Manager treating me differently after I asked for support

[ThisOrTha]

Just looking for some advice before I consider my options.

I have a good reputation at my firm, had a good annual review and I get feedback that I am respected in my area of expertise. My manager is very disorganised, works in a chaotic way and this means I get many last minute requests and this have been happening for over a year.
I have a disability that is invisible but means that I need to get a lunch break and a couple of breaks for 5 mins during the day, as well as needing to go to the toilet etc.
For many months I have been in back to back meetings for 7-8hrs a day. This has been ongoing for months. I asked for support, explaining that the constant back to back meetings is beginning to affect my mentally and physically. My boss responded by saying, do you want 2 weeks off or something? I said no, just to be treated like others, able to take breaks and not be in so many meetings constantly.
since I made this request my boss has given me feedback that I need to be careful as I am coming across as negative. I asked my team in a professional way if I have been negative or not supporting them and they had no evidence to suggest that (I have a very good relationship with my team)
my boss has also started to leave me out of updates on work critical activities, though does continue to include the rest of the team. I asked them why they are doing this and they said to give me less emails to read but as the head of service, the updates are essential for me to be included in as they then inform meetings I am at. My team members need to highlight when I have been missed out.
my boss has also started to contact my teams members directly and give them work, without any discussion or planning with me. I often find out when team members let me know directly.

I have made plans and updates that are ignored and then my boss takes credit or suggests them as his idea, this has been called out by other team members directly to him too.
I have tried to discuss some of this and he tells me I am being weird, or I am misinterpreting his actions. He also acts very defensively when I use examples and says things like ‘is this where you are taking something in the wearing context again’.
It feels like I am being undermined and he even recently suggested one of my team would make a great replacement for me! This was done in the context of in the future if I were to go, but brought up out the blue.
any thoughts or suggestions on how to approach this?

*is this where you are taking things in the wrong context again (typo)

This is just not acceptable.

How much of this do you have in writing / can easily evidence? Time to get all you can together and approach your HR team I think?

I have some emails where team members have forwarded messages to me, it has been discussed in a couple of meetings with others their (not sure they would act as witness though), some teams chat and brought up in 121s.
I don’t like the phrase ‘gas lightning’, but it feels like I’m going a bit crazy at times as he makes me feel like I am being over sensitive. We previously had a good relationship. It’s really affecting my confidence and as a more senior manager that isn’t a good thing

@ThisOrTha this is appalling. Several steps

• start by blocking lunch and breaks out in your diary.
• when a meeting is arranged leaving you no lunch break email the organiser (so there is a record) and ask them to start at x time. (I know this is unlikely to work but at least draw the line.)
• Keep a timeline with evidence of your managers actions.
• Arrange a 1:2:1 with your manager and follow up with an email. Draft the email and use it to structure the meeting. Reiterate what the issue is I.e. you need a lunch break etc. for health reasons. Then explain that the actions he is taking (give examples) are inappropriate and unnecessarily causing you stress. Remind him under the H&S at Work Act he has a duty of care which includes a) allowing you breaks to manage your health including your minimum 20 minute break under the Working Time Regs b) not unnecessarily changing established working practices which then generate inappropriate levels of stress - approach this from a risk to business approach.

There is another option which is asking for referral to OH to confirm the rest breaks are a reasonable adjustment but more importantly about the unnecessary and counter productive changes to working practices that are creating additional stress. This is probably too much at the present.

A tool that may help you articulate the issue in the meeting is this stress at work questionnaire https://www.hse.gov.uk/stress/assets/docs/returntowork.pdf. A lot of it is about do you have control, what your manager is doing is removing control i.e. by not inviting you to a meeting, copying you into emails etc, is undermining you by removing control. HSE has a lot of good tools to assist https://www.hse.gov.uk/stress/index.htm and most importantly set out the business risks of his approach - if he is doing it to you he could also be doing it to others.

He may be doing this in a misguided attempt to help you by lessoning your workload or he could see it as a way to divert attention from his performance to you.

@Sisterpita has pretty much said it all!! He's acting an idiot. You need to be clear when you have the meeting what is/isn't acceptable

You've had some good advice above and I would definitely involve occupational health. You may be able to self refer, otherwise it will be a management referral. Get in writing from them the reasonable adjustments you require due to your disability.
Keep a paper trail of everything in case you need to evidence you are being treated unfavourably due to your disability.

Thank you for taking the time to respond, I really appreciate it. I never thought to bring OH in. I met with them originally when I first had my disability identified so a good idea.
Thanks for the links too, really helpful.

I'm thinking your manager is being completely U and you should not be in a position where you are being undermined for simply asking for a lunch break. Are these meetings necessary and productive or are they just meetings for meetings sake? Spending 7-8 hours a day in meetings does not seem like a good use of anyone's time, how can you support your team if you spend all your time in meetings.

The workload is just so massive and I’m the one with the most expertise in the area, so basically need to be at many more meetings than I should be. I expected that at the beginning but now it’s been over a year and it isn’t sustainable to work like this. I went though my diary with them to show what the demand was and what I could drop, they then said I still needed to be the quality assurance across everything. When I did drop some meetings they then asked me to attend the ones I dropped.
Since making the request he is now complementing one of my junior team members a lot (the one he said could do my job) and has been meeting with that staff member without me to get their opinions and ideas for the service without agreeing discussing with me. When I have gently challenged that he says he is reduces my workload and pressure as I have asked. It’s just that he is basically taking away most of the decision making and communication with my team so I am left feeling out of the loop. I do have a good relationship with my team though, so they keep me up to date but it feels really uncomfortable that I need to rely on them to keep me updated on the service I am leading.

I would go back to your manager and say as discussed you confirmed you want me to be responsible for quality assurance across the whole area but acknowledge my role is too much for one person. It makes sense for (junior team member) to report to me so I can delegate appropriate work to them. We both recognise (junior team member) has potential and I am happy to invest time passing on my knowledge but this needs to be done in a structured way to ensure I can fulfil the quality assurance role.

This gives you control of what you delegate and the junior team member can brief you so you don’t miss out on key meetings etc.

Thank you again for all your help. I will be seeing OH. Was really hard to ask for this and think it has gone down badly. also told my team might be split up now…..no basis to do this but he says will make life easier with other areas. No clarity what that means for my role and one of the team has just been signed off with work stress.

@ThisOrTha I’m glad you have got the OH referral.

Have you involved HR and your manager’s manager? As this is now also affecting your team members health you can quite legitimately raise this as a wider concern.

Woke up to an email this AM saying he doesn’t think OH referral is correct and I need to meet with him and head of department. Thinks other person odd sick is a problem with them and I am now being made to think I am a problem too 😢

@ThisOrTha ok either he really wants you out or his manager is going but ThisorTha is a good manager, what is going on. Only you can judge what his manager thinks but remember you are likely to be protected by the Equality Act. In the meeting mention disability discrimination and Duty of Care a lot. Ask about a stress at work policy etc.

You should be able to tell from the meeting if it’s time to start applying for jobs or if this is resolvable.

Thanks for your advice sisterpita, I’m beginning to think it is lack of experience and incompetence too 😢

You are probably right.