Complaint/ HR

[Babyroobs]

Can anyone explain exactly what the role of HR is in investigating complaints. I worked for a company for a few months earlier this year in a new team. it was a stressful isolated environment and I resigned after my team leader humiliated me in a one to one meeting, it was the final straw. the job led to me being really quite ill with stress and depression. At the time I did speak to an HR person and I was in a very distressed state. After a couple of months I became very aware that a lot of people in this company were being bullied and I wrote an email to HR who asked what me experiences were. Anyway they have now done an ' investigation ' and found the team leader to be lovely and well thought of, no problems in the team and can't investigate all the individual concerns I had due to confidentiality. I feel like my concerns have been totally dismissed and I've been made to look an idiot. I wish I hadn't bothered even trying to explain the distress it all caused me. How can senior managers based in other parts of the country possibly know what happened in a one to one meeting ? I know I need to just let this go I guess I just don't want others to go through the same thing. I can't believe this organisation have so many claims of harassment and bullying made against them and yet are so disinterested in investigating what is going wrong.

If there is nothing to support a claim other than one persons word against another, you would look at the working history of that person, how they operate, treat and speak to people etc.

If you were there a couple of months they know relatively nothing about you. If the other person had a good record and was well respected and was honest this would go a long way. If they had a history of complaints then this would be helpful to your case.

If they asked for feedback, did exit interviews, had little staff movement and did wellbeing surveys or others then this would also be evidence of a happy or not so happy workforce if there were other complaints about this person. If you named people they might ask about their experience. Depends if you witnessed incidents or it is word of mouth?

Because you left on poor terms they might consider it a vexatious complaint? It is unclear to me if you complained a few months after you left the job or just after a few months whilst still employed?

I'm sorry to hear what's happened. A number of things could have happened here, it could have been a half-arsed/biased/shoddy investigation, it could be that no-one else in the team wanted to speak up at all to substantiate the complaints, and so it was your word against hers (and since she presumably will have been able to speak to the investigator in person, whereas you didn't as you have now left, she may have been able to make a persuasive case to make them believe her). It could even be that the other people in the team might actually have said when questioned that the manager is lovely and there are no problems - I've seen the latter happen before, whether or not people believe it to be true, often they don't want to cause any trouble for themselves by 'accusing' the bullying manager for fear of things getting worse, or even feel they'll earn brownie points by saying how rosy everything is and this might make things improve?

Also, if the manager is seen as being 'high performing' or difficult to replace, consciously or sub-consciously senior managers or HR can be really reluctant to take action against them. It is a difficult situation to be in because if the manager has been there 2 years plus and has never had a complaint made before, you can't really legally sack them on the basis of one proven bullying incident, unless it was a really terrible gross misconduct type thing. You really need to give them a warning and a chance to improve with support etc., and to do this they have to go back to managing the team that they know have complained about them, leading to more drama, stress, bad feelings all round and often then a drop in performance, and then the situation gets really hard to manage. Not saying this is right or an excuse at all, just to try and explain the mindset that leads to a blind eye being turned, and the victims being painted as liars or over-sensitive or whatever...

As you've now left the job I would try my best to put it all behind you, I know that's hard. You know the truth of what has happened and although you didn't get a good outcome from your complaint, you should still be proud that you had the courage to speak up. And at least the next time someone complains (and there usually will be a next time), there is the start of an evidence trail/smoking gun that may lead to action being taken or at least the manager not so easily believed, so in the end it may have had some effect!

Thank you both for your replies. Just to clarify , the team leader and I had both been there the same length of time, it was a new team, one team leader and three employees, a small isolated team.
maxelly - I will try to put it behind me and move on, and yes I really hope that there is at least a not made of my complaints so that when it happens again there will be documentation. I tried my absolute best in the role despite being grossly misled over the job and location.