I've finally made official complaint against colleague

[Diamond68]

I have a very difficult colleague, I am management, she is not. She has constantly undermined me and made the office atmosphere very toxic. This has been going on for 2 years now. HR have been trying to manage out of the business for a while now but she is clever enough to go as far as the line without crossing it. Yesterday she contradicted me at a whole company meeting and accused me of lying. I have full support of management and have documented proof that she is wrong. she continued throughout the day and went to many people in the company accusing me of lying. Management witnessed this and advised me to make an official complaint As we speak she is now in a meeting with HR who will present her with a written warning. I have moved myself to another office it the building but i will be alone with her for the remainder of the day and I am almost sick with worry over it. Any advice on how to manage this situation? Thanks

She probably won't feel like hanging around to be honest. Play with fire and expect to get your fingers burnt.

HR have been trying to manage [her ?] out of the business for a while now

Seems it's only me that read that and thought "Hmmmm" 🤔?

Sounds like a situation for gardening leave for the other employee, it sounds very aggressive and if the OP is worried about having to interact with the person again I would be getting them escorted off the premises for everyone's safety, particularly if their are few other personnel around.

or refer it to email then its all written down ?

People on here really are a bit naive about how companies can treat their employees and get away with it. There’s no HR robocop hanging around to leap to your defence if your company is horrible to you.

This idea of “taking it further” or “taking them to the cleaners” is nothing more than the right to a tribunal when the tribunal can fit you in, and that’s generally a year or more in the future. Even if you win (and remember you’re you, but your company is generally monied and practised) then you’ll be entitled to loss of earnings, and not much more.

All this means is that the company can fire you whenever they like, but will probably pay you out what they would have to pay in loss of earnings if you kick up a stink about it, just to shut you up. Lots of people don’t, so they win.

The actual incentive for a company not to behave like this is reputation in the hiring market, and a moral aversion to it (assuming they’re that way inclined).

The positive side of this, in my experience, is that companies are able to get rid of the types of people we all want rid of fairly easily :D

Yep. Keep on repeating it if she is being deliberately thick.

How can she be given a written warning if you only complained yesterday?

there needs to be an investigation first, then she needs to be called to a disciplinary gearing, she has the right to be accompanied. The outcome should not be a foregone conclusion and neither should you know about this before she does.

its great that you be complained and that you are getting support

but it sounds like your workplace HR procedures are a shit show.

I assume you've never worked for the civil service!

I don't even think you'd get sacked even if you killed someone.

I do wonder if they are trying to put the hard work on me

Very likely, @Diamond68, hence the suggestion to decide what you want to do instead of simply getting on with it themselves

Personally I'd raise the formal grievance and to hell with them, but wouldn't necessarily expect much to come of it if they've already shilly-shallied for two long years - and that "you have our full support" can easily disappear if your choice obliges them to take action they'd rather avoid

And lastly you need to join a union NOW

She has been bullying you. You can contact ACAS for advice.

Not picking on your post as the only one, but as someone else mentioned above there seems to be a lot of naïveté (I didn’t add all those accents!) and general lack of knowledge about how companies work on here.

1. the hierarchy here is senior team : OP : bitch. In most places there would be relatively little comms between senior team and bitch. They might ‘know’ she’s a nasty piece of work but you can’t fire someone on that basis once they’ve been there two years (and she has according to OP).
2. the grievance has to be filed as accusing someone of lying is only and issue if it is itself a lie. For all we know the OP might be lying. It’s not like the company can just bin someone because x said ‘she accused me of lying and I wasn’t’ without further process.

Again as said company HR isn’t some magic robocop shield where they know exactly what’s going on. Funnily enough they assume that problems will be reported to them in most instances.

I would suggest you are never alone with her, you need a witness. Took me years to get rid of an incompetent colleague in my team (I was management, like you, she was not). Took a new boss coming in to finally get rid of her. I don't think she's in the same industry anymore, she was really bad. I had to document everything she did, it was tedious but worth it.

I am struggling to understand what you think OP's employer is doing wrong.

This individual has had previous verbal warnings. An investigation meeting is not compulsory. If the employer is able to conduct a reasonable investigation and gather enough evidence without having a meeting with the employee, they are free to do so. They can then move on to the hearing, where the employee can present their case. In this instance, given the employee's previous record, the employer is clearly of the view that this is likely to lead to a written warning. They should, of course, be willing to change if the employee has a good defence. And, since OP is in management, it isn't surprising that she is being kept in the loop, particularly if she has management responsibility for this individual.

YOU ARE NOT A COWARD!!! you dealt with it the best way you could

I don’t think it’s as simple as that. There’s no reason why you raising a grievance has to be instead of them going through a disciplinary process. A grievance from you could be the extra ammunition they need.

I initially refused to provide annual review feedback on a colleague a couple of years ago as I had absolutely nothing positive to say about her. I expected there would be some pushback and that I’d be pushed to say something positive to keep the peace. But actually, my manager said she would really appreciate it if I did and was as brutally honest as possible. I realised she needed my feedback to help her make a case. Maybe this is a similar situation.

Congratulations for making that step. It is so hard because you weigh up everything second guess and try to find an easy way all the time being belittled, bullied by those who think it is ok to treat and speak to people like 💩 It had to be done, it’s out now. I sincerely hope HR do their job properly and you get the outcome you deserve and need to move on. I have been there and I know how it feels.

Also, OP, I think a lot of people on this thread are getting bogged down with whether your company are handling the disciplinary process correctly. Really, that isn’t your issue - you can’t control what they do. You can only control whether you pursue the issue further and how you handle your interactions with this woman.

The outcome of the Grievance may be to invoke disciplinary procedures against the person who is alleged to have done something inappropriate.

You can't be legally sacked on the spot. Youve got to have an investigation, disciplinary hearing, right to be acvompanied and right if appeal ... it would be found to be unfair if the person sacked on the spot took the company to employment tribunal. It's fairly easy to follow a simple procedure to make it a fair dismissal, so really stupid not to do it.

Get a discreet personal body camera (lots on Amazon) or keep your phone with you (hidden if possible) on record all day, every day unless you know she’s not in. She will probably try to corner you when nobody else is around - you will have a recording of what she says.
Good luck with everything ❤️

You can't be legally sacked on the spot. You've got to have an investigation, disciplinary hearing, right to be accompanied and right of appeal
Or the company, armed with OP's evidence, can say "what do you want on your CV - a disciplinary / sacking or a resignation? Your choice ..."

Depends upon whether they want to then lose at Tribunal for a massive breach of employment law, I suppose.

The company can show the dossier and say that she voluntarily resigned and got out as fast as she could because she knew there was a solid case against her.

If it’s gross misconduct or gross insubordination they absolutely can be sacked on the spot. It sounds as though what happened in the meeting is sailing close to the wind and there will be plenty of witnesses to the behaviour. If the employee has received verbal warnings before, as appears to be the case, the company can absolutely issue a written warning.

OP did actually say that she can prove what this employee was saying wasn’t true. Where I worked, an employee who behaved in this manner in a company meeting would likely be dismissed immediately for gross misconduct, or insubordination, given that OP is management. There would be enough witnesses to the behaviour to provide evidence if they needed it.