Advice on grievance outcome, unfair performance rating and possible employment solicitor

[Unsureworkwhattodo]

I don’t want to include too many identifying details, but I work for a large company. I’d spent most of my career in one part of the business when I was offered a career changing role in another. I took it, but from day one I felt I’d made a mistake.
Over the following year, I experienced behaviour from the head of my area that I found controlling, isolating and emotionally damaging. For example, despite being in a senior role, I had to send him every document I produced for review and wasn’t allowed to share it with anyone else. That’s only one example of what happened. I tried to resolve things directly, but he refused to speak to me. I then went to HR, and their handling of it made things worse. I ended up off sick.
I raised a formal grievance, which was upheld on all points. The company also raised a grievance about HR’s handling of my case, including the fact that they had not spoken to me for nine months. I’m not told what, if any, action was taken regarding the head of area. He is still in the same role.

While I was off sick, I received the lowest possible mid year performance rating. My previous rating had been the highest. My line manager, who reports to the person I’d raised the grievance about, initially said the rating was because I hadn’t been at work. I raised this during the grievance meetings, but nothing appears to have been done. When I chased it, I was told he now says the rating was because I hadn’t achieved anything.

The grievance outcome also upheld that I had never been given feedback about concerns supposedly raised by other stakeholders. Some concerns related to the pace of deliverables, but my work had been held up because the head of area insisted on reviewing everything before I could share it.
I’ve now returned to work in a different role. Although my job title is the same, it’s an entirely new field and I’m unhappy in it. I was told that if it wasn’t right for me after three months, I could move, but that hasn’t happened.

This has been going on for around 14 months. Has anyone been through something similar? I’d particularly appreciate advice on the performance rating, what I can reasonably ask my employer to put right, and whether it’s worth speaking to an employment solicitor.

Sorry to hear what a rough time you've been having. These things are so so stressful. That being said I think at this stage you need to try as best you can to take emotion out of it and think what it is the best realistic outcome for you, before jumping to solicitors etc. That may be the right path but if what you're wanting is a feeling of things having been put right that may or may not be the best outcome. Couple of questions if I may:

-The performance rating, what is the effect of having been given a low rating, are there financial consequences I.e. a bonus or a pay rise linked to it, do you need a certain rating over a period of time for career progression /promotion (and would you realistically be in a position to apply for this anyway) or is it more that it isn't an accurate reflection of your performance and you're concerned about future managers seeing it out of context or it maybe affecting restructures or whatever? If the former I think you could potentially ask as an outcome that you are awarded whatever pay rise or bonus you would have been eligible for based on previous year's performance ratings in your old role, or perhaps more realistically for an average or satisfactory rating as that would have been more to be expected in a new role even if your manager hadn't been a dick to you. Or if there's no money hanging on it, can they simply delete the rating or put an n/a against you for that year as it is always really quite difficult where someone has been unwell for all or part of the year even if totally unwork related, some companies do use aggregating or averaging previous years, if it is necessary to rate someone at all.

In terms of your new role and being unhappy there too, what would your ideal solution be? Are you wanting to be moved again to another new team, or changes made to the new role to make it a better fit or to go back to your old team? Or are you wanting to be paid off and to leave? Whether any of the first options are feasible really will depend on your company, obviously a pay-off can also be possible given they seem to have acknowledged a lot of problems in their handling of your case, but how much they would be prepared to pay really depends. That's where you'd really want proper legal advice and help.

I'd say generally there's rarely any harm in speaking to an employment solicitor (or to a trade union if you have one or ACAS) purely to understand more about what kind of a case you might have. I wouldn't recommend the nuclear option of resigning and/or launching down an employment tribunal route in most cases initially, it's nearly always better both financially and mental health wise to either try and negotiate a compromise where you remain in employment and use that as a platform to look for an alternative job or get a payoff /settlement, employment tribunals are highly lengthy, stressful, expensive and unreliable as a means of seeking financial compensation and frankly usually entirely useless as a way of getting emotional closure and resolution - people hang a lot on the concept of a day in court and seeing people brought to justice, and maybe in the minority of cases they get something from it, but when you're fighting an arcane and dry legal battle against a giant corporate machine, in the best case to gain compensation that means almost nothing to them financially and maybe to be proved right (but only in the first, legalistic sense), but little by way of an apology or assurance the organisation or individuals have learnt or changed anything, well, it can feel pretty pyrrhic to say the least...

@NoctuaAthene it’s a mix of all. I did lose 12k of my bonus. Which if I’m honest at this point I’m not that bothered by. It’s the fact I did achieve my goals then went off sick. I’m being marked down out of spite. It would impact my ability for progression schemes and I’d have to explain to every future area.

New role is being moved to an area where I have an actual skillset for. I’ve started looking independently. They can’t move the current role to align anymore than the very little it does.

I was surprised it was upheld as the evidence was he said/ she said but a significant number of people backed it. Everyone they asked.

I wouldn’t resign without another role but need to decided what to do next