I identified bullying and now I’M on the outer

November 8, 2024

Hi Karyn

I’ve been in a deputy role for around 9 months, working remotely from a team in the capital (working in the local office, but my team is all in the city). The job was advertised as a remote role and I voluntarily travel to the city one day each fortnight to see the team in person. My probation was confirmed with no issues.

My relationship with the local office head is troubling. There is a lot of bullying behaviour and while I don’t report to them I’m also not immune to receiving the sarcasm and public jibes they serve up to their own staff. When I raised it with my own leader there was disbelief and the suggestion I was overreacting or imagining it. I’m not. This kind of behaviour would not have been tolerated in my last employer or indeed anywhere I’ve worked before.

Since I raised it, my own work is suddenly under close scrutiny with the work accepted when my probation was approved suddenly no longer good enough although there hasn’t been any specific criticism or area for improvement. I’ve been ambushed twice in the last couple of weeks with short-notice meetings that have included the local head as well as my supervisor and have focused on my ‘unproductive’ attitude disrupting the office. I’ve never received criticism like this in my career and I feel I have great relationships with the others in the office, as well as with my own team members in the city. However, there were staff celebrations for Halloween in both locations and I was very obviously excluded from both.

I don’t understand it and I don’t know what to do. When I tried to have a one-on-one discussion with my supervisor they said it might work better if I commuted to the city office each day so I was with my own team and away from the manager I was said to “have issues with”. This is not an option for me. The whole reason I applied for this job was because it was close to home. I can’t make it work with a three-hour round-trip commute each day.

I was genuinely happy and doing a great job in this role (as they told me in my probation report). How can I fix this?

LT

 LT, I’m not sure you CAN fix this.

You don’t mention if you’ve had communication with the local leader about their behaviour so I’m presuming you haven’t — and fair enough. Your actions as you’ve outlined them were appropriate. Your supervisor’s response to your raising the issue is what concerns me most.

Without knowing more about the personalities involved, one possibility is that you’ve inadvertently stumbled into a personal friendship between your local office leader and your supervisor. Another is that your organisation has had bullying complaints before and has ostensibly dealt with them — and is not prepared to hear any more.

In any event your supervisor’s responses to your raising of the bullying behaviour are neither helpful nor supportive and are frankly poor leadership. That’s not your fault and it seems quite unfair, but I can’t honestly imagine any scenario in which your position in this organisation is recoverable. I’d suggest your best option might be to find another role as soon as possible and continue your employment in the meantime with the least amount of damage to your self-confidence and reputation.

Here are some things I’d recommend:

• If you haven’t already, record your most accurate recollection of the events that have contributed to this situation. Be as specific and clear as you can, including locations, dates and any other pertinent details you can recall.
• Book a one-to-one discussion with your supervisor to discuss your performance. You want to leave this meeting EITHER with clear and specific examples where your performance has not met their expectations and/or requires improvement to be satisfactory, OR if these can’t be provided, a confirmation that your performance is indeed meeting expectations.

Following this meeting, send your supervisor an email that confirms the outcome of your discussion. Be sure to forward any correspondence to your personal email account.

• Review and update your CV to reflect the new experiences, connections and outcomes you’ve generated in this role, and start looking for an appropriate role.

I’m presuming, as you haven’t been in the organisation or role very long, you might not have identified champions amongst the senior leadership. If you have, great — these can be asked to provide references as required, as can internal or external clients you’ve served while in the role.

LT, I’m sorry this has got so hard. It deserves a coaching call because there’s potentially a lot going on here, but perhaps reflect on these recommendations and then you can make a time with me if you want to discuss it further.

Every good wish,

Karyn