Changing an employee's duties: what the company should verify first

In many organisations, a change of duties is not a decision but an event. A person starts by taking on an extra client, then coordinates a colleague, then becomes the main point of contact for a supplier. A year later, their job is substantially different from the one they were hired for, while their contract, grade and pay have remained unchanged. As long as the relationship works, no one worries. The issue emerges when something goes wrong.

Start with the actual content of the role

The first verification concerns what the person will actually do, not the name of the new position. What activities are they giving up and which are they taking on? With what degree of autonomy? Will they have people to coordinate, budgets to manage, or decisions to sign off on? A title such as “manager” or “coordinator” can mean very different things in different companies, and the assessment must be based on substance.

Putting this scope in writing, even in a summary form, is useful on two fronts. It helps the person understand what is being asked of them, and it helps the organisation compare the new role with the role descriptions in the applicable CCNL (national collective bargaining agreement). A good list of duties or a job description are tools designed for precisely this step.

Contractual level and pay

Duties are linked to the contractual level, or livello, the grading scale set by the CCNL. If the new activities correspond to a higher level, the question of promotion arises, which may also depend on the duration and continuity of the duties performed. If, however, the change involves different activities at the same level, or in some cases a lower level, specific rules and limits apply which must be checked carefully against the actual situation, the collective agreement and the organisational reasons for the change.

Pay also deserves separate consideration. Not every expansion of responsibility requires a pay rise, but a growing role without any recognition is unlikely to remain stable. Evaluating whether to intervene on the contractual level, the superminimo (an individual pay supplement above the collective-agreement minimum), allowances or variable pay, and at what total cost, allows you to make a decision rather than react to a later request.

Formalise the transition

A written communication describing the new role, its start date and any changes to pay is not a bureaucratic formality. It is the point at which the company and the individual agree on what is changing. Without this step, it becomes difficult to reconstruct when and how the role was transformed, and recollections tend to diverge over time.

Formalisation also concerns practical aspects that are often overlooked: delegations of authority and powers of attorney, access to systems, any health and safety training obligations if risks or responsibilities change, and updating the internal organisational chart.

Consequences for the rest of the organisation

Every change of duties shifts things elsewhere. The tasks the person leaves behind must be passed on to someone else; colleagues who previously reported to another manager now report to them; those who aspired to the same role observe how the decision was made. If these effects are not considered, a change designed to solve one problem will create others.

The most delicate case is the transition from specialist to coordinator, because the change in content is greater than it appears. We discuss this specifically in our article on promotion to manager.