i have had issues with my manager, she keeps putting false complaints to HR. the HR doesnt even given me an opportunity to explain and issued me a warning. my manager was doing everythung to ruin my career. but by luck, there was organizational restructuring and my manager was changed. the day it happened, my old manager called my new manager and said bad things about me. then she even set up a meeting with my new manager and HR and again did the same. my new manager told me all this because he wanted to hear my side of story. he has promised to be on my side always. Did the HR cross lines when they met with my new manager? i feel that it was completely wrong. Is it worth staying in this company with manager and HR on smear campaign? in general, i have a very good reputation within the company and people respect me for my work. but HR and the old manager are continuously creating issues.
I will be honest. when this person started, the entire team complained about her including me.. now, she is in revenge mode against two people on the team. My problem is with the HR. I feel they should be neutral at the minimum.
As long as your new manager trusts you, you should be good. HR will get feedback from him only unless he is close to ex manager. You can’t change ex manager intention now so better to avoid. Have a good impression with upper management and other guys can’t do anything in that case
The new manager is a new hire, hired to cover up for the incompetencies of old manager. They split the old manager’s portfolio into half and gave it to new manager. Well, I have been avoiding the old manager for months. But she isn’t backing off and continuing. I am ok with that, can’t stop her. My issue is with HR, who is supporting her
HR shouldn’t be neutral if any of those complains you call “false” were corroborated by anyone and you can be potentially a threat to a team or company’s performance, but they still should respect your privacy. Since there were complaints you should ask HR to provide you with conclusion of their investigation as a first step. You’ll at least know how serious situation is.
The complaints were on softer stuff I.e disrespectful, insubordinate, and not working well within the team. When I asked HR for proofs, they just told me one thing about an email exchange. That email was completely out of context and cherrypicked. I gave the proof, giving the entire email chain.. they ignored it.. the HR is taking disrespectful by the old manager’s word. I even had proofs about it, because I only had few one on one meetings with her and i documented everything. And not sure if any of the above things count as threat to company. And the threat to team no longer holds, coz am not part of that teAm
Understood. Well, your manager’s word about attitude and insubordination is usually enough, since you’re supposed to demonstrate those two to your manager. Now if old manager (OM) had similar problems with other employees, that could put a question mark about OM credibility. But if it’s only you HR has a right to judge how difficult as an employee you are based on observed behavior. Your further actions depend on what you want to achieve. If you want them to leave you alone you can go two ways: 1) Apologize to your old manager, ask about a detailed feedback in presence of your new manager. Take all the feedback, ask questions, say thank you. Your new manager (NM) see that you’re not difficult, and able to accept a feedback and eat some shit to prove that you want to stay on NM team. 2) Review all your time with OM and build a case that you were mismanaged. Start with on-boarding, and then think about every feedback session, every 1-1, and every time OM was not supportive. Create a timeline and outline details. Send it to HR and comment that you don’t want to be difficult, you just love the company and the job and want to stay. It is important that you can corroborate most fact. If you have an employee handbook, look inside, they might have instructions on how managers are supposed to behave and see if you can build a mismanagement case here. But I’m not sure if your NM won’t be threatened by this approach.
That’s a very very sound advice. I cannot do 1. Because when the OM put in a complaint, another director supported me and hence she couldn’t get me fired. I will make him look bad if I go the apology route. The new manager heard my side, and he also thinks that I am being targeted. Taking him by his word, he said that in future of any HR issues, I should assume that he is on my side always. The HR has never given me any proofs of the OM complaints. The NM said that he will ask for proof if anything like this happens again. So, am not sure if I need to prove anything to NM. I want to be left alone, yes! Regarding making the case, as much as I want to do, based on HR attitude, I feel it will be waste of effort.
Leave the company or change teams/org hr will protect management at all cost
Like I said before, I have already changed teams. Infact, the management decided to split our old team because the manager was incompetent. I and one of old team member are in another team. But my old manager is still continuing to mess with me and HR is supporting her
Just focus to be in good terms with your current management but I will be looking job options outside to be ready for jump if necessary
Take HR to HR. that would be fun
I actually thought to take HR to CEO 😑
HR is there to protect the peace, not to provide justice or fairness. You are more replaceable than your manager, so HR's job is to create a paper trail so that if it comes down to it, you can be escorted out without incident.
It’s actually not entirely true now. Middle managers are more replaceable than good engineers. The competition for engineers is higher at the market.
Probably time to change job? There is always two side of a coin, there must be something wrong in past so he is taking revenge?