In your experience, what is the most likely reason a company would implement several sudden changes (within a 6-12 mo period) to make internal job transfer approval more difficult?

15 Comments

1. AnonymousAugust 25,2023 at 3:23PM UTC

   Playing stupid games OR a lot of turnover within departments (games there too) and HR too lazy to fix the real problem.

   Sorry if I sound harsh.....in the "corporate community" now

2. AnonymousAugust 26,2023 at 1:48PM UTC

   Same here. I’m afraid you may be right but me only having sales, non profit, contract and small business working experience since 2011, I want to know how someone fully entrenched in corporate machinations would explain this.

3. Joan Williams, Senior Talent Acquisition SpecialistAugust 25,2023 at 7:15PM UTC

   What kind of changes were implemented?

4. AnonymousAugust 26,2023 at 1:46PM UTC

   Apologies for the delay. The most recent (and troubling IMO) are the mid year changes implemented for promotions to higher pay grade in my department. Even long term employees are confused. People who were told in Dec-Feb all they had to do was maintain a score of 2 for 6 months in order to qualify for the promotion were told in June-July the department only promoted those who had a 3 score. Further, I’ve been told by the 4 different managers I’ve had since I started last spring 4 different answers on how many months of tenure it will take to transfer to another department, completely contradicting what was explained to me during my interviews (9 months from your start date of employment becomes 12, then 12 months becomes “12 months from when you got out of training). Finally nothing about these changes are published anywhere or conveyed to anyone via email or similar easy-to-access and save/share means tof communication. The company is known for monitoring complaints on social media from current employees so i can’t be more specific then that, but I can say definitively that I didn’t have this much contradiction from leadership about operations and advancement when I worked retail.

5. GirlBossanova934974August 28,2023 at 12:38PM UTC

   The better question is whether or not any of these rules and changes to the rules are recorded where they should be recorded and that is the company's HR Manual. IF nothing has been stated in the HR manual, then none of this is binding. A 2 becomes a 3. 9 months becomes 12 months. 12 months becomes whatever. If this is the case, you have a company which does not have an effective HR department and an Executive Leadership team which is taking advantage of that to do whatever it wants to do. If this is the case, you signed up with a company that can change just about any rule whenever it suits them and there can be no legal consequences. If that is OK with you, fine! IF not, I would leave an outfit like that. Truth be known! DO NOT judge managers by their words. JUDGE them by their actions. Many years ago, I had a similar situation. I was promised all sorts of training, very expensive at that, while my coworkers got their training. I made millions for the company. My coworkers just ran up big bills. At the end, I was told in a big meeting..............AND SO AND SO (me) is going to do "Whatever she is doing now".......Wow! There's some gratitude. I had a new job in 3 weeks and tossed my 2 week notice on my manager's desk. ADIOS!

6. AnonymousAugust 30,2023 at 9:28PM UTC

   yeah its a “who moved my cheese” situation for sure. job hopping has been the only way I’ve ever gotten a good ($10k -$20k) salary increase over the past decade. Was hoping that I could end that here but apparently I’ve gotta be ready to jump once more.

7. Angie SperryAugust 28,2023 at 12:53PM UTC

   It sounds management has found it very expensive to train people in your role, just to have them move to a different team. It is internal, but it is still turnover. As they increase the number of months before a person can transfer, operating/training costs are lowered. It would be even better if they were also working to make the entry level roles more appealing to lessen turnover.

8. AnonymousAugust 31,2023 at 3:17PM UTC

   Lack of organization and alignment (top down). FWIW, I helped someone on a former team transfer to another dept as I care about career path. He thrived and yes, I was left minus one and no backfill so I rolled up my sleeves even more.

   I've also been in Sr Management with "technically" the power to build and grow with communication from executive level to move forward and then have the rug pulled out all while having open roles and active conversations with potential employees. Fully understand business decisions can lead to change and hard decisions, the issue I've had is not communicating and aligning with at least mid-sr leaders as so many of us would be able to help communicate and get our teams to rally around any pivots or changes. This is purely from experience in my last 2 roles. Prior to that shifts were there and could have been handled better but not as extreme or jarring and not without communication and alignment across department heads. My 2 cents

9. AnonymousAugust 25,2023 at 10:54PM UTC

   There's a good chance it's in response to something that happened with a prior transfer tbh.

10. AnonymousAugust 26,2023 at 11:17AM UTC

    What you see 'sudden' may have been something identified and in the works already. What may have been working in the past has proven not he succession planning moves that was bringing value or a good fit in the past. The changing business environment needs to adapt and to make sure the ROI on each position is measurable. Learn what they're looking for now, work on a path for growth, it may be a different path than what you think, but work on that. You never know.

11. AnonymousAugust 27,2023 at 4:01PM UTC

    Budgets? Often when the company does not want to have to pay internal hires more to move up they do this.

12. AnonymousAugust 28,2023 at 12:34PM UTC

    Depends how big the company is and if all of the internal transfers are coming from a specific team (or set of teams) which causes staffing problems in that set team. Another reason could be that people are trying to use internal transfers to get promotions.

13. AnonymousAugust 28,2023 at 2:18PM UTC

    There may be limitations in number of or support for management...therefore, leadership is sensing that employee movement It is too stressful for those who are managing that particular department...

14. maria roseAugust 28,2023 at 4:55PM UTC

    To the anonymous person who posted this question, I am gathering from the information given and your response answer that what is upsetting you more is the lack of getting a title promotion over acknowledgment for your achievements in the workplace. But the other question is whether the work you do is giving you more satisfaction than getting a title. Granted everyone wants to get raise increases and there’s not enough information given to clarify. The company is described as expanding ( via online hiring and getting a bigger physical workplace ). This sounds like planned development that you are not part of the decision making process. Your role is a mover maker, especially since they publicly announced how good you are in that role. So if you are looking at this for financial gain ( as in getting a raise in pay level) that’s a discussion item especially if your company doesn’t offer pay increases unless you’re placed in a certain “promotion level “— which is another way of saying this is the method chosen for pay increases. A lot of government type jobs use levels to contain pay increases which limits the in-house employees from earning more money. Why they are suddenly delaying the increases may have more to do with how their budget has changed than a lack of confidence in your performance at work and you are not ( by description in the post) a member of the decision making team. Have one of the more-involved in that area management who oversees your work, explain the how and why you would be able to move forward financially without having to achieve a title level change.

15. Shelby CAugust 28,2023 at 5:32PM UTC

    This sounds like a university I worked for in my early twenties - especially with the time periods and use of the word tenure.

    Anyway....

    You have already received some excellent advice here, but the bottom line is that if you don't have it in writing from someone that's authorized to make that type of decision, then, sadly, it was just talk. I have seen a lot of people be strung along by their current employers this way so that they won't have to pay additional wages with the promises of good things ahead. Oddly, they can even use "tough times" to increase morale and productivity by telling everyone they can get through it together. They'll even use it to keep prospective employees in the que. We've all had the friend who has that job lined up, they're going to hire him, but it just didbn't work out. Because they're so confident they are going to be hired, I have seen people wait a YEAR without entertaining the thought of looking elsewhere because "this thing with the widget company will work out soon" and they're just waiting for the call. I've only seen it workout once, but he waited so long he could've worked another job while he waited!

    They could've also been flooded with applicants which is why they changed the criteria from "2" to "3". I've also seen companies post jobs and realize that they didn't budget enough for the position, so they left it open in until they had accrued enough money to pay them without having a deficit for that year's budget.

    There are so many things that happen behind closed doors we could guess all day. I'm sorry. I know this is hard. You need to decide how long you're going to give them to make up their mind, it you can stay where you are for a while longer, or leave.