What to do?

LegacyUser

Lately I've noticed that my manager is allowing a junior member of staff to do the same level of work as me. I'm good at my job and so is she and that's fine but I'm worried that they're training her up so they can make me redundant as I'm on a higher wage than her. Any advice would be most appreciated.

Victor

Make yourself indespensible.

dudara

Moved to Work problems - OP you can continue to post anon there.

dudara

Mrs OBumble

Get yourself trained up to do something else, tool

eth0_

JustMary wrote: »

Get yourself trained up to do something else, tool

You've just earned yourself a 7 day ban.

dh0661

eth0_ wrote: »

You've just earned yourself a 7 day ban.

This does not look like a typical response from JustMary

Thoie

Are you overworked? Is there enough work for two people? Are you also being trained to things above your level?

My initial reaction would be that it was just career development - junior person said at a review that they'd like to learn x,y,z in order to get a promotion.

Mrs OBumble

eth0_ wrote: »

You've just earned yourself a 7 day ban.

LOL, I've been wondering what on earth earned me that!

OP: It is totally normal in any workplace for more junior staff (and senior staff for that matter!) to be trained up to do new things. There are lots of reasons for this:

From the company's perspective:

• provides cover for when someone is away sick or on holiday
• provides cover if someone resigns (this is called succession planning: "we know X is an experienced widget-woggler, it's likely she'll find a higher paying job, let's make sure someone knows how to take over from her").
• learning new things keeps the staff interested/motivated, and lets them know that the company is interested in developing their career
• it's simply good management to have tasks done by the least costly employee who's able for them (no point having an accountant do tasks that could be done by a filing clerk)

Also, customer expectations are ever-changing - and it's a rare customer who expects less for their money instead of more. Employees who are change-resistant (won't learn new skills themselves, resent others learning their job, etc) are a real threat to any company, because they make it difficult for the company to keep up with changing customer expectations.

From the employee's perspective, technology is always changing so we all need to be learning new things for our entire working life (you'll not see too many street-lamp-lighters, or typing-pool members today - even an accounts-clerk's job is changing massively as customers pay their bills be direct deposit instead of sending in cheques). And no matter how much you like your current job, it will eventually get boring doing something that you know 100% of, some fresh challenges keep you motivated and enthusiastic. [The only exception is people in the last few years of their working lives, who can fairly safely coast on in to retirement on their existing skills. I'm kinda guessing this isn't you.]

What all this boils down to is that the best thing you can do to continue to be worth your current salary to your company (or to another potential employer if the worst should happen), is to stop fretting about what other people are learning (out of your control anyway), and get busy learning new things yourself.