Advice on resilience and redundancy please

[opentoadvice88]

Hello, in the next month or so I will be making one of my line reports redundant. She has a history of lying and exaggerating. I have spoken to her about this in the past but lately things have ramped up & her behaviour is erratic.

She tends to go through circles of hating different members of staff & recently I’ve been her target because I had to reinforce wfh rules.

HR have advised that given her history she’s likely to raise a grievance against me.

I know I should be able to take this on the chin and not take it personally but I’m feeling down about the whole situation. I usually pride myself on being a good line manager but I just can’t win with her.

Does anyone have any advice on how to not take this personally & to keep my sanity if daft accusations are made?

I should add her role is redundant due to tech developments not due to her work.

I should add her role is redundant due to tech developments not due to her work keep reminding yourself (and her if required) of this. If she gets angry then say something like I see you need some time to process the news I'll leave you alone and leave the room.

Oh that’s a great response, thank you.

I don’t think there will be any talking sense into her unfortunately so giving her that space might be best.

Check what the procedure is where you work.

At mine someone from HR is with the line manager for meetings related to redundancy. Partly to take notes, partly to explain anything procedural. But I have noticed it stops any particularly unpleasant behaviour. It's also helpful when the person is upset as HR person has far more experience of this! It also means there's a witness in those meetings in case you do end up with a grievance.

Good luck, it's horrible being in this situation.

Thanks @RidingMyBike 🙂 Good point.

I’ll make sure HR are present for every meeting & that they are documented & maybe even recorded.

I'd keep as many of your interactions with her as possible in front of others too, or in writing so you have a trail.

Hopefully unnecessary but it'll avoid her having anything to threaten you with when you do get to the redundancy .

Thank you. I’ve been recording everything for months but didn’t stop her complaining to HR about my tone on an email. I showed HR the only emails sent that day and her jaw dropped.

I think my line report believes the lies she tells and plays the victim very well. I believed all her stories originally too - silly me.

Update on this. I began the redundancy process & as expected she’s raised a grievance against me & four others including HR.

I know it’s silly but I feel really hurt about the allegations. They’re not founded in any kind of reality but now all of our emails are being checked 😞

Sorry to hear this, my manager had someone make a ridiculous grievance years ago and we had to supply our emails
As expected it got him nowhere but for my manager especially it was a stressful time
He also put a grievance In with hr

In the end the md had an off record chat, he wanted a pay off, we had done nothing wrong so he got nothing. He got moved to a different brand and was closely monitored. One step wrong he was going to be out. He left within a year

you will be fine, knuckle down, I promise you can get through it

Thank you. I hope so.

I’m finding this extremely stressful. My emails contain personal information (a miscarriage last year) and it’s in the context of work & arranging cover for myself whilst I recovered. The idea of IT or HR going through these emails kills me.

I really have only tried to support her throughout but she’s almost inhumane. One of the other people accused has just lost her dad & the hearing day is his funeral.