My Project Manager's end of contract

In my post on Saturday, 9 August 2008 with the title Building relationship and gaining trust in work, I related to you about my Project Manager. He is in charge of the implementation plans and operational stabilisation of a third party vendor on relocation services. His one-year contract was coming to an end on 30 October 2008. I had expressed my intention to extend his contract via his manpower supply agency but I do not intend to increase the price of the contract as I see the current contract price as reasonable. This is where we do not see eye to eye.

K, my Project Manager, is a good employee. He accorded me the respect of a superior, completed the task that I have given him and extended his cooperation in several assignments that I assigned to him. However he lacks the drive to push the implementation plans and operational stabilisation of the third party vendor on relocation services to succeed within the prescribed time frame. He did not see himself as the driver of the implementation plan but a mere implementer after someone else had open up the way to him. How hard I pounded into him that this is not the intention that he was recruited for, he still did not see it that way. This is something that I had been trying to work on him.

In the end, he summarised his demand for the contract extension i.e. a 10% salary increase, a monthly bonus allowance, 20 days fully paid leave and 15 days fully paid medical leave. The first and second demands are something that is very hard for me to accommodate. With the level of his output, the two demands are rather excessive. The two kinds of leaves are non-issues; probably the quantum could be discussed. However, even before I could lay out the negotiation in full, he concluded that he could not accede to my request for him to extend his contract. It seem he had already made up his mind and expressed that he had made plans to move on.

With this development, I then proceeded to find his replacement via another manpower supply agency. However, this morning K sent me an SMS saying that he had a change of heart and asked for us to discuss again after the Eid holiday i.e. next week. I am always open to talks to explore any opportunities to work together.