Need advice

[arghhouch]

My husband has seen an email (sent by mistake to the main office inbox) about him and he is very upset. I want to know what his next steps/options are.

The email was from his office manager to the area manager. It basically said how "frustrating and impossible" it was becoming to keep "spoonfeeding" him after he failed to send an email that did not fall under his remit when she was off. The area manager responsed saying the line manager may want to talk to HR and then have an informal chat with my husband then said how it was "very irritating" and how she was sure the part time employee would do a more "reliable" job but it would be hard for them to "swap roles" as my husband is full time.

He was understandably very very upset. He has saved a copy of the email. This was on Friday. He has been there for over 2 years and thought he was doing a good job as no issues have been raised before and he has trained other staff etc. He is now embarrassed and uncomfortable. He doesn't want to stay there but it feels wrong they can push him out with their words almost. And he cannot afford to leave before finding something else. Advice please?

Well, this sounds like a perfectly standard normal email, if a manager is finding it difficult dealing with a member of their team, seeking advice and 'offloading' a bit on their boss. Emails like this get sent all the time, and nothing that was said sounds out of the ordinary or 'wrong' in that context.

The problem here obviously is that your husband has seen it, and normally the employee in question would not, and the first they'd hear about the concerns would be the 'informal chat' the area manager was recommending. It sounds like your husband might disagree that he should have sent the email being referred to but that there might be existing frustrations as well as just that.

If he wants to leave then he obviously needs to look for something else, but if he can manage to do so, I would recommend he asks his manager for a chat, and says he's seen it and would like to understand the concerns and move forward. He'll obviously need to continue working there for a period of time anyway, so clearing the air a bit would probably be sensible, even if he is adamant he wants to leave.

I understand completely why he feels embarrassed and uncomfortable, and upset. But if he feels sending the email wasn't something he could reasonably have been expected to do, presumably he'd like to make that point to his manager? If it's largely based on that, it could be a misunderstanding and it could be relatively easy to straighten out.

Does his manager not yet know he/she sent the email to the main inbox rather than directly to the area manager?

What flowery said, really.

Not ideal that he’s seen it but it sounds like he has made a mistake (no biggie we all do from time to time) and needs spoken to about it. It’s understandable he’s upset by it but I’m sure he’ll get over it.

Really? I'm surprised that discussing essentially managing someone out of their role and changing their contract hours and responsibilities over email and sending it accidentally to the employee is ok?

I have no issue with the fact that he may of made a mistake and they had a chat to him about it. It's the lack of professionalism surely?

Has anyone else seen the email, or had access to the box before your DH picked it up, OP? Is it still in the main inbox? Because I would take that up with them fairly urgently.

As for the contents - reading between the lines (with my former HR head on) I get the sense that your DH sticks to his job description quite rigidly and perhaps isn't as willing to pick up extra tasks that might need doing. So the email-that-needed-to-be-sent was the manager's job, but as they were off and it still needed sending it's fairly logical to get someone else to do it.

It could be that they saw him as a managerial prospect originally, and if he's not picking up that kind of task without being told to then they are having a rethink. Have any of the managers changed recently?

In his shoes, if he's not comfortable raising it with the line manager and there is a HR department, I'd raise it with HR (especially if there is the prospect of others seeing the email).

They made a mistake in sending the email to him. We can assume that was unintentional, it's something we've all done at some point.

Your husband now knows they don't think he is performing adequately. He can use this as an opportunity to improve, or to start to look for alternative employment.

"I'm surprised that discussing essentially managing someone out of their role and changing their contract hours and responsibilities over email and sending it accidentally to the employee is ok?"

Well, from your OP, that isn't what was discussed anyway. You don't mention they were discussing how to manage him out, or planning to force any hours change. Your assessment of their conversation from your last post sounds a lot more dramatic than the content you quoted in your first post, which sounds perfectly standard and tame really for a frustrated manager.

What is clearly not ok (and I don't think anyone implied it was) is sending the email to an inbox where your DH could see it. But presumably he doesn't think that was deliberate? It was a stupid error, and that's that. You say yourself it was accidental.

What would your DH like to happen OP? It's not clear what 'options' you're looking for advice on really.

Interesting to see how other people would react.

He takes on a lot of additional responsibilities for no extra pay and they have asked him to train new staff before so I wouldn't have thought he was not performing adequately.

The only positive to come from it is that it has given him the push to start looking for somewhere where he is actually appreciated.

Perhaps you've anonymised the email more than you've said on here OP, because what you've said here hasn't given the impression that he's about to be managed out of his job - just that they thought someone else would do it better. You didn't give the impression that they were going to swap roles, but there may be more in the email that you haven't shared on here (quite rightly too, but we can only go on what we're given).

Has the office manager seen the email, because it sounds like the area manager has sent it to the wrong place! Always ironic when they are discussing someone else's mistake, he can always point out that mistakes happen, look ....

I'd be majorly pissed off OP and I do see where you're coming from with that email...especially the part that says about the part time employee swap...I find that slightly sinister!

I find the email really unprofessional actually and quite bitchy! I don't understand why it's come through to a group email box when surely the area manager should have just clicked reply which should have gone directly back to husband's boss! In your husband's shoes I would ask for a meeting making the boss aware of the fact that he's seen the email and would like to know what issues there are and how he can improve...whilst looking for a new job.

I wouldn't feel comfortable in that office, don't blame him, something happened to me a few years ago where I was asked to send emails out to staff by my new boss...important one's yes no problem, but stuff about fridges, lights on etc at the end of the day...not my issue and told her that...I was the same level of those staff members and her asst/secretary so it just got people's backs up...after various other things I left and many others did too.

*Not her Assistant or Secretary that should have said.

I'm surprised that discussing essentially managing someone out of their role and changing their contract hours and responsibilities over email and sending it accidentally to the employee is ok?

I didn’t take that from your original post. I took it that they were pissed off he hadn’t done something and were going to speak to him about it.

"Interesting to see how other people would react. "

I think anyone would naturally feel upset, embarrassed and uncomfortable. This type of issue with an email being sent in error to the wrong person and being seen by someone who shouldn't see it has happened to most people at some point, and it is upsetting and uncomfortable for the person involved, of course.

But other than clearing the air, asking to discuss concerns, there's not an awful lot it is either possible or necessary to actually do about it, so as I said, it's not clear what 'options' you are looking for unless you are able to clarify what your DH wants to actually achieve?