About work

[Chattymummyhere]

Asking on behalf of someone

They work in a reasonably small work place these are some of the things;

Manager tells you to your face your doing a good job but at every chance drags your name down to your boss

Manger demands you ring them outside of work hours, if you don't you get told off at work (personal phone no work phone given)

Manager demands you must send him an email every day listing exactly what you have done all day whilst at work (no other staff have to do this)

Manager demands you must not use your phone while at work but expects you to use your phone at home/on holidays etc for work

Manager tries to secretly record a meeting with you on their phone without your permission

I think this is completely wrong and is bullying within the work place?

Sounds weird, yes.

Is s/he on a warning or any other reason for unusual treatment?

This has been going on since about April, The manager tried to get them sacked before with a gross misconduct but the boss over ruled it..

They had 1 warning for;

They agreed to do over time on a weekend this was well over a year ago but had spent the night before being violently ill, the current manager at the time was on holiday so they rang a member of staff who was in that day, warning was for not reporting to manager

Gross misconduct was for putting something on the computer system wrong, think product and codes.

Big boss over ruled and removed all warning etc from their record.

Current manager was lovely and friend till the old manager sadly passed away

The way some of that is worded sounds like the slant a bitter employee would have when being performance-managed tbh.

As a people manager, maybe i'm biased...but I know for a fact that a couple of things on the list are the types of things that one of my team member would say to others about me...that i'm 'bullying' her and that i'm bad talking her to the head of department, that i'm always on her back asking her for updates and reports on what she's done.

The truth is she's the worst performer on the team and is going through performance-management (very nearly at disciplinary stage) but won't accept any help or advice on how to improve. She is very bitter about it, very arrogant and will not accept that her performance is just not at an acceptable level in comparison to her peers.

Friend has never used the word bullying that was me.

The full version of the bad mouthing to the boss was.

Weekly meeting (everyone has them) good work this week, I feel you are putting in to many hours above your contract but I understand there is a lot of work to get done, hopefully when its past christmas you should be able to go back to your normal hours..

Continues at work finds out about a home crisis speaks to manager to ask if they can leave 30 minutes early from work, big boss walks in as manager says ok, big boss overrules and says if there is something important at home you can leave now if you need to, we know you have been putting in so many extra hours unpaid.

Next day boss pulls employee into meeting

Manager says you are not working properly, that you are incapable of doing your job, that we should demote you and that if you where to apply for your own job now he would never hire you.

You've mentioned two separate instances of attendance-related issues.

Asking to leave early on one occasion and another where the correct process for reporting a days absence was not followed.

I attendance an issue? That in itself is one aspect of performance, that could mean the employee was not doing their job to an acceptable standard.

It's just impossible to say one way or the other that either the manager or the employee is in the wrong. Not when you're only getting one side of the story.

Everything I've read so far doesn't scream 'employee being bullied' tbh. Like I said, it does sound more like the slant many employees have on a situation when they are being performance managed.

Also would like to add, if the 'big boss' overruled his manager, that was completely wrong on their part.

If my head of department tried to overrule me in a decision about one of my team members I would be furious (not that he would, he values his life to highly )

No never late in to work however they do work past their contract hours unpaid every day, but the deal is they are allowed to have that time back to leave early. Other staff members often take 2/3 hour lunch breaks off into town or to go car shopping getting their overtime back. The other staff members however have a different manager.

My friend however it goes

Big boss
Manager
Friend (also a manager)
Staff

Yes the big boss does often over rule this particular manager about most things.. Its all a big mess as there are 5 companies owned by one person but they each act in their own right, manger actually works for company 2 but is then hired by company 4 for certain things.

See this is why I asked, as I work for myself my first thought was what an arse! I've even maybe wrongly now told my friend once you leave work don't answer the calls/texts/emails your home/on holiday, they do still however answer all calls/texts/emails, Drive into work christmas eve because someone did not divert the calls (boss and others live closer), goes in on a saturday/sunday to show a handy man/women around because something needs fixing.. Boss rings because he has forgotten the password to get in to his office at 6am.

Big boss and friend get on great have known each other for years and will talk as just friends and as people at work

Small update

Friend spoke to big boss told them that they where going to leave big boss asked why friend told, and an official complaint is going in against the manager