Can anyone help with a workplace issue?

[Amanitacae]

I work in technology with a heavy M:F ratio in my department.

I am a woman, and I lead an area of a tech estate where I have a high level of expertise, and where I have daily negotiations with men leading in other areas, where I have to assert the policies and agreements which are key to keeping my area of the tech estate running smoothly.

I have had an issue with a more junior male colleague from
another team, repeatedly going against the longstanding agreements which are in place to protect my area of the estate by autonomously changing configs which are not related to his area of work. This man does not hold any expertise in the area where he is changing configs.

Where this has happened, it poses risk to the business and causes the team that I lead stress, and so I have had to communicate by email and repeat the agreements which are in place and assert that he should not be changing the configs. This has happened 5 times in 18 months.

I am always polite and factual in these emails. Stating the agreements and the reasoning behind them.

I have now received a complaint at work from his boss for what is being described as patronising/rude emails, and a ‘it’s her way or the highway way’ attitude.

Looking at my emails they are none of these things, and if I don’t communicate with the individual to try to prevent the actions he has taken there is risk and knock-ons.

Looking at the communication style of male peers, mine is no different, yet they don’t receive similar complaints.

The last email I wrote, I ran past my own male manager before sending who said it was fine.

Can anyone help with how to unpick/approach this, or give me a steer as to what kind of sex discrimination this might be.

If I don’t protect my area of the tech estate from risk, I am not doing my job, but it I get complaints about being rude and patronising I know this will also affect my career in a heavily male dominated area.

It's very typical behaviour, women being accused of being rude or aggressive when being professional.

You have emails which is perfect. I would first see your manager in order to informally resolve the issue. If that doesn't work, look into your grievance procedure.

You can contact Acas for more advice.

I had similar.

Was told I was 'rude' and 'too rigid' for reminding people to follow policy/procedures that had been agreed with senior management.

At least you have evidence that your email are professional and that your aim is always to protect the company's system.

Escalate the process issue with your colleague and briskly dismiss the email issue with statement that they are deflecting, your style is no different to any of your colleagues. Try and avoid having to defend it as it gives it more credence the more it’s discussed. It is unlikely to be something you can demonstrate is incorrect by logic as the very accusation is illogical.

You have my sincere sympathy, I spent a career rewriting everyone of my work emails to ‘feminise’ them and dancing around male egos until I reached a day I just couldn’t do it anymore. Progress is glacially slow.

I was going to say the same thing.

The other thing is that this is classic sexism - deflecting his own non-compliance by way of making YOU the issue. He is exploiting 'the system', aka policies etc in place. In simple language that he can understand, "no bloody woman is going to tell ME what to do". I would be tempted to invert it into that.

I'm not diplomatic so unfortunately I can't advise on how to word it so that it doesn't blow up into a big 'no, you are being sexist because you refuse to act upon the instructions of a senior, regardless of gender/age and have turned it into a patronising charade of it being my tone to deflect from you being an ignorant shit' situation - perhaps someone would kindly translate that :D

This. And stop tyinh yourself up in knots over it. Let the managers sort it out now, you've said your piece

Fellow female techie here. I hope I can offer a few suggestions to help.

1). I was going to suggest that you address the issue in writing, which you have already done. Feedback in writing usually results in more action than verbal feedback.

2). Don't focus so much on the emotional/tonal aspect of communications. Rather, focus on the quality of the product that is being delivered, and the negative impacts to the system that his undermining behavior is causing.

3). Within your written notifications, address the problem in the form of a risk assessment:
a. Identity the Risk
b. Describe the Potential Impacts if the risk comes to fruition.
c. Describe any mitigation steps that can be taken.
Putting the risk in writing makes management accountable, if they do not handle it.

4). Do you have change control within your organization? If so, you may want to set up a design review/code review process, where code (or product) does not get deployed to Production unless it passes the review. The criteria of that review is the coding/quality standards that you produce. If that employee refuses to follow the standards, his code/product will be less likely to make it into Production, his productivity level will drop, and he will look bad in his performance review.

5). You may want to have an organization-wide meeting, with all relevant teams present, to clarify about staying in one's lane. You will probably need a diplomatic manager to lead this meeting, hopefully your own. This type of meeting helps managers to clarify their own roles on the project, and it provides guidance to workers as to what they should do and how they should handle their jobs. Create a PowerPoint presentation, describing each of those lanes. This will show that ManagerA is in charge of ContentA; for any questions/work related to ContentA, ManagerA is your point person. ManagerB is in charge of ContentB; for any questions/work related to ContentB, ManagerB is your point person. And so forth... This is discussed with everyone in the department at the meeting and agreed to. If anyone acts against this agreement after the meeting, it becomes obvious that they are behaving out of line, being insubordinant to the management team, and should be held accountable.

I have been in your situation, where you have to influence based on knowledge and not authority. It is hard when people are less likely to accept "no" for an answer from a woman rather than a man. The fact that he is a junior behaving this way is insubordinant, and his manager's behavior is certainly not helping. I wish you the best.

There are communication skills classes available for Leading Without Authority. I need to take one of these classes myself. But again, it does seem like this is accommodating sexists when they should be altering their own behavior. Good luck! Enjoy a happy hour every once in a while and have a separate support system to keep your spirits up!