my employee gave me an ultimatum: give her a raise or she’ll do less work

A reader writes:

My employee, “Sara,” has been in her position for two years with no promotion or significant pay raise. We were going to start the process for a promotion, but Sara then had major issues with tardiness and skipping out on a required training, which set us back in our plans. Sara is excellent in her position and there have been no issues with her work, just her work ethic. We set out a roadmap to get her back in a place to work toward that promotion.

And then some budget issues happened, and our company froze all salaries. Sara’s work continues to be excellent, and her work ethic has improved as well. In normal times, she’d be up for a promotion.

However, the way she approached me about the promotion is rubbing me the wrong way. She sent me a list of her job responsibilities from when she was hired compared to now. As you might expect, the current duties are more involved and have more responsibility, since that’s what happens when you’ve been in a position for two years. Still, I agreed she deserves a promotion.

Then she said, “I either want a raise and title change, or I want to go back to doing what I was hired to do.” I feel I’m being held hostage to give her a raise, or else all the work that she didn’t do when she was hired gets dumped on my plate. I’m incapable of taking on any more work, but if she refuses to do the work, there’s no one else it can fall to.

How do I approach her and have a coaching session that lets her know this hostage holding is inappropriate and unprofessional? If I pursue a raise for Sara (but no promotion), is that “giving in”?

I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

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