I always thought of it like this: if a workplace makes you feel devalued or is toxic (gaslighting and ranting about you behind your back), you quietly find new pastures.
Now, however, I think this is the wrong approach: why do I have to accept they bully me? I should defend myself. And doesn’t the manager have to make sure a workplace ain’t toxic? Instead of quietly looking for a new job next time this happens, wouldn’t it be better to confront, document and escalate instead of letting it go? even if HR only exists to protect the company and not me.
If HR and manager do nothing to address the problem, wouldn’t it be a better strategy to start working the least possible and let the company fire me, while looking for another job?
Unless they need you more than you need them, announcing your intent to leave “unless…” puts you in a more difficult negotiating position because you have signaled you have other options that, perhaps more challenging for you, are an easier solution than them having to fix it for you. HR isn’t your friend.
Practically and more directly, if you can be easily replaced then your workplace issues are yours. If you are difficult or expensive to replace, your workplace issues are theirs.
Take it from experience @vestmoria@linux.community this advice is true. Going to HR means that they’re going to take action on the one causing the most noise, and when you go to them at that moment, that’s you. That may sound discouraging, but that’s what it is. Something like gossip is something HR will be willing to ignore. By going to them you are creating the most noise so it will only adversely affect you.
It doesn’t matter if you’re right. It doesn’t matter if you’re a great employee. You are officially making negative noise, that’s a liability for the company. They’ll smooth you over, tell you there’s a plan, but it’s officially on record that you’ll speak up while others quietly work, and in the corporate world that’s a black mark.
Take it from me, just silently start looking for new work. Right now you have all the time in the world, search around, be picky, get something better. Leave them behind you. That’s the only real way to propel your career forward.
Depends. HR maybe see your complaint and decide “I should take care of this workplace harassment before someone wisens up and talks to a lawyer”
I would say talk to HR, but not until you’ve actually got another job lined up.
Maybe they think ahead and take care of the problem, maybe they just sweep shit under the rug. It depends on the HR rep in question.
I’ve seen that, but with a little twist.
I should take care of this harassment before someone wisens up and talks to a lawyer, we’ll let them go when they think we’ve taken care of it so we’ll be in the clear.
but it’s officially on record that you’ll speak up while others quietly work
why would I want to work where people try destroying my credibility behind my back? This is not something I’m willing to overlook.
If HR acts like you described, if I’m that replaceable to them, so is my workplace.
The others don’t work quietly, btw.
ETA: wait, are you implying this is normalized? Employees do actually say nothing not to land in hot water, because they’re afraid of being fired and are willing to overlook the gossip and backstabbing for a check? Not for me.
By work quietly I mean they don’t go to HR when there are problems. I think you misinterpreted me though, I’m saying if it’s bad enough you want to go to HR, then it’s probably bad enough where you could just look for other jobs.
thank you
To add to what scrubbles said, the looking for another job part of very important here. Blowing the whistle on your current colleagues may result in your boss not giving you as great of a reference as they otherwise may have. The best way to handle a hostile workplace is to leave the hostile workplace, unless there are blatantly outright illegal things being done to you. And sadly, depending on what those things are, even then…
I would tell a manager or HR about your problems but not tell them you plan to leave unless you are ready to get fired or hours cut.
Like others have said (or hinted at), never make an ultimatum you are unwilling or unable to follow through on.
And saying you’ll leave “unless x happens” is just such an ultimatum.
HR exists to protect the company. When you raise a problem to them, you are the one responsible for the problem being put on record. This means you are the problem. Even if you go to HR and they do something about it, you still lose because your coworkers will steer clear of you for being a narc and any chance at a career is pretty much gone. Either work the problem out with your coworkers yourself, ignore it and keep your head down, or find a new job.
I agree with the HR department but calling someone a narc for raising an issue of bullying is called victimblaming.
I‘ve pulled tons of money out of companies for being bullied since they are responsible for keeping the workplace secure. Being a minority and bullied for it is great reason to sue and should be done in that case.
This advice is essentially „be a good little *** and take it in stride“. I cant believe that its upvoted so heavily.
Woah, dial it it back a bit. We’re not talking about racial discrimination or violence. OP said people were talking behind their backs and provided no additional details. If you file a HR complaint just because you saw someone whispering while looking at you, you’re 100% a narc. If you file a racial discrimination lawsuit because you’re a minority and the company isn’t firing people you don’t like, you’re the worst kind of person. If there’s more to the story, OP didn’t share it.
I think we probably mean the same but approach it differently.
Being a minority doesnt only involve race. Being gay can mean peeps call you names which also constitutes discrimination.
Generally, I take every kind of bullying seriously because no amount besides mutually agreed upon are okay imo. There are better ways to clear up dissent imo.
The reason I bring this up is because you never know if the person you’re „making jokes about“ can actually defend themselves if necessary.
How do you sue without a smoking gun in an at will employment state? I have felt discriminated against several times in my workplace, but it is only a feeling. I worry that any attempt at a lawsuit would only leave me unemployed.
I don’t have evidence—the interactions are all person to person. It seems like it would be easy for the supervisor to say “I didn’t say that”, “I didn’t mean that”, or “it was for other reasons”, and I would have nothing to fall back on.
First of all. I‘m not on the US so I‘m not familiar to the situation there. However, at will employment imo means that the state you work in could not give two shits about you and I would never stay there.
Besides that, education and writing stuff down helps to both understand your situation and improve it. If you just have a „feeling“ you might want to sit down and think about it. There might be different things happening. Either someone just doesnt like you, or you dont like them. Do they imply things that are connected to you being a minority? If you can single out these situations in writing, you might find out whats going on. Thats how it went for me.
in addition to you being an asshole, you’re also wrong in practice about how HR teams work. If they hear about shit like this, they really do try to do something about it. Sometimes they can’t really accomplish anything, and they’re just bureaucratic about it, but no, they do not think of the person making the report as a problem, they think about the person actually causing the actual problem. Hostile work environments are unproductive, are bad for employee retention, and have a heightened risk of law suit. Only shitty businesspeople think the problem doesn’t exist as long as it’s not on paper.
OP’s better off if their employees steer clear of them—that much is obvious, isn’t it?
As long as you’re willing and able to follow through with it if needed.
A better approach might be to ask them to fix it without the ultimatum first
A hostile work environment is grounds for a lawsuit. Document everything, bring it to a lawyer for council. If you have a case, they will tell you whether to talk to HR. If you don’t have a case, you have no leverage here.
If you have problems with your team members you should being it up with your manager. But don’t just tell them the problem and expect them to come up with a solution.
Documentation on when events happen and how you believe a change in attitude will make the org a better place to work will get a far more favourable response.
Now if you talk with your manager and nothing changes, then look for a new job and on your HR exit interview explicitly say why you are leaving.
They need to find a witness. Otherwise it’s a he said, she said issue that can’t be confirmed as harassment.
HR takes a different tact when a person starts to sight harassment from contemporaneous notes.
I have only ever worked in germany so thats all I can talk about from a legal perspective (not a lawyer):
If people bully you and you can find evidence for it, the colleagues, maybe your manager and the whole company can be shit out of luck and you win. A lot of folks have successfully sued (which is very cheap in germany, you dont even need a lawyer at first) for „mobbing“ (bullying essentially).
If one or more colleagues bully you, you collect evidence, confront your manager. They then have reason to terminate the offender if the evidence is strong.
If the manager doesnt act, you have reason to sue and get considerable sums out of the company.
But yes, if people go behind your back and oust you, they are in the wrong. Even if you did wrong, they should talk to you about it or involve management. Social ousting is never an acceptable reaction imo.
In the states, you’d probably be let go for something like this. At will employment means you can be let go for any or no reason, it’s total BS. Google just recently waited until a group of union members were in front of city council to fire them.
At will employment is modern slavery imo.
It’s also not as strong as you would think. At will means they can fire you for any reason, it doesn’t mean you cant sue them for wrongful termination and very easily win. It’s still fascist garbage designed to give employers all of the power but it’s toothless with a good lawyer.
Exactly like slavery. Exactly same. ಠ_ಠ
Whatever you plan on doing if it involves a company, make a paper trail. You don’t want their defence to be a reliable “Nuh-uh!! Did not!!”
You should always point out abusive behaviour but making ultimatums is not a good strategy, unless you’re ready to take the nuclear option regardless.
If HR and manager do nothing to address the problem, wouldn’t it be a better strategy to start working the least possible and let the company fire me, while looking for another job?
Doing your job and looking for another job is the best course of action if they don’t do anything about issues involving other coworkers. If they don’t care enough to do anything when it is reported, they are not going to do anything if you give an ultimatum other than making your job miserable enough that you quit or fire you, whichever costs them less.
Don’t under perform in a way that gets you fired though, as that could jeopardize any money you get from being fired like unemployment or whatever you have in your location.
Depends, do you like the job ? Is it worth the effort in changing the dynamic?
I think doing a good analysis of strategy here will depend on a lot of factors.
Firstly, before coming up with a strategy, it is good to have a clear idea of your goals / the strategic problem you are trying to solve. I see or could infer a few possible ones: you want to work in an environment where you don’t feel bullied, you want to ensure others aren’t bullied, you want to see bullies punished, to maintain positives in the company and want to enjoy those without the negatives of being bullied, or perhaps that you believe in the goals of the company or have some stake in it, and want it to succeed. Different goals might lead you to a different course of action.
Next, you would want to diagnose what’s really going on. Are there just a few bullies, in a company mostly full of professional people, or are the bullies the majority? Are senior leaders in on the bullying, or is it only lower level employees? Why do you think the bullies were hired in the first place - is it because bullying is considered okay in the company, or is it not considered okay but they slipped through? Why do you think the bullying hasn’t been addressed already? Is it because senior managers don’t know? Are the bullies friends / relatives of senior leadership? Are the bullies high performers that the company really would want to keep around, or do they get barely get anything done? Also, are the bullies even aware they are being bullies? Are they unaware they are being insensitive, and likely to change if made aware, or are they actively being malicious and well aware of the impact?
Next, consider the direction you want to take, and analyse the likely impact on your goals. You could find another job - how easy that is would depend what the job market looks like for your role, and how good the terms of your current job are. It wouldn’t achieve goals around making it better for others. You could try talking to the bullies if you think that they might just be unaware of the impact of their behaviour and that they might change. If that doesn’t work, you could try talking to a manager / HR member, perhaps either to arrange mediation, or for them to take action. You could also just try ignoring the bullying if it isn’t having much impact.
To choose from the many possible directions, it might help to think from the perspective of the company shareholders, senior leadership, and HR department. What would you do in their shoes if you learned of the bullying? If it is the majority of the company doing the bullying, then something like replacing all the bullying staff is going to be an instant non-starter. The best possible would be to slowly roll out training, policies, and new hiring practices to try to improve the culture over time. If it is a few people who, it now turns out, are the reason for high staff turnover and lower profits, then they might be quite happy to take action. Although probably not if the bullies are the senior leaders.
Examples? And how often is it happening?
Idea is good, in principal. Can I just offer some thoughts to get things happening smoothly.
Bullying, what type? I can only offer general overall advice without specifics. So I’ll offer some food for thought, What if that person is neurodivergent and doesn’t understand they’re bullying, or coming across too blunt. I would suggest, address the behaviour directly, succinctly and without judgement.
Talk as if they’re an alien and don’t understand our culture, and you have belief once they understand they will step up. But say it as plainly, in the least amount of words possible. Don’t leave room to debate, just straight plain facts. This causes this. Please don’t.
Ask how you can help them be more effective in positive engagement.
On a personal note it’s always a good idea to listen to the messages your body is giving you, those emotions are a need your body has, it isn’t about anyone else, it’s about your lived experience and how comfortable you are in your environment. Times you haven’t felt safe can be a trigger for you in the future, and then bullies words hurt more. If you feel you have unhealed trauma or a low sense of self and self worth because the world in general has chewed you up, (which it does so often it’s almost a universal experience) find and build on yourself in those areas. It doesn’t minimise that the bullies are harmful, just utilise their efforts to find places you can up skill and heal, if they are being highlighted for you. They still suck. You just take what they give you and turn it into a tool to build on yourself and build yourself up. Be genuine, curious and open and deep dive on your feelings. Eventually, after studying what’s freely available out there and uplevelling your sense of self, you start to see all of the bullies behaviours are entirely about their own broken insides and damage. It’s really hard to be upset by words from someone you pity.
Avoiding toxic environments is a better way to live. Finding ways to make that environment non toxic is a good life philosophy. Do your labour laws already have protections built in to protect you from psychological abusive type behaviours in the workplace?
