Colleague being ostracized

[user1493035447]

My colleague has handed in his notice to move to a competitor. Immediately the entire department was taken in and shown the credit rating for the competitor (it was very bad) and advised anyone else thinking of jumping ship should think carefully about that.

The colleague did some training courses recently and the is some anger he did the courses (small value

*there is some anger

So someone is ditching their company to move to a company with a bad credit rating and they think it makes them look good to point this out? How bad must they be! Then to top it off they treat people who are leaving like lepers. I'd be looking for a new job as well. They sound dreadful. How longs his notice for? Any holidays he can use? Or could he go off sick if they cause too much hassle? If he doesn't want to he can probably keep his head down for a short time though I wouldn't be relying on decent references if I were him...

It's only a 1 month notice, and he's halfway through. But it's the principle of what's going on. He's such a decent person with a great deal of integrity and I can't believe the pettiness from a few individuals, particularly with the isolation thing. I think I'd have refused to move unless it was to leave for good. I just don't know how I can look at certain people with any respect now.

I'd imagine he isn't looking at them with respect but rather is thinking:

• thank fuck I'm getting out of this place
• I'm going to be so professional it will make your teeth hurt, so you have not one thing you can slag me off for when I'm gone.

Trying to get his training invalidated is the height of pettiness and stupidity - everyone knows the rule is to try to reclaim the costs of expensive training courses if staff leave within a certain amount of time. It sounds like that rule isn't in your contracts, so they decided to try something else spiteful.

I can completely understand your feelings about the way he's being unjustly treated, but I can see why he doesn't want to ask for garden leave. It's just another thing they can use to belittle him. Far better just to stick it out and appear unconcerned - don't give the reaction they are seeking.

But it's bullying and it's utterly unnecessary, and I know I wouldn't want to work in a place that condoned that kind of behaviour.

I'd try and make a run from such an environment myself. Sounds like something from the US version of "The Office". Unfortnately bad management is fairly common (since it's actually an extremely challenging job to do really well).

Does sound a nightmare and in this scenario I would expect an employee to be asked to leave immediately and put on gardening leave for the rest of their notice.

It depends on the industry and how competitive it is, but I don't think it's unreasonable to ask someone leaving for a competitor to sit separately from the rest of the team and restrict their access to sensitive data. Someone leaving with a list of key clients and their contract values could be extremely costly. A small company might not be able to send someone away immediately either - they need someone there while they recruit a replacement.

Hate the "they should just go sick" mantra - this is why people who are genuinely sick get such a hard time, because some people think it's fine to attempt to get signed off when things aren't going your way.