“Should we promote Bob?”
“Hell no, he’s the only one here who does any work! We need him right where he is!”
This is not satire.
It’s called being pigeon holed and that shit is real depending on your company. Some hard workers get promoted some just get more work.
Indeed it is not.
I once worked at the new office of a company that just opened in the state, one of the first who was doing the job while the construction workers were still terminating wires and tacking up drywall. When a new supervisory position was created, all of my coworkers assumed I’d be the first one picked but I was told my experience and wisdom would be better served on the job and teaching new hires the ropes.
Didn’t take long before I stopped giving a shit about promotions and left for a different company soon after. Telling someone their hard work has been rewarded with more work and not more money for rent is a good way to drain the motivation right out of people you manage.
Before I go on, your comment is valid and I fully agree with you. I am not saying this is the case with you, but presenting the other side of the coin. Just because you’re the highest performer at a position does not mean you’re necessarily the best fit for a promotion. I work with plenty of people who were promoted for being the hardest workers. They are now managers who flounder because they cannot work hard to impress. They need to lead a team of hard workers, which requires a different set of traits than being a hard worker yourself. My manager when I started was promoted for being the hardest worker. That was all she knew how to do. She could not lead people. Couldn’t give constructive criticism, could not take constructive criticism. Any idea that was not her idea was not a good idea. Wanted to rule with an iron fist and feel important, but could not do anything that would actually get her there. Extremely hard worker though, and the work she did do was on point. Just could not lead a team. It’s shitty, but it’s the truth.
Totally worth it. You get the real raises from new jobs. If you were so irreplaceable, then they’d pay you for it.
Never accept a counter offer. They’ll just keep you on long enough to find any replacement. The counter offer is just so they lose less money over the next few months.
Cries in Bob.
That said I’m a Bob who loves what I do and gets paid handsomely for it so que sera sera.
In a good organization (and this includes nonprofits and government agencies), there should be two paths to climb: a managerial track where you get responsibility for larger and larger units, and a technical/specialist track where you get entrusted with more and more difficult technical work.
For some roles, it’s even common for specialized workers to make more money than the people who manage/supervise them.
Experienced employees often make bad managers because they want to step in and do the work for other people, rather than handling all the status updated and workload balancing and reporting and new hiring that supervisors deal with.
If you’re a skilled specialist and you’re doing a challenging task there’s little reason to believe you shouldn’t be paid more than your direct reports.
