Accused of bullying and don't trust manager

[LilyCandelabra]

Are there any HR people around who can give me a steer on whether I am being treated correctly and what my best options are. Been accused of bullying by underperforming colleague who has also been going AWOL. I presume the allegation is to provide a reason for not coming to work. My manager is very fond of this young colleague who she interviewed and appointed and has taken under her wing a bit.

Manager rang me and went through the allegations which had been made in a meeting with HR (possibly a meeting about underperformance/going AWOL). I gave my response and manager then created a record of our conversation for HR which she emailed to me.

My view of this is that it is a young person being an idiot and hopefully she won't come back to work now anyway and that'll be the end of it. I asked my manager if this would be on my record now and she said no. I am happy to let it just blow over if so. I do feel it is a load of nonsense and that I have documentary evidence to refute some specifics, though most of it is things like finding me judgmental and she doesn't like my tone so not sure how you refute that!

I'm just a bit confused about the procedure. Seems a bit formal with the HR involvement so I'm not convinced my manager is correct about it not being on my record. I feel my manager might be underplaying it so I don't fight my corner properly. I'm also a bit concerned that she emailed the record of our conversation just to me, rather than copying me into her email sending it to HR, so I don't know for certain that what she sent to me is the same as she sent to HR.

Can I contact the HR person dealing with this myself directly (eg to ask for full paperwork) and can I do this without my manager being told?

You need to speak to your union rep asap.

Do a subject access request - and also send your meeting notes to HR as well.

And then if need be, a grievance on your manager.

I haven't worked in hr but I would have thought there would be a record yes but also a record of the out come. Judgement of tone is a ridiculous claim though.

Sorry but as part of a collection of issues, "judgement of a tone" is a perfectly legitimate complaint. I think most people are aware that tones when communicating with people are an indicator of many things, just as body language and facial expressions are. How you say something is as important as what you say.

Whether or not you did what you were accused of, I would be very surprised if a record of this was not kept somewhere. Bullying is often identified as a pattern of behaviour, and not necessarily towards one person. So whilst it may be that the judgement is that you didn't bully her, or that there isn't enough evidence that you bullied her, if a second or third person makes the same claim this could go towards the matter of who to believe. Equally, if the complaint of your colleague goes any further (for example a discrimination claim) they will need evidence of what they did, so there should be no way that evidence of their actions simply gets deleted.

That said, I can't see what you can raise a grievance about. An allegation was made, it was found to be wihout merit and that is what goes on your "record". These things are facts and so there is nothing wrong with the action taken.

Thanks for the helpful replies. Union and SAR are both great ideas.

I will assume there is a record then (it made no real sense to me that there wouldn't be, hence my feeling my manager is handling this in a bit of an odd way) and do an SAR in a week or two and then consider grievance against manager if that reveals any shenanigans (or probably just think sod this and take early retirement!)

I can see what you mean @EmmaMaria about things potentially being part of a bigger picture. In this case the whole complaint is only four lines long, with the stuff about tone etc and then a couple of specifics like 'Lily said X about Y which affected my self esteem' (where the emails and Teams messages about Y show I said no such thing!) and I am late 50s with no previous complaints against me so hopefully I'll be okay.

Roll on Monday . . . 😬

Those ae the sorts of things that you want on your record - the fact that it was looked into and there was actual evidence that something didn't happen. It may be (and to be honest, this is one of those things that can vary from employer to employer) that you are talking at cross purposes when it comes to understanding what is held on a personnel record or even who hold it. For example, some organisations are "HR heavy" with HR leading on everything and keeping detailed records. But most everywhere I have worked, HR only maintain basic employment details (start and end dates, sick leave, disciplinary outcomes and reason for leaving) - more detailed infromation about investigations etc are retained by managers because the more complex HR matters are managed by managers with advice from HR.

I suspect that what your manager meant was that there would be nothing on your record saying that you had bullied someone - the notes would be maintained on her record (in case she made a claim). At most any reference on your record might be that you were accused and they were satisfied with evidence that you didn't do it.