Manager said hugging it out was the best solution to solve our conflict - is this ok?

[livingthesimplelife]

Would appreciate any thoughts
I work in a large engineering firm, mainly men. A manager who I have had difficulties with (think ignoring emails and teams for weeks because I didn't attend an optional away day, giving everyone in his team except me bonuses for no reason - not underperforming/performing less of a standard etc.). I had a meeting with him to talk about how I felt the ignoring was unjustified - cut a long story short, I got upset and tried to walk away to calm down - he grabbed my wrist (albeit lightly) and told me to stay to sort it out, and then said it's best if we hug it out. I did hug him as I felt obliged but just thinking now - i really feel that was unprofessional. How would you react?

HR, immediately

I’d react with a blistering formal complaint about his bullying, coercion and inappropriate physical contact.

Stupendously unprofessional.

Do you not have a HR department?

Employers are now legally obliged to protect employees from sexual harassment. Tell HR and you'll be supported.

Just ugh!
would he hug a man?
no he wouldn’t
sexist and demeaning

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-protections-from-sexual-harassment-come-into-force

This is recent and HR will be freshly trained on it. You'll absolutely be supported. This man needs to learn never to do this again. Grab your wrist indeed! Ugh

Is everyone else in his team male?

Even if there are other women, he is still bullying you and behaving abhorrently for a manager. On top of that, he assaulted you and force you to hug him. Go to HR. Run, don’t walk.

Yes, that’s coercive and unprofessional. There’s a gender imbalance and a power hierarchy and he put you in an awkward position where it was difficult to say no.
You do need to contact HR and seek support here.

No not ok

What a prick! OP that’s just awful!

This is not OK and HR need to deal with it

Fucking hell

HR

Good grief, get on to HR straight away. This is beyond inappropriate!

Also, report it to HR in an email. Recount everything you remember in clear unemotional detail.

HR are spooked by emails, they take action when they know there's a paper trail.

Do it right now so it's contemporary to the event

Oh no !!!!

thanks all - just worried as i have been to them before and their next step was to facilitate a conversation between me and him, which i felt too nervous to do. i guess i will need to suck it up

Good grief! None of that is OK. The bullying or the physical contact. He sounds like he's getting a weird kick out of this.
Awful. Can you contact HR?

W T F

Include in your email that you reluctantly agreed to be hugged but you felt pressured in the moment. The bloke's defence will no doubt be that you were eager for the hug. So get in there with how you actually felt.

They are unlikely to do that if you vlearly use the words "I felt like I was being sexually harassed". Then they have to use the new protocol.

And tbf, it was sexual harassment, by any objective measure. He wouldn't have done it to a man. He used his strength to intimidate you. He physically touched you when you didn't want that.

'i guess i will need to suck it up'

Please stop sucking it up. Do not spend the rest of your life nodding your head to men like him. It feels normal but it isn't.

Get out.

Go straight to HR. As an employer I am horrified at this. Totally unacceptable.

What? Are you even reading the replies?

You’re an adult. Behave like one. Go to HR, cite sexual harassment.

wtf?