Obligations to contract.

LegacyUser

Hi All, posting anonymously for this one.

I've been in my position for two years and three months. I worked in a store for a year before hand and got a promotion to the office.

My contract says 'Customer Service', up until now I was happy to do anything that was thrown at me to prove myself in this position and after two years I have done that successfully and made myself indispensable ( as indispensable as one can be in a job these days ).

I am still on the same wage as when I started with the company, which isn't a million miles away from min wage, and have just been refused a raise. I have shouldered a massive workload coming up to the application for the raise, I don't take lunch ( cram a sambo in at my desk ) and am tied up quite a lot of the time with what I conciser to be non 'customer service' tasks.

My questions are;

*As my contract states my position to be customer service, can I refuse to do work that I consider not to be customer service?

*What and who constitutes what customer service is?

*Can my employers ask me to do work that is not customer service without amending my contract.

Thanks in advance for the input, please refrain from 'you should be happy to have a job, you're just being greedy....etc'. I'm specifically looking for information about my contract!

Damon.

blindsider

*As my contract states my position to be customer service, can I refuse to do work that I consider not to be customer service?
See last point.

*What and who constitutes what customer service is?
Hard to define - do you have a job description? You should have. There's no real definition of CS and it probably varies from company to company. But, there are obvious parameters. You should be dealing with customers regularly and doing work around that area. If you're doing Payroll, then that's not CS. But, filing, answering phones and general admin probably is.

*Can my employers ask me to do work that is not customer service without amending my contract.
Depends on your contract - they usually have a clause that says e.g. "and any other duties as may be required according to the needs of the business". Even if that clause is not there, you need to be reasonable. (Do you have a union rep onsite? Might be worth a quiet informal chat.)

Re the raise....did you justify it? Are you good at your job - and clearly delivering above and beyond the norm? If you are, and there's no room for manoeuvre, then dust off the CV.

However, I'd be asking the boss about any promotion prospects - What do I need to do to a) get a raise and b) get a promotion?

LegacyUser

blindsider wrote: »

*As my contract states my position to be customer service, can I refuse to do work that I consider not to be customer service?
See last point.

*What and who constitutes what customer service is?
Hard to define - do you have a job description? You should have. There's no real definition of CS and it probably varies from company to company. But, there are obvious parameters. You should be dealing with customers regularly and doing work around that area. If you're doing Payroll, then that's not CS. But, filing, answering phones and general admin probably is.

*Can my employers ask me to do work that is not customer service without amending my contract.
Depends on your contract - they usually have a clause that says e.g. "and any other duties as may be required according to the needs of the business". Even if that clause is not there, you need to be reasonable. (Do you have a union rep onsite? Might be worth a quiet informal chat.)

Re the raise....did you justify it? Are you good at your job - and clearly delivering above and beyond the norm? If you are, and there's no room for manoeuvre, then dust off the CV.

However, I'd be asking the boss about any promotion prospects - What do I need to do to a) get a raise and b) get a promotion?

Thanks for the feedback. I'll check my contract tonight to see if there is a mention of the 'any other duties', if so then realistically I won't have much weight to any dispute. We don't have any form of union or formal HR dept ( not great structure to my company! ).

I'll also check the wording of my job description.

I have for the last two years exceeded what has been asked of me and delivered a very high standard of work, without sounding conceited I'm sure I've earned a raise.

Thanks again for the concise advice!