Work colleagues making me feel ill

[CyanDog]

Looking for advice please. I currently manage a small team in the NHS. I’ve noticed recently that the majority of people I work with are acting in a way that blows my mind. They are blunt, derogatory and really quite disrespectful, in a way that I wouldn’t be to anyone, especially not my line manager. I’m talking about 8am Teams rants to me and constant underhand comments about my role.
i have always gone out of my way to be kind, accommodating and ensure that the team have what they need. I give them all lots of my time and am extremely understanding of work/life balance.
im feeling not just depleted but ill with stress. I couldn’t sleep last night thinking about how much I was dreading work. I have never had this before. I don’t have a supportive manager to discuss this with.
has anyone experienced this? Any advice?
I generally like my job but cannot continue like this.

Why are you allowing them to call you at 8am?

Schedule in 1:1 supervisions with them.

Clearly document discussions. Follow relevant protocols and procedures with them, including performance management if applicable.

You can be compassionate without being a doormat.

Document everything, if it's a case of an entire team bullying the manager then you need to report this for what it is.

If you have derogatory and aggressive Teams rants then you don’t particularly need a supportive manager: you have the evidence of your colleagues bullying and harassing you, and you can ask your manager to address this with the perpetrators or advise that if they aren’t willing to, you’ll take your evidence to HR, who will. Keep notes of what’s being said to you, use the record feature where necessary.

Certainly don’t get involved in responding to the rants - they’re your documentation that you’re being treated unfairly and that this isn’t just a bitchfest from both sides. As previous poster states, respond clearly and calmly to say that you consider their behaviour unacceptable, are documenting it, and will take it further through PM.

If anyone is being unprofessional, tell them their conduct is out of order and you want to see a marked improvement. Point them to channels/processes for raising any concerns formally. Sounds like they are abusing your good nature

As pp have already said, pull your team up on their behaviour. You have written evidence of their unprofessional behaviour - make sure you keep that as evidence.
Start by reminding them of communication guidelines, which I am sure the NHS will have.

I was an experienced manager before I joined the NHS from private industry. I have never been treated so poorly by staff members as I have been inside the NHS. Or seen people behave so poorly. Majority of people I managed were wonderful, but the others - whew!

Thank you for your feedback.
as it feels personally aimed at me I’m not sure how best to go about it. Do you think speak with hr first?
never experienced this..it’s baffling and upsetting

What do you think it is?! It’s awful!

Sorry you are experiencing this OP.

First things first - speak to your manager and explain what you just have here stressing you expect it to remain confidential. Explain your colleagues are speaking to you in such a way, and you can provide examples. Explain that it’s making you feel unwell, and that you will be taking a few days off as sick leave. Request that on your return you are supported to address the issue. Use the days of leave to truly switch off from work and look after yourself. Make a plan of how you can keep boundaries between work and home to reduce your stress - no checking teams or email outside of office hours for example, getting a walk in at lunchtime etc.

On your return, meet with your manager. Ask for their advice and support in tackling the behaviours, and by this I mean a plan with actions for YOU to put into place, and your manager.

do you line manage these people? If so, you need support to level up your line management skills. Request training, potentially on building positive culture, addressing conflict, and managing difficult conversations.

Lack of real world experience and entitlement, lots of ineffective managers who have been promoted beyond their competence with no real oversight to hold them accountable and poor HR practices which make it hard to actually discipline people. And a culture where some staff (doctors for instance) are held to massively different standards than others. I was once given someone to manage who had a long history of poor performance and behaviour problems (we had more complaints about her than the other 90 staff added together), but who would get very angry and threatening if challenged. Manager after manager had avoided dealing with her. I was told to address it, but when I started to hold her to account she went over my head and the manager who had told me I had to start disciplinary/capability then went into rescue mode and said my subordinate could move to another team without discussing it with me. I insisted on a meeting with the manager and the staff member before she transferred to actually talk about what she had done and put it on record. I had been told by a number of people she had been bad mouthing me for months, so also wanted to address that. I told her that I had the right to dignity at work as well as her (she was absolutely floored by that concept), and if she continued to say what she had been saying, I would put in a formal complaint about her and expect action by the service. I went back to full time clinical after that - what is the point of trying to manage without back up? She continued to repeat her behaviour with several managers after me until she had the quietest retirement I have ever seen, but to be fair, I am not sure anyone would have gone to a leaving do, or even signed a card.

Difficult to get the sack from nhs

How have you managed it until now? When somebody you manage calls or messages and proceeds to rant at you in a way that’s aggressive or derogatory or attacks you personally, what do you say to them? How have you made it clear it’s not acceptable? HR will ask for evidence that you’ve attempted to address it - documented it, raised it in one-ones and recorded it in the written reviews etc. They’ll advise you to do this in the first instance because without any evidence of anything being raised it’s easy for your team to downplay it or say that it wasn’t aimed at you, and easy for HR to push it back to you.

This is the new world OP. People push their luck especially with those they know they can walk over. Looks like you need to crack the wip ASAP and show them you are not a walkover.

Or send the to your lazy manager who cba to support you and I'm sure he'll do it for you.

Claire Benjamin on Instagram does good videos helping you upskill at management skills. Have a look you might get some ideas. There is something about how you are interacting that is inviting at worst but certainly not shutting down this behaviour from your team. See if you can get some insight.

Oh, on a practical level. I would stop meetings if people were being rude, tell them I was not willing to continue the discussion while they were speaking to me like they were and that if it happened again, this would become a performance problem. One told me meeting with me for their 1:1s was a ball ache - I told him if he ever spoke to me like that again we would be meeting with HR to discuss his behaviour. I also documented and had people sign records of our discussions as we were meeting. And sometimes I would get another manager in as a witness. As I said, most of the people I have managed were amazing, but the few who were not were unbelievably bad.

I voted YABU not because I don’t empathise, but the first thing to do is arrest any 8am rants. You need to practice a way to close down grenade-style meetings that don’t have an agenda, or are unplanned. You hold the power to start and end the meeting along terms that are timely, relevant, and agenda-led.

Can you give examples of how they are blunt and derogatory?

Always speak with HR first to discuss, they are impartial and will be able to give you some advice on what you can and can’t say and do.

I had a nightmare line report last year, she ended up getting dismissed because of her conduct, but it took along time to get to that stage and I felt exactly the same as you for nearly a year. I just knew my entire day would be taken up her moaning or bitching about the same people over and over again, I had to get other managers to witness and document meetings as well. It takes perseverance and at some point you have to say enough is enough for your own sanity. Don’t worry about upsetting people, as long as you remain professional and follow HR guidance you will be fine. Unfortunately too many people cross boundaries now, they have no respect for each other or superiors. I know respect is earned and not given, but when you are at work there has to be a base level of respect for your manager regardless of whether you think they deserve it or not, alot of people just don’t have it and think they can say and do as they please without consequences. As a manager it’s your job to make them understand they can’t.

Collect evidence & report to HR. Make your boundaries crystal clear I.e. I am available on Teams at 9am, meetings to be scheduled from 10am to 4pm.

Also if it’s a group meeting on teams and people are almost ganging up on you by all sharing their negative opinions/using each other as a reason to add their opinion as well, I would temporarily stop these type of meetings. Send a email or ideally say in person that you would like the morning meetings to set everyone up for a positive working day and at the minute you don’t feel the meetings are achieving that. You will be putting the meetings on hold temporarily and would like everyone to send you some ideas on what they would prefer/how you can achieve that goal. Then you can speak to individuals who are causing the issues seperately, and document it. Explain that you understand they have a lot of opinions and you want them to feel they can share that with you, however their impact on the morning meetings is too much and you would prefer any negative comments to be made to you directly after the team meeting, in a polite and professional way so you can address them directly.

This. It's such a river of turds that can't be flushed.