Help with a difficult situation at work

January 15, 2020 8:01 AM

I complained to HR about my previous manager and now that person is overseeing my raises. Should I speak up about it?

At my workplace, we have a rotation program where actuarial students (those still writing exams and those who haven't moved to management roles) rotate to new roles every 3 years. At my last role, my leader was difficult to work with and eventually I had to go on disability leave, in part, because of the depression and anxiety that resulted from his behavior. Once I moved to a new role, I contacted HR with a complaint about his behavior. HR seemed to agree with me and though I don't know the exact steps they took, I'm aware that they took action in the situation.

I'm now in a new role. The structure at our organization is that there is one director in charge of all actuarial students. There are also 3 actuarial managers who are in charge of recruitment as well as determining raises and promotions for all actuarial students. The managers change every few years and are selected by the director. Recently, my last manager (who I complained to HR about) was added as one of the managers in charge of raises and promotions.

One of the things I spoke to HR about was my previous manager engaging in retaliatory behavior towards me. Taking this into account, I'm really worried about him being in charge of my raises especially after knowing I complained to HR about him. I want to discuss this with the director in charge of all actuarial students, but I'm not sure if that would be appropriate or not. I should mention that the director was someone who was in contact with me regularly while I was returning to work from disability leave and they helped me find the new role that was a much better fit for me.

Should I email the director about this and let them know? Or should I just let it go? My wife thinks I shouldn't contact anyone since it might be considered harassment. The whole situation is triggering a lot of anxiety and I'm not sure what to do here.

posted by NoneOfTheAbove to Work & Money (9 answers total)

What do you hope to achieve by discussing it with someone?

If I were in your situation, I would not discuss it further with anyone at the company unless I felt that the manager was treating me unfairly.

It's possible he has moved on and won't take any action against you, and bringing it up preemptively will only stir up trouble.
posted by mekily at 8:32 AM on January 15, 2020

Can you go back to HR and explain the situation, and tell them you are concerned about having this manager evaluating you? They should then be able to talk to the director and have him work something out where this particular person is not involved in your file. That will come across as less personal than going to the director yourself, and in fact, if the system is aware of the past issue, they might already have measures in place that you don't know about. ("Might"...because many large organizations are not that effective.)

While I understand the desire to stay quiet and wait and see, you might only find out about retaliatory behaviour when you get a poor rating, and then it becomes difficult to change without looking like you are just unhappy about being called on less-than-stellar performance.
posted by rpfields at 8:38 AM on January 15, 2020

First, voicing your concerns about a toxic management situation is not "harassment" in my world. Second, you have every right to be concerned that this will be a problem--it is super easy to poop on someone's performance when you're in a position of oversight without the pooped-upon having any knowledge (or recourse). Third, if this gross malassignment has happened in the first place and they don't take steps to fix it, it might be reasonable to think about moving to another firm.

Good luck. Malicious supervisors are the worst.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 9:11 AM on January 15, 2020

I would talk to HR, rather than the Director. If you go directly to the Director, without any evidence that this individual has or is going to retaliate against you, then it may reflect badly on you - that you're trying to drag this up again when it's been dealt with, that you're trying to badmouth this manager, etc. (I don't think that's the case, but that's how it could be perceived.) By contrast, HR has all of the background and you can go to them and say "Look, I hope this is all behind us, but I just wanted to flag that Jim will be in charge of raises and promotions and as you know I previously raised a complaint about him. I want to talk to you about what processes are in place to ensure that raises/promotions are handled fairly and not impacted by my previous complaint." Then HR can talk to the Director, if need be, and/or keep a close eye on the raise/promotion process. (My answer may be different if HR had previously been unhelpful/incompetent, but it sounds like that's not the case.)
posted by wuzandfuzz at 9:29 AM on January 15, 2020

My answer to wait and see was coming from the perspective that HR already has a record of your past issues with this manager.

However I agree that it might not be a bad idea, as others have suggested, to flag the issue directly with HR again now that the situation has changed.
posted by mekily at 11:00 AM on January 15, 2020

I would definitely have a word with HR, but limited to "I've had a problem with this person in the past and I'm worried about them reviewing me." Nothing accusatory, just flagging the situation.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:19 PM on January 15, 2020

A piece of wisdom that was shared with me that I later found to be true is that HR departments are there almost solely to protect the company if they decide to fire you. I’m not sure who this means you should talk to, but my inclination would not be to look at HR as an ally.
posted by less of course at 12:53 PM on January 15, 2020

A piece of wisdom that was shared with me that I later found to be true is that HR departments are there almost solely to protect the company if they decide to fire you

More generally they are there to prevent the company for being sued for personnel issues. So they can't be counted on as allies precisely, but notifying them that something actionable may be happening shortly can motivate them a lot.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 2:30 PM on January 15, 2020

HR Manager, here. Nope. I am not "here to protect the company." Our staff are the company. Without their hard work, creativity, tenacity, and skills, we are nothing. If you were my employee, I would want to hear from you. Once you voiced your concerns, I'd be following up with the compensation team to ensure that your increase lined up with your performance rating and that your performance rating was an accurate reflection of the feedback received by multiple reviewers. I'd be poking my nose all up in that situation. Because I despise bullies. In particular, I despise bullies who make the work place a toxic environment for other staff. I make it my mission to neutralize them.

I don't know if your HR rep is any good - and by good, I mean proactive, ethical, knowledgeable, and unafraid to piss off people who fancy themselves untouchable - but if your gut sense was that he/she listened to you, took your concerns seriously, and acted on them, then please head back to them and let them know about your current discomfort. That's what they are there for. They work for you.
posted by MissPitts at 6:14 PM on January 15, 2020