Voluntary Employee Demotions
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Imagine, you recently promoted an employee into a new role, but they are not enjoying the role and wish to return to their old position. What do you do?
This phenomenon is known as managerial blues.
What is managerial blues?
Managerial Blues is when a newly promoted employee regrets their decision to move up in the organisation. This may be due to them missing their previous role, or not feeling trained enough for the new role.
Things employers should consider before offering a promotion
Conduct an adequate assessment of the employee’s career goals, capabilities and shortcoming.
Give the employee a full, practical, and detailed overview of what the new role will entail.
Provide employee with an opportunity to sit down and discuss the role with someone who has previously been in the position.
Place the employee on a trial period e.g., 90 days.
Whilst the employee is on trial, back fill the employee’s previous role on a temporary basis, so they could go back to that role and remain employed.
What happens in the case of no trial period?
If there was no trial period in place and the employee asks to return to their previous role after the promotion. Here are a few things employers should consider:
Why does the employee want to revert to the old position?
Has the employee been set up for success? Have they received adequate training/onboarding?
Has the position been backfilled? If so, are there any similar positions to their former role that could be offered to them?
What if you want the employee to continue performing the role?
How does it affect the team they may be leading?
Could it impact the delivery of an important project?
What if it’s a performance issue?
In cases where the employee does not feel equipped or capable, it can be beneficial to offer them a chance to shadow a senior employee for a period of time or reduce their workload.
Apart from a performance issue, there could be other factors contributing to the employee’s decision to demote including:
Bullying or Harassment
Decreased wellbeing due to added responsibility
Where to from here?
Employers should also consider long-term legal concerns. For instance, after the employee has returned to their former role, what if they want to return back to the promotion when they feel ready in future and are denied due to their inability to excel the first time.
As an employer it is important to keep employee’s progression in mind and not to discount them for future opportunities.
To avoid such situations, ensure to:
Make courses available for the employee to learn from.
Provide options for coaching, mentoring or oversight.
Provide opportunity for informal leadership tasks within their role.