the company will be hard pressed to lay any blame in your direction, for any future problems.
JB:tinysmile_twink_t2: