Handling increased bullying after I raised a grievance

[Greenwitchart]

I raised a grievance against my line manager with HR after several instances of undermining, disability discrimination & unfair treatment.

I am fairly senior and the manager is a director.

Since then they have ramped up the bullying in their emails to me and the ones where other people are copied in, taking daily opportunities to criticise my work/actions without evidence & trying to turn other team members against me and encouraging conflict.

I recently came back from long term sick leave after burn out/depression due to the treatment I was getting at work so this is a really difficult period for me.

I am avoiding engaging in the drama they are creating & sticking to engaging in the official grievance procedure with HR as well as keeping a diary of everything.

Anyone has advice on how best to handle this type of situation?

I was completely expecting the process to be stressful & of course having a grievance raised against you is always going to be unpleasant but I must say I am rather dismayed at how someone at their level of responsibility would handle all this in such a petulant manner...

Have you had an outcome from the grievance? What was it?

in the meantime, forward all bullying emails to a private email so the company can’t recall them at a later date and hide the evidence

kindly, this seems an odd move for a manager to make having been hauled in over a grievance. They usually decrease the paper trail and move things more “in-person” so there’s no evidence. Can you ask someone you trust to take a look at the emails and just check they also see a bullying tone? It can be difficult sometimes to see things objectively when you are already feeling victimised and unsupported

Good advise above. Why would the manager openly bully you like this? She is senior enough to know that if she is accusing you of incompetence, she needs to back it up with evidence

I have been given a meeting with HR as the first step of my grievance this week.

Yes, they are absolutely sending these emails and even tried to get me to randomly disclose/discuss my grievance in front of other staff member and then sent me angry emails when I declined. I reminded them I was following the official grievance process and could not discuss my concerns in front of third parties.

Yes, I am emailing copies of what to my private email.

When you meet HR show them the emails and explain what your manager is doing. Ask them to intervene - ideally you would be given a temporary line manager and your manager would be told to not have any contact with you or even moved to a different team.

However, at senior level this can be difficult so the option maybe for another senior manager to take them to one side and with HR explain why they cannot continue to do what they are doing.