Strange comments at wok

[TeaandChoc222]

I'd really appreciate some advice,

I'd just been in a team meeting where my manager basically berated be for never having my camera on in meetings. For the last few years I've had major problems with the works laptops cameras, screens, mouse you name it and I've spoken at length with him about it. I've basically been unlucky and believe me when I've had a camera I've had it switched on.

Anyway I left the meeting but decided to watch the video recording as felt something wasn't quiet right. What I heard was said manager talking to two staff members still moaning about me never having the cam on and trying to postulate why that might be. "Is he sitting there naked" was one of the comments. He then mentioned that he had asked me for a photo for the team organisation chart yesterday and I hadn't produced one and remarked "maybe he feels he's got problem with his body image".

Am I wrong in feeling this was inappropriate and should be escalated?

I wouldn't. What would it achieve? And to what end?

If it's upset you, I'd just tell your manager that you heard what he said and that you'd appreciate it if in future he didn't discuss you with colleagues.

Yes - you absolutely should escalate it with your IT department, if you've had faulty IT equipment for the last few years. Get some support from your manager to get it sorted if necessary.

If it were me, I'd have a quiet word with my manager asking for support to get this sorted and mention that you didn't appreciate the speculation that you might be naked during the call, or that you had body image issues. Explain the only issues are IT related, and you've been trying to get them fixed.

Thank you. I have now been in touch unofficially with my HR department and they mentioned I could consider issuing a grievence . I think what gets me most was this discussion of my mental health. Previously I had a formal diagnosis of social anxiety of which my manager was well aware .

Write a grievance and send it to HR.

In your grievance, you should say, first of all, that you should be allowed to have your camera off if you wish as this can be a reasonable adjustment for disability and anxiety is a disability under the Equality Act 2010, particularly if it is something you have experienced for a while.

You should also say in your grievance that you have had a number of camera and IT problems and your manager has failed to escalate the matter and offer you support.

And finally your grievance should say your manager behaved in an insensitive manner by discussing your appearance and condition and this could also be a breach of GDPR as you did not consent to him sharing personal information about you with colleagues.

That should improve things.

Thanks everyone for your replies.

He was on my back again over the cam last week so thought I'd pop back to get some more input from you all.

@TeaandChoc222 you need to get to the route of why your camera is not working. Have you chased this up with IT?

Secondly have you spoken to your manager about what they said and said it was unacceptable for them to be speculation why your camera is not on. Then explain again it is an IT issue and that you have done xyz and ask your manager to intervene with IT to get it resolved.

Yeah, his remarks were absolutely out of order. Personal remarks like that are considered harassment.

Who's got responsibility for setting the IT stuff up. Do you have any issue with recording meetings. I don't understand where you're coming from.

I can see this from both sides. It's clearly not nice to hear what your manager said but not resolving this for years does sound odd. We definitely have people who never use their camera and will say 'bandwidth' or point to technical issues every single time. So I think you need to escalate until it's sorted.

Escalate your IT issues and document that you have done so. Buy an external webcam and expense it back, or have your tech team order one for you. There is pretty much no reason to have a non working camera for years at a time. If the policy is to have cameras on during meetings, then you need to be proactive and fix it.

Make it clear you have done everything in your power to resolve the issue and if he keeps on, raise a grievance.

He shouldn’t be discussing you with your colleagues but equally I find it hard to believe that you’ve been having IT problems for years with every aspect of your set-up and that these have not been resolved in that time.

I’d be more concerned about escalating that, tbh!

But OP doesn’t mind having his camera on? So no point going on about having that as a reasonable adjustment (if his mental health issues do count as a disability under EA2010).

Any complaint OP should be based on your manager knows you have faulty IT equipment - he should not be stirring up rumours about not having your camera on if he knows it’s due to lack of actually having a camera.

However, before going straight to raising a grievance is there another manager you could raise this with informally?

Manager shouldn’t have made those comments, that was out of line - you should be proactively trying to sort the IT issues though and documenting this. Not sure if relevant but is social anxiety part of the reason you haven’t got the IT issues sorted yet? If so perhaps ask for support from someone in the org you trust to help move things forward for you.