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How long is too long to wait for an internal job move?

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I applied for an internal position and got it but my transition has been contingent on back-filling my role. It's been almost 18 months with no end in sight. Am I being unreasonable to think that this is ridiculous? How can I approach management about a solution? I work in healthcare IT, having been with the current organization for almost 7 years and 14 years in the field in a mid-senior level systems analyst role, and in 9/2019, after months of being unsatisfied with my role, projects, lack of direction for the team and being passed over for a supervisory position which I was short listed for, I applied for a role with a different team. This new role requires an adjacent but new skill-set and since this type of role does not have much turnover I wasn’t sure when an opening on that team would materialize again, it’s something I am (or thought I was) interested in, it would not be a bad lateral transition to make in terms of experience. Being an internal candidate with knowledge of the organization and systems I figured it made sense to pursue this new role as I would most likely not be getting hired for a similar position externally, so I applied and by the end of 10/2019 I got the job.

Unfortunately for me 2019 was a bad year for our team as we lost several people by attrition. One retired, one (the team lead) moved out of state and another, also unhappy with their job, transferred to a less demanding internal position. Unfortunately again for me I was now the subject matter expert in a number of areas on the team and was told the timing of my transfer to the new job would be contingent on back-filling at least 1 or 2 positions on the current team.

Fast forward almost 18 months to February 2021, in the time since I got the new job there were hiring freezes, budget issues and then COVID, all of which prevented even the approval for posting those positions. There was hope a couple of months ago when 1 of the positions was finally approved and posted and another position will be getting posted soon. Surprisingly there have been very few applicants and of those none were qualified candidates.

This whole time my boss’s boss is always saying that my patience and work are appreciated, my performance is good and they are supportive of me wanting to grow professionally and that I will be transferred at the earliest possible time after back-filling my role and training the new person(s). I have no reason to doubt their sincerity and their gratitude and do not believe I am being gaslit or lead on but by the same token I wanted to get out of this team and on to something new close to 18 months ago now and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight in the foreseeable future.

The receiving manager and team have also been patient and supportive about this whole scenario but this is not fair to them either as they could have filled their own position months ago. And if I can allow myself to be selfish for a moment this is not about the new manager/team’s patience to wait for me, it’s about mine.

The longer it takes the more interest I lose in making this transition. Actually, I have already resigned myself to losing compete interest in making this move and have been looking for a new job externally. One thought I am having is to tell my boss’s boss to forget about my transition and see whether we can get me the growth I’m looking for on our team by promoting me to a leadership role (team lead, supervisor or manager). This would give me new responsibilities, a promotion/title, a raise and would be beneficial to my current team and allow the other team to hire for their role.

I think the bottom line for me, which I would not disclose to management, is this: If something doesn’t happen soon I will be looking to leave the organization, so what do I have to lose? I am of the mind that I should at least attempt to move my career forward by trying to get into more of a leadership role on my current team. This would at least put me in a better position to pursue something more meaningful externally in a couple/few years.

So my multi-part question is this:

1- Assuming I still want to, how long is too long to wait to transition to a new role?
2- Is my proposal an acceptable and fair one to make to my current management.
3- Any other points-of-views or actions I should consider?

Thank you.

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