Employee Discrediting My Work

[vineyard]

A new member of staff joined my team seemed to fit in initially I am in a senior position and she was informed that she was there to assist me. What happened is on my one day off instead of discussing any issues with me she went straight to superiors. As a result been given new role in which is has clearly outlinedin a letter that some responsibility has been taken away from me. Therefore as my superior informed me you can talk any time off the record I said am I being demoted and received a written letter from hr informing me that there has been personal complaints made and I am seen as a senior member of staff. I feel like I have been stabbed in the back not only by a member of staff but by a superior who I went to to ask a question about something I was unsure about. I'm asking for advice how shall I play this one should I talk to the member of staff about her work ethic which is underhand and what are your thoughts on the situation?

This is very difficult to understand. Are you saying that as a result of you taking ONE day off, complaints have been made which have resulted in your demotion?

If your colleague had queries, could she have waited until you came back? Maybe it was reasonable for her to have to check with whomever was available at the time?

What exactly does the letter which you received say and does it give reasons why some of your work has been removed? Why did your "superior" tell you you could speak off the record - what were the circumstances of that conversation? And when you did speak to her what were the details of that conversation? Where did HR get involved and what kind of letter did you get from them? Is it a written warning or something else?

Whatever you do at this point, do not speak to the member of staff who you believe complained. From what you have written so far, it's not even clear that any of this has happened because of this person.

hi ann thanks for replying let me clarify a few more points wrote when a bit upset. I currently work a 4 day week my colleague could have waiting to liase with me however for whatever reason felt it necessary as discuss with whoever was available as the time. It is difficult to pinpoint this one individual as the informer, only highlighted her as she is new to the team and this has happened only since she has joined maybe coincidental but this is the only thing that has changed in the environment.

Received two letters one stated new role now come to think of HR was in meeting no writing took place she just observed. As a result of this letter whi ch was emailed I went to my superior to have an open chat about this new role as in this letter it stated that what I was previoulsy dealing with in terms my of duties and the changes . HR was in the first meeting not in the second as I thought it was a general chat wanted more information on what this new role meant. Th It turned out what I thought was more confirmation resulted in second letter being emailed to me stating that I am still seen as a senior member of stafft due to lenght of time with the company both were written and my superiro had received a couple of personal complaints regarding me. The second letter was not expecting as no HR and was directly with superior. I won't be directly approaching my colleague who I think maybe responsible for this action. Let me know your feedback

Ugh. Almost impossible to wade through this, it really isn't clear.

In a nutshell are you saying:-

1. complaint made against you
2. you were upset about complaint
3. complainer got bits of your job to do
4. You complained about this
5. HR have responded saying that Yes, parts of your role have changed, not just because of this person who complained, but also because of other complaints, but that you are still regarded as a senior member of staff, regardless of this.

Is that it?

So, it looks like they haven't followed proper procedure of addressing issues they have had with your work or of properly addressing complaints that have been made about you, so you could write them an email saying that they have unilaterally removed some of your responsibilities without following standard HR procedure and this is not acceptable to you and you wish to raise a formal grievance.

Before you do this though, there are two things to consider:-

1. Why are people complaining about you and why are people going behind your back to do so? Should you be acting in a different way to people or doing your job differently to enable better relations between you and your colleagues?
2. Is this complaint actually a fair one to have been raised - had you done something wrong? If so, your raising a grievance may make this 'issue' a formal one in your records, because HR may respond to your grievance with a disciplinary/capability review of their own. If the grounds for the 'issue' might look bad on you then maybe raising a grievance is less sensible than learning from it and moving on.

Well, I'm glad I'm not the only one still struggling with this.

It is becoming more apparent that your new colleague is probably incidental to the whole thing. Maybe the questions she was asking highlighted that she had not been properly trained by you or maybe they have highlighted that she is not very good at her job? Either way, it seems reasonable that if someone was brought in to assist you, parts of your job may have moved to her in order to give you the opportunity to concentrate on other areas. It's all very difficult to figure out from your postings but on the face of it, I would see it as your bosses recognising that your role has grown, requires additional support and are freeing you up to concentrate on specific tasks, hence the new job description.

In the second meeting, you were told that there have been some personal complaints against you. What were these complaints and do you feel they were justified? If someone complained that the quality of your work has deteriorated or that you are taking too long to respond and this is actually true, I would see that as a reason why someone has been brought in to assist you? Assuming that your bosses recognised that your workload was genuinely too high and not that your quality and output has deteriorated? If as Squiffy says however, parts of your job have changed without explanation and you have been notified of unspecified complaints then I would agree that you should raise a grievance. How can you improve if you have not been told what the areas of concern are?

CAVEAT: I am guessing at some of the possibilities here because your posts are still lacking a lot of detail or any timeframe for all these activities. Please do post more detail but could I also gently suggest that you reread your posts before sending because some of your sentences don't actually make sense so are just adding to our confusion and guesswork.

thanks ann and stillsquiffy for your feedback it has been helpful. I have not confronted the colleague who went directly to my superiors I have however, looked at the procedures in place at my current workplace and realised the complaints received were due to notes and messages not being read on customer records and this resulted in complaints because it looked like they had not been responded to. I have therefore decided the two things to do are speak to acas and look for another job . ps. the initial message did not read coherent as was upset but glad you sieved through the data.