A highly sought-after position opened up. The manager over the position was new to managing and insisted that the position required a specific certification.
I informed her that many people had successfully done this job without this certification and that we had several internal candidates who were more than capable of doing it and lacked the certification.
She insisted. She said I was trying to violate her managerial authority by telling her not to include the certification requirement.
I didn’t have the authority to remove the certification requirement, so the job search continued.
Internal people who lacked the certification didn’t apply because she made it very clear they wouldn’t be considered.
She ended up hiring an external person who (wait for it) also did not have the certification. Now, this person can absolutely do the job. But the current staff is furious. Not at the new hire–they recognize it’s not her fault–but at the manager. They didn’t apply for the job because the manager made it very clear she would not consider them.
Now we have a morale issue. Lesson from this: If you’re going to make a rule, you need to enforce it. Making a rule and then not enforcing it is incredibly damaging to your employees.