I am faced with a situation that I am drawing a blank on. I have a few days (today is Fri, and have until Mon) to come up with some ideas if I can.
We have an employee who has taken on responsibilities above and beyond his work description and he has done an excellent job of it. For reasons that predate my joining this organization, this responsibility is being taken away from this individual and is going to be given to someone else (someone who used to perform this function). There is little to nothing I can do about this, as the decision has been made from above. What I am currently facing is how do we handle this transition without disenfranchising this employee? I see it going one of two ways, depending on what drives and motivates him: either it is going to mean less responsibility for the same amount of money and this will make him happy, or he is going to view it as he stepped up and got what was needed done and now it is being taken away from him and it will make him unhappy.

So, any ideas how this can be approached with a positive spin or other ways to handle it to make it into a positive for this employee?

Mgmt should thank him for his excellent work. Explain that they are assigning those tasks to someone else because they would like him to concentrate on the tasks that are still remaining to him because they see those as more important at this time. Ultimately things have to be done for the betterment of the business, and this is what this is.

Walt
IT Consulting for Robert Half
http://roberthalftechnology.com

There are always winners and losers, people on the way up and others on the way down and changing responsibilities as people come and go. It's like the ebb and flow of the ocean - it can't be stopped. It has to be explained to the employee and then he will react in his own way. He may become disgruntled, may be happy and/or may start looking for a new job. It depends on the individual. At least he can put the experience on his resume if he wants to start looking elsewhere.

I would say a lot of companies do a LOT worse things to employees than what is being mentioned, so I don't really see this as heinous behavior by the company. And it's certainly out of your hands, so not your fault.