to ask that I am given an apology...

[LilMissSunshine9]

...because my manager failed to deal with a colleague who was bullying me. I raised the issue with her twice and now I have made a complaint she is saying she did deal with it but didn't have to tell me she had dealt with it ..I don't actually believe she did deal and is now covering her arse because I even raised it my appraisal and she had a third opportunity to say it had been dealt with but she avoided the topic altogether.

well if you didnt raise it officially then she can deal with it at her discretion surely?

I had a bully and raised my concerns with manager quietly and my manager had a eord behind the scenes and tried to resolve it, address the way the bully speaks to people, observe the situation

it escalated and I raised a formal complaint and it was dealt with in an official manner (meetings, notes, fact finding investigation) with manager and HR

and he was found guilty and disciplined.

I dont think they have to do anything unless you raise it via the proper proceedures

yes but shouldn't she have at least told me that it won't be a problem going forward anymore

She doesn't have to tell you anything. It's confidential. You may discretely say 'thanks for your complaint, it's now being dealt with' but she really can't say more than that.

no because my manager (who was good) thought that by having a word and issueing an unoffical warning would be enough to deter the bully or bring them to their sences.

sometimes it is

in my case it got worse (as bully was a moron) and thats when you take it official.

your boss didnt need to tell you anything at that point

I am afraid that is bollocks. We closely follow HR procedure at work. If somebody raised a complaint (and has to be informal at first unless Gross Misconduct) we have to have a meeting with the bully and then feed back to the person making the complaint.

We wont divulge what was said or what is going to happen but the bullied person would be told " We have had a meeting with X, we have discussed your concerns and steps have been put in place"

Your manager HAS to inform you what she has done with regards to your complaint.

You should have then been offered a follow up meeting in a few weeks time to discuss how things have been and if there is any further cases of bullying.

Sounds like your manager has done sweet FA and now is the time to make it official with HR

Did the bullying stop? If it did, she dealt with it. If it didn't, then she didn't deal with it.

thanks Vodka that is what i thought too, this bully also made me suicidal it was that bad I raised it once and the second I raised it she said she had dealt with it at x time but she couldn't of because the bullying didn't start till after x time - this is why I thing she is covering her arse by saying she dealt with it. I was scared to raise a grievance always told its bad to do that. I have a meeting with her tomorrow with HR to try to work through this and my resolution is I want an apology for her not telling me it had been dealt with - I have had to sit next to the bully all this time thinking it hasn't been dealt with. I know she does not have to give me specifics but a simple 'its been dealt with lets all move forward' should of been said to me.

No the person still behaves in the same way to me I made attempts to improve our working relationship - fortnightly coffee catch-ups no response no effort and I have now moved to a new role because I could no longer work in that environment - only reason this is coming up now is because I am being told I have to now start helping that team out and I don't really want to be back in that environment again so its needs to be sorted out

Everything we do with HR is documented in triplicate, every HR meeting i ever attended was always documented and i took notes, every single time. I would then follow up any meeting with an email to outline any points and what the discussion was about.

That way there was a clear trail of what had happened, what had been said and more importantly proof.

Ask your manager for their notes on the any meetings with your bully. She probably didnt do any but at least you can raise this as "strange" not to do this.

Also take your own notes in the meeting, try to start a time line to pin her down, with luck she will trip herself up and prove once and for all if she is telling the truth or not. Ask to see any emails she has sent to prove she had "dealt with" your case. Again, probably didnt do any but places the doubt with HR.

Basically you will be establishing that she has done nothing in the way of proving she has dealt with it and you have genuine concerns that nothing has been done. And keep notes of all your conversations with her.

Thanks Vodka this is really hard for me to deal with I have all my dates down of when I raised this with her and when the bullying started etc. But I didn't know I could ask to see or for HR to see any emails etc that she had dealt with this so thanks I will make sure to bring it up.

Two weeks ago I was walking past her and I said Hi, she responded by saying 'I am going around erasing things' and then waved an eraser in my face really close like she was rubbing me out. I have raised this informally with HR but she is saying it was just a joke. I am not happy about that because I find that behaviour completely inappropriate -she wouldn't do that to anyone else and I am also going to be seeking an apology for it to because I don't find it funny.

I doubt you will get an apology over the eraser remark as she will claim it was a joke, although you clearly didnt feel it was funny or appropriate.

A cutting remark would have been better - "Its a shame we cant erase your slap dash work methods" little chuckle, or "Maybe you should start with your wrinkles" fake laugh, but hindsight is always golden.

It is great you have the dates but do not let her know in advance the time line, ask her for her time line first, note it all down then ask why x doesnt match up with Y, why this date and that date dont tally. Let her do the explaining.

As for emails, you have the right to see any email that relates to you (I was shocked when HR told me this) and if she has dealt with your complaint then any emails would relate to you, you can ask to see them.

Good luck.

Thanks vodakjelly for your help

It doesn't sound to me as if she has spoken to the bully. I think you've done the right thing keeping a note of dates and incidents. If you are in a union you can have a word with them about how to take this further. Nobody should have to put up with this kind of thing. But go through the proper procedures with notes taken or else they will just deny everything or lie about things.

If you have now raised a formal complaint then it should be dealt with via the grievance procedure and there will be a formal investigation. Sorry you are going through this but you have complained about a member of staff, albeit informally and now you are complaining about your manager because it hasn't been dealt with formally. Your complaint will be investigated and that should determine the facts. In my experience grievances rarely do more than fracture relationships which are already poor. Is there a union you can talk this through with.

I am in private sector so no union. I am on the cliff edge so to speak in terms of lodging a formal complaint (raise a grievance) but as this meeting has been set up where I sit with my former manager and HR to talk it out informally - HR seem to be a bit too keen to avoid talking about this with me they keep referring to clarification about my role is more important

just to give more background i went to my former manager at the time and raised 3 times issues with this person each time she came back to me saying I have spoken with x person and that I was doing something wrong and on the last time she said there is no issue on that person side it is with me.

A few months down the line x person than openly admits to my face exactly what they are doing to me and doing it deliberately. So I then take this to her and this time she did not come back like she did before. So what am I make of it all I can do is assume she hasn't dealt with it because x persons behaviour did not change one bit infact made x person more arrogant. I stopped reacting to x person and x started on other team member who raised it with manager and manager not only dealt with it but also went back to the team member and said it was resolved.

you need to raise the official grievance but getting hung up over an apology from your manager is not what you need to focus on

raising a greivance has been a good experience for me, I can't see why you haven't gone down that road yet

I am bit scared to - worried about losing my job etc. I am in a junior position and management are supporting the snr manager so far so I just don't have any faith I guess thats all.

I guess i thought it would be better all round if I tired to sort it all out informally because I will still have to work with these people and that making it formal may make it worse for me

Any disciplinary is confidential - you reported it and they are not usually allowed to tell you the outcome

I think you need to think quite carefully. The senior manager, has I imagine, been there for quite a long time. What are you seeking to achieve? At present you are making a lot of work for a lot of people. This senior manager may have a good track record for line management, may not, may have a track record for bringing in lots of money. Unfortunately you are probably more dispensable. I think you need to learn how to deal with someone difficult and who you don't like. In the meantime you need to keep your nose clean and unless the person is doing something illegal which can be evidenced or is being explicitly racist, disablist, harassing, bullying AND these things can be evidenced then you need to strike it up to experience, safeguard your references and start looking for a new job.

Not everyone suits every organisation and not every organisation suits everyone. I'm sorry if this isn't what you want to hear but as an HR manager I have heard so often from someone at work "and everyone agrees with me" and when the formal investigation starts even though they might agree with you when the chips are down and a formal note is taken unfortunately they don't. HR may know there's a problem, more senior managers may know there's a problem but in the absence of evidence it is very very difficult to take action.

Thanks married for your thoughts- she has been there as long as me we started within a month of each other but the head of the department has already had other people complain about her and she has been made to apologise to other people in the department because of her behaviour.

Its not that I don't like her its the way she does things or hasn't done things in this case.

My new role apparently isn't very clear they have been clarifying it this week. Her boss even made the comment to me that by moving me into this role they hadn't realised the impact it would have and that my previous role underpins that entire team and they need me to continue to help me out.

I am not worried about my performance because I always make sure I do my work 110% and all my appraisals reflect that.

But yes I am looking to move jobs now because the fact they keep talking about how this is a new role means they haven't thought it through properly and not really looked at how I could progress in that role.

I meant they need me to continue to help them out*