Bullying

[Lettuceslug]

I think I am being bullied.

I have been in role 2 years. New boss has just told me there is a serious skills gap and I’m not performing. This was never told to me before. I knew it wasn’t my strongest area but not to this extent.

She is humiliating me at work (in front of others). The feedback is never constructive, it is always a “telling off” and very harshly delivered.

does anyone have any advice?

Well if, after two years there is a skills gap that your previous boss has not highlighted... what is your new boss going to do to support you/arrange training?
And if matters need to be addressed they should be speaking to you in private, not dressing you down in front of colleagues. Inappropriate conduct from the boss, showing they are actually crap at their job.

Thanks. That is what I think. It is clear to me I am being forced out.

Sorry to hear this. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

My advice would be to start creating a paper trail. Everything in writing. So next time they say this, you drop them a line saying ‘in meeting x you raised the issue of my skill gap relating to scenario y. What resources are available to me to address this? “. Keep it formal and emotionless. Do this every time. Follow up if they don’t respond. Once it reaches a head (and it will) you will have all this evidence for HR.

Alternatively, look for something else asap. Life is too short.

Even if you kept a diary it wouldn't achieve much. HR exists to protect the business and tribunals are expensive and stressful.

If you knew it was a weak area then that indicates valid concerns are being raised about a genuine skill gap rather than "bullying" - even if the way they're handling it is crap.

Have you asked for a training plan?

Slightly different situation as mine was a bullying colleague, but I left. If you don’t have the structure/culture where this kind of thing is challenged and unacceptable you can’t really win, or if you can it’s at huge expense to your mental health and not necessarily worth it.

If there are performance issues they need to raise it with you. Dropping a bombshell by announcing that there is a serious skills gap with there being no prior warning of there being an issue is very unfair on you. Has this definitely not been mentioned to you in any of your one to one meetings with your manager? They need to support you in the role and give you a chance to improve and address the issue. Humiliating you in front of your colleagues is hardly the way to go about it.

I went through exactly the same thing with a previous manager who was a complete cow. She ended up doing a restructure which was designed to remove me from her team. It was the best thing that could ever have happened to me. She was awful and managed to make several really good team members decide to leave because of the way she treated everyone.

Are you a member of a Union OP? When things started to go sour in my old job I quickly signed up to my union and they supported me when my old ‘boss’ (if you could call her that) did the restructure.

Keep contemporaneous notes - what/where/who/why/when everything relevant that’s said and done. This is more than he said/she said - this is classed as evidence in an employment tribunal.

I took over a team a while ago which had people in who were underperforming and lacked skills and they'd never been told.

I was the first person brave enough to tell them. All my predecessors told them everything was fine. So I'm not surprised if your previous manager didn't flag it, but you do say you're aware it's not your strongest area. If your new manager has firm grounds, the "well no one ever said it was a problem" argument just doesn't work.

However, I supported my team members to improve and made sure they had the training they'd not had etc. I didn't humiliate or scapegoat them, and I took care to highlight their strengths to keep them motivated.

I think there's two aspects - you may lack the skills and it's unfortunate if that's not been flagged to you before as an issue. But it's not ok for your manager to take the approach you describe.