Legality of Back Filling Promoted Employee

[hugo2014]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Minnesota

Employee recently "promoted" to manager position over equally or more qualified colleagues (based on tenure, experience, training).

The manager position was not posted, no one was allowed to apply for the position, and employees were made aware of the promotion when it was announced that the person had been promoted.

Senior management repeatedly stated during the announcements, the decision was within the annual performance evaluation period. The employee was promoted and would add on additional management responsibilities but would retain their current job responsibilities, i.e. it was a promotion not a newly created position.

However, subsequently, within 6 weeks of the promotion, it has now been announced that the manager's previous job responsibilities will now be "back filled" and a position has been posted for the now manager's previous job position.

Question - was this a legal employer action ?

 

[LdiJ]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Minnesota

Employee recently "promoted" to manager position over equally or more qualified colleagues (based on tenure, experience, training).

The manager position was not posted, no one was allowed to apply for the position, and employees were made aware of the promotion when it was announced that the person had been promoted.

Senior management repeatedly stated during the announcements, the decision was within the annual performance evaluation period. The employee was promoted and would add on additional management responsibilities but would retain their current job responsibilities, i.e. it was a promotion not a newly created position.

However, subsequently, within 6 weeks of the promotion, it has now been announced that the manager's previous job responsibilities will now be "back filled" and a position has been posted for the now manager's previous job position.

Question - was this a legal employer action ?

If this was not a government job, then why do you think that the job had to be posted and other people allowed to apply for it?

 

[hugo2014]

If this was not a government job, then why do you think that the job had to be posted and other people allowed to apply for it?

When speaking with a manager from a different department, they indicated that by "promoting" someone (adding additional job responsibilities) - management could bypass usual HR procedures for posting a "new" position. However, now that they have posted an actual new position to back fill the promoted employee - this has raised questions about how the promotion was handled.

Assuming from your question - only the government must post a promotion-opportunity position, even if the intent is to later add a back fill position to circumvent HR policies and procedures?

 

[LdiJ]

When speaking with a manager from a different department, they indicated that by "promoting" someone (adding additional job responsibilities) - management could bypass usual HR procedures for posting a "new" position. However, now that they have posted an actual new position to back fill the promoted employee - this has raised questions about how the promotion was handled.

Assuming from your question - only the government must post a promotion-opportunity position, even if the intent is to later add a back fill position to circumvent HR policies and procedures?

Non-governmental companies can have procedures that they normally follow, but there is no law requiring them to follow those procedures. It may be unfair to other qualified employees that the job was not posted, but I do not think that they had any requirement to do so...and yes, it looks like they used a loophole to get around their normal procedures, but unless upper management and HR have a problem with it, there is nothing that could be done.

Also, they could have posted the job and accepted other applications, and STILL have given the job to the person they wanted to promote.

 

[cbg]

There are NO legal requirements that non-governmental employers EVER post positions or give other employees an opportunity to apply for them. Based on what you have posted, the employer's actions were entirely legal.

 

[hugo2014]

Thank you both for the information and perspective.

I was unsure if there were any legal issues, that is why I asked.

Now, ethically, that is a different story... and employers wonder whatever happened to employee loyalty.

Thank you again.