How can I get a clean break when leaving this employer

[unlikelychump]

I have been being harassed at work by some very unpleasant people for a while and my employer has not looked after me well. He has tended to think there is something that I have done to disturb it. Some issues have now been dealt with in an investigation and it has shown that I have done no wrong.

I have decided to leave and have got another job offer. I am very worried that the nasty people will follow me to my new job and cause that offer to be rescinded. I don't want anyone two know where I am going, but I need my employer to give me a reference.

How should I approach this

What do you mean by "follow you", will they potentially resign and try to get a new role, or do you mean literally follow you physically and kick off at the new place of employment? It is hard to visualise what you mean. If the latter that would be harassment you could report to the police.

Sorry, I mean send anonymous hate mail about me to my new employer.

When you resign don’t say where you are going? Then when asked for a reference direct them to payroll to confirm your dates of employment.

if asked by people about where you are going to say that you have a few job offers, considering which one to take and be vague

How big a firm is this? Normally, reference requests go to HR, not management as there are significant HR issues about keeping within the law when giving a reference. References these days tend to be bland, just the bare minimum of facts.

obviously, if a small business where HR functions are carried out by management, this is less possible

It is a small organisation and I am quite high profile. I like thr option to say I have a few options.

I would say only speak to HR and advise them it is confidential.

If you also have things like Linkedin, I would take that down.

There is no HR really. I was going to simply update my end date on linked in. Would seem strange to remove it. Might arose suspicions

You need to be clear in writing that the information is confidential, coveted by GDPR and not to be disclosed to anyone other than the person writing the reference.

If I was an employer any anonymous hate mail I received would go in the bin. They sound unhinged if you think they’d do that. Sending hate mail is a crime.

In all honesty, you will barely be a memory after a week of leaving.

On LinkedIn, if you go to your profile and click the settings cog wheel, and visibility tab, you can close down who gets notified etc when you make updates - do this first and then update your end date and no-one will be prompted to go to your profile to see what you’re doing. You can edit lots of other settings too, including stopping anyone tagging you or (I think) posting photos of you.

Who dealt with the investigation at work? Maybe that is the person to approach and make clear that if a reference from a future new employer is requested, the information is to remain completely confidential due to previous issues at this workplace.

You don't necessarily have to use your most recent employer for a character reference - you can balance the obligatory confirmation of dates you worked at X company, with references from previous employers or former colleagues, who can give positive information.

Do you have any reason to believe they will find out where you're going? Unless the people in question will be dealing with your reference I can't see how they'd find out and, as above poster has said, I think most employers would ignore shit stirring messages from random people.

You wouldn’t update your end date until after you’d gone - it’s not a prediction of the future! By which time you’ll have left, so who cares.

If you are LinkedIn connections with any of them, remove them. Nobody gets notified if connections are removed.

They would look unhinged if they sent hate mail to your new place. They won’t.

Come off SM? 🤷‍♀️

OP are these colleagues who have harassed you and you’re worried about, or customers / clients? That will change the advice you’ll get.