Bullying investigation - is this normal ?

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I have been bullied by the known bully of the work place ( other staff have just left , not formally complain ). I had to take out a formal grievance as I was so upset on a regular basis . Other staff members have backed up that this has happened before, but nothing formal from previous victims has been put forward .

Anyway , I’ve not been at the place long and i have no rights I know. I don’t want to / can’t work with the individual as they sabotage the work and I don’t want to be too outing and say what I do ,but the results can be quite embarrassing at best and catastrophic at worst . It’s a government role .

I need the money and have been looking for else where for work. But for now , need this job .

The bully emailed me asking for a chat . Is it likely he’s been asked to do this by the employer ? I’ve been reading about workplace bullying and tbh I’ve got zero faith in the employer as I feel they would have addressed him by now as everyone knows what he is like. I know they will want to brush it under the carpet as he has been there much longer than me .

Can you forward it to HR and ask if this is part of the grievance process?

That way if it's not they can deal with it

Are you in a union?

Yes, forward to HR and copy to your LM, unless they’re the bully in which case copy it to theirs.

Definitely copy it to HR - now you've formalised things, done anything off the record.

Does the bully know you've taken out a grievance? Presumably so. What is happening with that?

How did you try and address the bullying before submitting a grievance?

They might have been asked to have a chat with you as management will want to resolve this in the easiest way. . It's an absolute nightmare to deal with this sort of thing so yes, they want to find ways to make it all go away.

What resolution did you ask for/do you want?

You could think about accepting their invitation and say you'll be bringing a colleague with you(if you have someone willing). See what the response is. Perfectly reasonable for you to want
That.

I work in govt to and you do get people like this who have been allowed to get away with it for a long time. Usually it is better for your own well-being to leave. I have stood up to "the bully" before in similar circumstances though and they got the sack. Was a long, hard road and management would very much have liked me to go away like all his other victims had - in fact they were quite perplexed by my insistence. Luckily for me two other people in the team put their hands up to say they were being bullied too. I was fairly quickly moved from the team to stop me putting in a grievance (moving was the resolution I'd wanted anyway) but I didn't need to in the end as the other two people who weren't moved did so anyway when I was moved and they weren't (so the whole strategy backfired on the management in the end!)

The first stage in resolution would usually, if appropriate, be mediation with you and the bully trying to resolve the issue through discussion, but there should be a third party present to 'mediate' and it should be arranged via the manager investigating the grievance.

I would want any conversation taped.