Q: Recently, I applied for a role internally that would lead to significant financial and senior progression in my career.
The company offered the role and presented the terms and I accepted the offer.
A month after I was due to start my new role, they told me that the offer had been cancelled due to a hiring freeze.
The approach to HR and internal promotions is appalling. There has been no clarification and the impact on my work and personal life is significant as it’s not the first time I had an offer rescinded by my company. Is there anything I can do?
Your work questions answered: I was humiliated and verbally abused by my manager, what rights do I have?
Your work questions answered: My employee has changed hours without permission, what can I do?
My company is clamping down on working from home. Can I reject this change?
Your work questions answered: ‘I have ADHD and so work from home a lot. When I go to the office, nobody speaks to me’
The rescinding of an offer of a promotion would be rare, but the rescinding of two offers of promotion would be almost unheard of, according to experts in human resources and recruitment.
Such an act can lead to a breach of trust but may also constitute a breach of contract, according to Michelle Halloran, independent HR consultant and workplace investigator, of Halloran HR Resolutions.
“You can’t just go around offering people a promotion, confirm the promotion and then change your mind,” she says, adding that such a move can cause a lack of confidence among employees in their employer.
“It’s very bad for their reputation, because nobody knows where they stand,” she says, describing the actions of the employer as outlined by the reader as “very poor practice.”
“It’s very difficult to see how a relationship of mutual trust can be built or maintained if this kind of U-turn keeps happening because as an employee, you just don’t know where you stand,” she says.
Halloran, who has never heard of a hiring freeze affecting a promotion offered and agreed, says legal advice could be sought and correspondence could potentially be sent to the employer concerning the rescinding of the promotion, arguing a breach of contract.
However, given the “adversarial” nature of taking such a move, “it depends on how much the job matters to them”, she says.
“They might not be happy if the reader does that, but especially if this is the second time they’ve done it, if it were me, I would absolutely not accept that.
“If you’ve been offered a promotion with a new salary and this has been agreed and they’ve then rescinded it, I think that is a breach of contract and I would object to it in the strongest terms, particularly if it’s not the first time it’s happened.
“On a personal note, I would be asking myself if this is the organisation I really want to work for,” she says.
Although Lisa Holt, group managing director at Cpl Recruitment, has heard of companies postponing promotions due to internal organisational changes or challenges, it would typically happen before any promotion process takes place.
“If it happens afterwards, it is a very challenging situation to manage and to navigate,” she says.
Holt advises contacting the HR department and raising concerns about the experience to date concerning promotions being rescinded.
“As this has happened twice I feel this candidate needs an opportunity to sit down opposite HR and find out the background and reasoning to the decision and give them the opportunity to air their disappointment,” she says.
Noting that it would be “very unusual” for an employer to withdraw a promotion offer without just reason and an explanation, Holt notes that companies do not have hiring freezes without good reason.
“Post-Covid-19, we heard of a lot of hiring freezes due to companies wanting to rightsize their business, or sometimes when it is coming up to budget time they will put a freeze in place so they have a chance to look at their organisation structure, stand back and consider their future hiring plans,” she says.
Still, the reader’s experience as described, in which they have had promotions rescinded twice is almost unheard of.
“It is not something we would come across at all, to be honest, and it is very strange that it happened twice,” Holt says.
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