Employer morals query

Carl31

A colleague/ friend of mine is leaving work on Tuesday, it was following a grevience procedure held against them a few months ago.

Part of the process followed by our company was to interview other colleagues and provide evidence of the behaviour that was being questioned. This was obtained, much to the discomfort of some.

Whilst i can see how the situation arose and how the result has came about, i feel a bit uneasy about how the company i work for has conducted itself. Its not the most professional of organisations at the best of times, i dont really agree with the whole putting people on the spot to provide evidence, where they have not sought to raise these matters as a complaint before

Is this normal behaviour? I have been questioning my future with the firm and this is something that hasnt helped things

ValHaller

Carl31 wrote: »

Is this normal behaviour?

Without knowing what the allegation was against your friend, it is rather difficult to provide any concrete opinion.

Carl31

ValHaller wrote: »

Without knowing what the allegation was against your friend, it is rather difficult to provide any concrete opinion.

They were accused of bullying their direct report. I think it was more a case of personality clash, but its not down to me, obviously

There was no attempt at any mediation, and as said, it seems evidence was gained after the grevience started

AP007

Carl31 wrote: »

They were accused of bullying their direct report. I think it was more a case of personality clash, but its not down to me, obviously

There was no attempt at any mediation, and as said, it seems evidence was gained after the grevience started

were you or others witness to any bullying?

ValHaller

Carl31 wrote: »

They were accused of bullying their direct report. I think it was more a case of personality clash, but its not down to me, obviously

There was no attempt at any mediation, and as said, it seems evidence was gained after the grevience started

This is a hard one.

The good side of this is that an accusation of bullying was dealt with thoroughly - I don't think it is wrong to interview potential victims to establish what has been going on, if anything.

Also, I don't think that mediation is necessarily always constructive - I suspect it fails in more cases than it succeeds. Often it can have a frustrating effect of helping a bully determine a threshold below which they can continue bullying pretty much unchallenged - which means that they don't go back on the radar for bullying but leave their accuser(s) feeling worse than ever because the low level continuation actually plays on the bullying prior to the mediation leaving the victim feeling that their complaint has been disregarded and the bully has the system on his side.

But the other thing to be said for balance is that sometimes a grievance can itself be an act of bullying

Funky_Bold_Ribena

Carl31 wrote: »

A colleague/ friend of mine is leaving work on Tuesday, it was following a grevience procedure held against them a few months ago.

Part of the process followed by our company was to interview other colleagues and provide evidence of the behaviour that was being questioned. This was obtained, much to the discomfort of some.

So....you have issues with the company investigating an allegation of bullying? You think it is amoral to investigate this allegation?

How odd...

gibson123

It is immoral of a company NOT to investigate allegations, if they don't they are either ignoring the rights of a member of staff, or ignoring malicious complaints.

OP I would also question your morals if you witnessed someone being bullied and did not cooperate with management investigating this.

browneyedbazzi

I think a company should investigate any allegations of bullying and a good way to do that would be to interview those who work with/around the people involved in the case to find out whether they have witnessed the alleged behaviours or indeed been victims themselves. Many people will witness things but not feel comfortable with raising the issue as a grievance themselves (perhaps because they think their experience wasn't serious enough on its own, or they don't have faith in the grievance procedure, or a dozen other possible reasons)...that doesn't mean that what they have seen/experienced can't/shouldn't be taken into account.

I'd be more concerned if the company hadn't conducted a proper investigation!

Savvy_Sue

Carl31 wrote: »

and as said, it seems evidence was gained after the grevience started

You can't really look for evidence before a grievance has been raised though, can you?

Carl31

Funky_Bold_Ribena wrote: »

So....you have issues with the company investigating an allegation of bullying? You think it is amoral to investigate this allegation?

How odd...

No it was more how it was investigated

But, following some of the replies on here, i am thinking what they did was probably correct.

My friend is leaving based on advice I gave her. While I don't think she meant to be aggressive, she kind of naturally is, and is not suited to staff management. She didn't act very professionally through the process either so kind of burned her bridges

Cheers all

Funky_Bold_Ribena

Carl31 wrote: »

No it was more how it was investigated

But, following some of the replies on here, i am thinking what they did was probably correct.

My friend is leaving based on advice I gave her. While I don't think she meant to be aggressive, she kind of naturally is, and is not suited to staff management. She didn't act very professionally through the process either so kind of burned her bridges

Cheers all

Yeah, that's probably why she was accused of being a bully and investigated...if you really can't work out that investigating after an accusation was the right thing to do; perhaps you should desist from advising anyone on matters of employment.