Org bringing in a man at a higher level than me to do half my job

[Anonymous]

I am a woman. I oversee 7 functions. Because of increased focus from the org on one of the functions, they are moving some out from under me. I now find out that they are hiring a man at a substantially higher comp band to take on half of the work i have been doing. If i look across our leadership, all of the most senior ppl are men. Just blows that this is 2026 and still happening.

[Anonymous]

Tale as old as time- happens regularly at my (fed) org. Exhausting- when you call it out you are the problem.

[Anonymous]

Were you flailing? If not ask to do more and move up. If they don’t then leave him all the work

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a woman. I oversee 7 functions. Because of increased focus from the org on one of the functions, they are moving some out from under me. I now find out that they are hiring a man at a substantially higher comp band to take on half of the work i have been doing. If i look across our leadership, all of the most senior ppl are men. Just blows that this is 2026 and still happening.

I am at the same level I entered my F500 Corp at 25 years ago. I am in a org that just "coincidentally" has a preponderance of male managers and executives. A female I started with as a peer is now the VP of this function. I tried communicating with her politely about there being a "bro problem". She just doesn't see it. Even though she's barely picked any of her direct reports and they are all each others' besties from two decades ago. I sent a bunch of external research reports and studies.

I recently moved out of this function to another area where performance management is more objective. She sent me a congratulatory note wishing me well and saying she thought it would be a good move for me.

I've concluded there are no allies. You have to wait for generational social change. Which I think is coming.

I will note that several times I got strange large base pay increases in ordinary performance years and I suspect that was because of HR finding some alarming discriminatory math behind the scenes.

OP, at a minimum, ask your boss to be put in the next pay band, but do it nicely.

[Anonymous]

By generational social change, are you talking about the upcoming generation where men and women dont interact at all?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:By generational social change, are you talking about the upcoming generation where men and women dont interact at all?

PP. I feel that the men I work with are not intentionally sexist. And I think they do expect/believe that women can be managers and executives.

However, there are lots of signs of stereotyping such as:

-Women getting assigned emotional labor tasks

-Women getting disproportionately assigned detail-oriented gruntwork that is a career killer because they are good at it

-Work social events involve alcohol and sports

-Comments on executive presence issues that are clearly gendered

-People promote their friends and I think some men are skittish about really being friends with women at work because of gender issues. I always say one of my biggest career issues is the departments I started my career in. They were not the places where the cool people clustered.

Things that I think are helping include women starting to disproportionately attend college and more egalitarian views among young men.

Something that HR research shows really helps is paternity leave. I have seen this in real time. My F500 company now offers 3 months of paternity leave either all at once or on demand for a year or so. According to research, this works by handicapping the careers of the young go-getter men. Because their male bosses are grumpy that they will be gone for long blocks of time. Really this is a win for everybody except the old school managers - young moms, young dads, babies, employee retention. That's an example of what I mean by generational change. A lot of people have 2 kids in 4 years so being gone for 6 months is pretty noticeable. When moms and dads both do it, the career penalties/prejudices are equalized. Go Gen-Z!

[Anonymous]

Even if op was flailing then why would put a level above her and for half the work? Thats just admitting the work should have been done by someone 2 levels above in the first place

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tale as old as time- happens regularly at my (fed) org. Exhausting- when you call it out you are the problem.

My favorite agency regularly quoted women to leadership, I know it’s really big at NASA too. The head of Goddard is a woman.

[Anonymous]

This goes both ways folks. I'm a straight white male in a Director role that was accidentally inclused in the payroll reports. New Director of a lesser division was just hired by our gay owner and is being paid $25,000 a year more. He's gay and does not even have a grad degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This goes both ways folks. I'm a straight white male in a Director role that was accidentally inclused in the payroll reports. New Director of a lesser division was just hired by our gay owner and is being paid $25,000 a year more. He's gay and does not even have a grad degree.

Agreed. People reward people who are "like them" and who they feel comfortable with socially. That is human nature.

[Anonymous]

How do you know how much the new person makes? What do other higher ups, male or otherwise, have or do that you do not? Have you done any self reflection, and what feedback has your manager given you?

Do you actually want to be promoted? Many senior people are comfortable staying at a certain level and do not move up. As you go higher, there are fewer positions available, so that is normal.

At our Fortune 500 company, the opposite happened. Several women were promoted to SVP and C level roles during the equity push a few years ago. Many of those promotions did not work out, and once DEI was no longer a major focus, they either left or moved into lesser roles. That approach was not the right one.

[Anonymous]

From management’s perspective you are not delivering what they need/expect. You can say whatever to anonymous strangers but they are clearly not getting something from you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From management’s perspective you are not delivering what they need/expect. You can say whatever to anonymous strangers but they are clearly not getting something from you.

I never understand how people don't get this. So often people think they are doing a better job than they are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From management’s perspective you are not delivering what they need/expect. You can say whatever to anonymous strangers but they are clearly not getting something from you.

This. You need to move around and change jobs to advance.

[Anonymous]

OP, you should look for something new. If you’re good—and I believe you that you are—the only way to win here is to take your talents elsewhere.