Been blocked and excluded by my boss

[whydoesithurtsomuch]

I work for a large public organisation, and my immediate team consists of about twenty five people doing the same job as me, and two immediate managers. There are two tiers of management above them.
I'd always thought I got on ok with my boss, not best buddies, but jovial, respectful and generally a good relationship.
Earlier this year I had to involve the union because of problems with a client, and police were involved as the problem moved to outside work. My boss was gently criticised for her handling of the situation, but a solution was reached. That has been resolved now, and I hoped that it was just a case of moving on and learning from what had happened (safety implications).
I don't use social media much, but my boss is a huge fan of it, and posts a lot. She insisted on adding the whole team when she came into post as manager, which I thought strange, but just accepted it.
Yesterday, I saw quite a few posts from colleagues from a meal out at a local restaurant, "celebrating the team's success". There were about 18 people there, the majority of the team. I messaged a colleague who I'm fairly close with, and she said people had been wondering why I wasn't there - I told her I had no idea it was even happening! Colleague told me that my boss had arranged it and an email was sent to the whole team. She then forwarded the email to me - sent three weeks ago, and every member of the team except me is on the email.
I then looked to see if my boss had posted about it, and realised I couldn't see her profile, and a little more investigation showed that I had been blocked.
I've been on leave and had only gone back in on Wednesday, working with a colleague who is not a member of that team (providing cover), so hadn't even heard any chat about this.
It looked to me like I've been deliberately excluded, so I asked my colleague if my boss had posted anything, and she had, talking about "all of my wonderful team". I then checked WhatsApp as my colleague said it had been discussed on the work WhatsApp and I'm blocked on there too.
It feels like bullying. I feel like the only kid in the class at primary school who hasn't been invited to the party, and although I feel like I should brush it off, I'm surprised by just how upset I feel. I don't know what to do either. I don't feel like I can broach it with my boss.
It's definitely deliberate too - the email was sent using a particular group email address and I've been unchecked from it, the only one to be so. I feel gutted.

Your employer has a duty of care towards you, which includes dealing with bullying issues. Exclusion is absolutely a form of bullying.

Lots of information and help here...

www.nationalbullyinghelpline.co.uk/employees.html

I'd be going straight to hr. How awful!

I won't email my boss, some good advice here, and she's likely to try to cover her tracks and deny it. To the person who said she sounds immature, she's 55!

Document everything and go immediately to HR or to a manager senior to her. Horrendously unprofessional and not acceptable at all.

Feel for you op - totally not your fault.

No, don't email your boss. She'll be running around getting people to switch evidence. You need to get your union or ACAS to give you some advice on this.

So sorry this is happening to you OP!

Im genuinely shocked that someone could be so stupid as to literally leave a digital paper trail of singling someone out unfairly who theyd had union involvement with. Like thats.... genuinely impressively thick.

Wow that's incredibly hurtful, I can't believe she would behave like that. Thank god she is so stupid as it will work in your favor. Make sure you document everything and gather as much evidence as you can.

Make sure you screenshot the evidence of the blocking and keep the invite etc.

Some managers really do not see this as bullying. Some do it in small ways without realising, others like your boss OP) are blatant.

She has crossed a major line here - it needs to be addressed through a HR process. Without question.

Not only is she a nasty bully, she's also a very stupid one too. I suspect she will be collecting her p45 over this.

I suspect she will be collecting her p45 over this.

I'd be very surprised if it didn't end that way.

Thst used to happen to me (Indian), a black colleague and a Chinese colleague regularly for obvious reasons.

Not that I was interested in their low level society get together.
Drunks, junk food, chain restaurants unhealthy looking, foul mouthed, ill fitted clothes.
It was my first job - it was interesting to see other walks of life!

Black lady was a decent god fearing Christian so she wasn't bothered.

Chinese lady was really hurt by the exclusion though.

The women were nasty.
The men there were fine.

My advice to you is that you contact your union rep and see what they think about this situation. Print out screen shots of what you found out online to show them and tell them the full situation. Get their advice before going to HR. I would not say anything to your boss as they will add your name to the what's app group ect.
The truth is that your boss handled the previous situation badly re the police and you had to go to your union rep about this. Your boss ended up getting gently criticised over their handling of this situation and might not have been happy over this. I think that is why they excluded you from the contact lists and night out. Have they done anything else that has excluded you or have you been the last person told about things that are relevant to your job?

A number of years ago one of my friends had a supervisor who no matter what my friend did always found a fault. My friend had been getting on well with her co workers, was doing her job and got on with the boss of her department. My friend was given more work to do, pulled over the slightest mistake and treated like a bold child in primary school. My friend eventually had enough of the supervisor and went to the union rep about them. My friend ended up taking time off work due to stress and then decided to get another job. She ended up get a better job that paid more.
She then went with her union rep to the heard of HR and made a serious written complaint against her supervisor. Her union rep also found out that the supervisor had form of doing this to other people but they were unwilling to make a complaint.
I saw the effect that it had on my friend between the high work load and the stress of being bullied and been made feel small on a daily basis so I have an idea about how you feel.

Don't say anything to your supervisor but chat to your union rep and then hr. Your supervisor is very stupid to be doing this to you. Hr and the organisation are now going to be aware of what they are doing. A few incidents of various handling situations badly, bullying ect can led to being fired. One friend of mine had to do this recently to a manager who was not doing their work and had been causing problems for a number of years for the company.
I have also seen managers moved side ways in to horrible roles or demoted due to their behaviour.

This.

I have nothing else to add OP other than I hope it's all resolved quickly and to your satisfaction

I've taken screen shots of everything, and left a message for my union rep to get back to me. I'm also trying to find out via friendly, sympathetic colleague if I've been excluded from any other emails that the rest of the team have received - something that never occurred to me before today!

I would not make any direct contact with your manager on this before getting your "ducks" in a row.

Go back to the union on this first, because may not be simple bullying. This may end up heading into gross conduct territory. It appears that she is engaged in retaliation against you because her mismanagment of the prior situation. If you were in danger to the extent the police became involved your actions may be covered under the whistleblowing legislation.
www.gov.uk/whistleblowing

Also you may not be fully aware of how seriously senior management took the events and the private conversations may not have been the same as the public version.

She is demonstrating that she is willing to isolate you, and do is in a very trackable way, if it goes to a HR investigation she may be willing to go full out to make your work environment as uncomfortable as possible for you.

From a IT / social media policy angle.

You have a copy of the email and the proof your name was removed. It will retain a copy even if she deletes the "original".

She would in theory be 100% entitled to block you from her private non-work social media account, however if she has blurred the line between work and social by making it a work thing.
HR may have to figure out how they are going to manage that.
You should if possible collect historic proof that she made social media a form of employee networking, so the block may falls with in the company communications policy. And if she has also blocked other current employees or if you are the only one.

What is status of the whatsapp usage policy as a work tool? It is an external system which collects employees personal data, creates work data etc which your employer usually can't freely access or control, so unless its managed directly by the employer it should be used as a work tool. Again you would need to be able to establish that only you have been removed, and that your removal was instigated by her. So getting a hard copy of the current admin and current members would be helpful.

Your best option may be to contact the union and get their advice, and until then it tight and collect other proof to establish a clear pattern of hostile behaviour.

Unfortunately having seen HR's handling of a couple of bullying bosses (not bullying me, but other colleagues, within a different part of the same organisation, I don't hold out much hope of anything much of a reprimand.

Wow that’s so unfair of her

@SolasAnla Social media was very much blurred with work. I've just dug out old messages sent to me on messenger about working hours. And she was the one who added everyone. I would not have added my boss if it were up to me. No one else appears to have been blocked.

You're doing the right thing here OP. She sounds awful.

Social media was very much blurred with work.

If that is the case for management it may not just about bullying.

Your organisation will have a whole raft of policy and proceedures which are in place to cover legal obligations, so senior management have a legal obligation enforce and if necessary update policy.

If your organisation comes under FOI and GDPR thats 2 independant complaint Bodies they have to explain to if they cant access the all personal data about you.

The whole control of data policy comes into play. Some people tend to use some communication medium too casually and mistreated employees are more likely to be sucessful in complaints as they know where the weak points are.

I would take some time and read as much of your policy documents as possible because if she unticked you, you will likely find other stuff she should or should not be doing.

Eg
I've just dug out old messages sent to me on messenger about working hours.

Can that be interpeted as a variation of your employment contract that HR have no record of??

If HR is poor saying nothing and giving her further chances to misbehave may be the better option.

You should also look at your employee preformance review process and look at how you can document that you are meeting any required targets. Even a simple email to yourself.

It feels like bullying because it is. If your HR are shit then just go to your union. Do not go to your boss.

Just a thought. In your original post you mentioned about blurring of lines and police involvement and something happening outside work. Might she have been told by your employers not to contact you or have you on social media for social purposes?

She could still invite her out on the work meal out.

@SeasonFinale I don't actually know when she blocked me as I don't use social media that much. And it still seems like bullying if she has blocked me and has all of my colleagues still on there.