Bully boss - should I mention in performance review?

[OopsIDidItAgain321]

Background: I have worked for my current employer for 12 years. Always had very capable managers that behaved maturely and treated me with respect. Have a 12 year documented history of really good performance. My old manager retired early this year. New boss is insecure, demands rather than asks (for everything), has no idea how to talk to people respectfully and requires complete submission/deference - for me to do my job effectively I have to identify risks and non-compliance with legal requirements and propose alternative strategies, she does not like me raising these issues with her - her decisions and demands are a key reason for non-compliances.

She has been really nasty with me 1:1 all year and tries to minimise everything I do, pounces on the slightest thing that doesn’t meet her expectations and I feel she sets me up to fail.

My question for the Mumsnet jury is how much of this should find its way into my performance review?

I have to enter some general text to set out how the year has been, before I assess performance in detail against specific goals.

Should I/would you allude to any of her behaviour in your review? There is only one outcome here, I know that, but I feel like she will not hold back in her comments about me, so why hold back in my comments - packaged sensibly of course.

I have not formally raised her behaviour with HR because it’s always verbal and 1:1 so I just can’t prove anything. When I did raise her lack of support to backfill roles with HR, it just made things 100 times worse. I was hoping that being direct in my performance review comments might tempt her to put it in writing.

Would you document any of this in your performance review report?

My answer would depend on what your employer is like in general at dealing with these kind of issues. So taking my own employer as an example, they are really good, they don’t want this kind of thing going on and so I know if I raised it then it would be taken seriously, looked into properly, if there’s an audit trail to prove x and y then even better, and having a good history with the employer is also massively helpful in showing this is a management issue vs a work ethic/capability issue. So if I was in your shoes then I would document it, yes, especially if I thought she wasn’t going to hold back, I’d do the same so that both sides are there immediately rather than waiting and then it looking like I’ve reacted.

However I do know there are other employers who are frankly rubbish at dealing with things like this and are more likely to manage out than to actually do anything to resolve the issue. If that’s what your employer is like then, as you haven’t already reported/don’t have any solid evidence, I’d probably keep quiet for now but I’d be moving communication onto email/teams etc wherever possible, speak to your union, and start compiling evidence to report. So as an example where you are saying she doesn’t like you raising issues with her and makes decisions/demands, get those sent by email. If she says it in person then send her an email outlining her words and ask her to confirm to ensure you understand what she means, then you have some evidence of what she’s saying. If her decisions are leading to non-compliance then is there any way you can refer those issues up, is there a team who deals with that who can provide feedback etc?

I'm not sure I understand what you want to achieve. Do you think this will achieve your goal of , presumably, your manager changing for the better?

Thanks @Mrsttcno1. I will be managed out, whatever I do, unless my manager leaves.

We are the team that deals with non-compliance and she leads the team. So there’s nowhere to go.

My fear is that if I stay quiet then it looks exactly as you said above - I am forced to react to her performance comments after the fact, rather than anticipating/expecting them.

I would document (date and example and names of witnesses if any - keep copies of emails & texts if you have any, and send to HR.) Also, look for a new job and use your old boss as a referee. She sounds like an arse.

My manager’s behaviour is intrinsically linked to performance against goals this year. I think this should be documented. That’s what I want to achieve.

Thanks. And I am looking for a new job. The nasty stuff is always 1:1 and verbal so really hard to document. But I have kept notes.

So you don't want the situation to change, you just want a document of your boss' behaviour? You know there will probably be repurcusions and it could make your situation worse, but that's irrelevant?

I really can't see anything positive that can come of putting this stuff in writing in your performance review.

If you can document that,say, you suggested strategy x and your manager insisted on strategy y which led you to be noncompliant with regulation AB, then you should take that information to your boss's boss now, not wait for your performance review. But when your boss is just a bad manager and the organisation has no will to change that, the only real thing to do is leave.

I would love the situation to change. But that’s very unlikely to happen, and definitely won’t happen if the behaviour and its impact is not documented.

Is it a big company? Is there any chance of applying for a level transfer or one being mutually organised if your current situation is unworkable?

I’d really advise speaking to your union rep.

It really depends what you want to happen from this point on. An employer can only fix problems that they know about, so if it is never brought to their attention then they can’t do anything about it, if you don’t mention it and without that context your performance is so poor it would equate to being let go then surely that is worst case scenario and better to get your word in first? Or if a drop in performance may mean putting you on a PIP, that also may work in your favour in gathering an audit trail as you can then ask for clear, written, targets and improvements needed. Makes it a lot more straightforward to be able to say with evidence “my target was X, but I could only do Y, there were issues with this case which I referred to manager and here is the email showing”.

Performance reviews should not contain surprises for the either the review or reviewer. Raise it beforehand.

I'm going to give you some advice. Don't do this as it's not going to turn out well. I would focus on looking for another job and retaining a reference.

If you do want to act, then contact Acas first.

If the comments are made 1:1, then what I would do is follow every single one of those up with an email - before tackling any of the job itself.
So you'd have a conversation and during that conversation, something would be said by your manager in a nasty way and you send an email saying something like this:
"Hi Manager,
Further to our conversation about X on Y date, you said <insert nasty comment here>. Can you please clarify what you mean by this so that I can take whatever action may be necessary?"
Or something along those lines.

Then you have started a paper trail that can be used to show a trend of nasty comments.
If you have time before your Performance Review and you remember any of the previous nasty comments that have been made, can you document them now and ask for clarification as to what was meant at the time and if further action by you is still required in relation to them. If no action is required, you could ask the manager to keep discussions purely to work related topics (might stop the nasty comments) as you feel that sometimes things get said that are affecting the professional relationship between you both and you don't want it to deteriorate further.

I see it the same way @Mrsttcno1 . This is invisible to the company and will be dealt with as a performance issue unless I carefully document why we have not been able to execute on all goals. Treating as a performance/attitude issue would be totally unfair and unjustified.

Private company, no Unions and no ‘level transfers’ . Fairly big company - big enough to tackle this if they want to.

I have raised it with my manager many times.

OP, are there others who are also being mistreated by this manager? Your complaint will carry more weight if others are willing to speak up too. Personally I would raise it in writing if I was secure in the knowledge that I could find another job fairly quickly.

The problem you’re going to have with this is that it is invisible to the company because you haven’t brought it to their attention, and now only doing so when there is a performance issue could make it seem reactive.

I’d assume after 12 years that one bad performance review wouldn’t be sackable, it may result in PIP which as I say could really help tackle this because at that stage there will be clear and concise targets written down, you can and should seek feedback/guidance/clarification on things by email so there is an audit trail. Anything said in person you need to be following up with an email and asking for confirmation etc. A PIP would give you the time and opportunity to gather evidence and show management and HR where the issue lies. Even if no PIP, you need to behave this way going forward. Take everything to email, build yourself an audit trail.

There have been other complaints historically. But nobody I know is publically raising the same issues - but I would bet she is treating anyone who is not completely submissive a similar way 1:1.

I just think it’s completely unfair to stay silent and not explain why we didn’t hit goals to our manager’s satisfaction and accept the blame in the spirit that it might be a pathway to resolving the issues. For example there is one goal where I was set up to fail because my manager refused to backfill any positions all year and then set a goal to do everything ‘significantly’ faster when we had 70% less resource, which was just not possible.

She will spin it as my poor performance, so I have to get in there and provide the full picture, surely.

Could you frame it as to complete task I needed x resource? Due to positions not being back filled I only had 30% of resource needed. To try to get resource I did y. Eg. If you raised that less of resource was an issue. In my mind the question then becomes why were the positions not filled. Not your performance.