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Toxic workplace - constructive dismissal grounds or not?

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  • Toxic workplace - constructive dismissal grounds or not?

    Good evening. I would appreciate a little bit of advice as I am at the end of my tether.

    Just over a year ago, we underwent a restructure at work. As I was under Risk, I applied for and was promoted into a managerial position (vacant post) where I have been working with the loss of over 50% of my staff as a result of the restructure which was based on projected savings that could be made by future changes to the business model. My role encompasses all the responsibility of the new role and the responsibility of the role from which I came, so essentially two jobs in one position. My counterpart in the other side of the business was promoted and is also doing two jobs. My current manager was also promoted up to become Head of both departments, the one which she came from and my department. My department head has no working knowledge of my job or the legislation involved in the decision making as her position was in another field of the business. I know it is a bit confusing but essentially 3 jobs remain out of 5 at managerial level and I lost 50% of my staff as well.

    Someone was brought into the workplace to manage all the project work while I settled in. My manager took a dislike to him and within 2 weeks he no longer worked for us. Result, I inherited all the project work as well, so a phenomenal workload. Because of the restructure the remaining members of staff were unsettled and it was hard to gain their acceptance as although I had been promoted I had worked in their department previously.

    1. My employment contract was incorrectly dated which meant that I lost income due to my start date being incorrectly entered. I was the only member of staff whose contract start date was set for after the restructure - all the remaining staff had a start date of the 1st of the month - mine was the 3rd which meant that I lost income as a result. My manager was very half hearted in her support and to this date it still has not been sorted out.

    2. In order to give me additional time, part of my responsibilities had to be devolved to the remaining staff I had and that meant trying to demonstrate and teach them over Teams. This involved long Teams calls. Within 6 weeks of taking on my new post, I was called into a 1-2-1 and informed that she had performed covert surveillance on my calls and I was accused of spending over 4 hours per day on the phone to my team. The excuse for doing this was that I was on probation and that this justified spying on me. I was left feeling totally violated and the employer/employee trust was broken. My staff were also subjected to the same treatment and this resulted in a member of staff leaving.

    3. I was advised at a Performance monitoring meeting that the member of staff leaving was due to my poor management and that my probation was being extended. I could not disprove this and had to accept the extension, asking what I could do to improve. Offers of management training were made and training was not provided.

    4. I have not only had my job/two jobs to do, but I have had to supervise and train another member of staff for 6 months. My manager took a dislike to him. To the extent that she demanded that I extend his probation because of his sick periods. He is qualified under the Disabilities Act. I refused to do that because it was unfair to him and because he is highly experienced and trained and I was satisfied that his work was up to standard for the duration that he was in work. I also did not like the fact that she was trying to place me in a position where I would be acting contrary to employment law and the disability act.

    5. I had to undergo 2 weekly 1-2-1s and every time I went in for one the first words out of her mouth were "I have concerns". Out would come totally unfounded incidents. I have an accent that is different to that of the other people I work with. I inflect my vowels in a different way. For the last 9 months I have been continually accused of being rude because of the way that my words are pronounced. I have been judged on other people's perceptions and discriminatory views and been told that I have to change the way I speak. That is very difficult when you cannot hear the way you sound to other people

    6. I am under constant scrutiny and micromanagement, as are my staff. I have ever increasing and unrealistic workloads being passed my way with unrealistic demands being placed on my time. So much so that in order to keep my team afloat, I am having to work until 7 or 8 at night just to keep the work manageable for my staff as I can't afford to lose them to stress.

    7. Every conversation between me and my staff is being reported back to my department head (by the other manager in the department who is her personal friend). This has created an air of total distrust in the team as they feel that they are being spied upon and they are correct.

    8. I have had to stand my ground over my staff and my decisions at work because she seems to think that with a total lack of knowledge of the legislation or a working knowledge of the work that I do, that she is entitled to overturn law laid in parliament at a whim and that I have to just roll over and accept poor judgement and bad decisions that could get the department censured by government.

    9. I have another manager (personal friend of my department head) undermining my authority in the team by instructing my team to ignore what they have been asked to do and to do whatever work she wants done. My head of department is the same. She is demanding that they drop what they are doing and work on what she wants done. My staff don't know whether they are coming or going.

    I raised this on Friday and said that I felt that I was being undermined. I was told, "well XXX is a better manager than I you are and more approachable". Again this is unfounded as I have two members of staff who will do anything for me and whose loyalty and trust I have earned the hard way. I am at the beck and call of every department in the organisation and never turn a phone call down or a meeting down. How much more approachable do I have to be?

    I have no work/life balance because I am overworked and overloaded with work. I am very stressed and I think close to burnout. I had to put up with this treatment for until June because I was being kept over a barrel with the threat of yet another extension to my probation. This woman thrives on thinking that you are a bug in between her fingers that she can just squash. She is abusing her authority.

    I am sorry, I know this is very long and probably seems quite petty but I have gotten to the end of my tether. I feel sick with dread of going into the office on Monday because I know that I am going to be subjected to more of this each and every day. I can't continue working for such a toxic individual and would like an opinion please on whether this would be sufficient to resign on grounds of constructive dismissal. Other than that in order to preserve my sanity I will have to give 2 months notice and leave the job I have always loved because the of the detrimental effect that a bad manager is having on my mental health

    Thank you
    V
    Tags: None

  • #2
    Constructive unfair dismissal is where an employer has committed a serious breach of contract, entitling the employee to resign in response to the employer’s conduct. Employees can think that resigning and claiming constructive dismissal is a good option for dealing with problems at work, however it is a big step and you might be able to solve these issues without resigning. Also, it is in fact difficult to prove constructive dismissal - not many claims win.

    You must prove a fundamental (rather than minor) breach of contract by the employer and you need to show that your decision to terminate your employment was in response to the breach or series of breaches. In addition, the tribunal will usually expect that you have tried to resolve the complaint through the grievance procedure before resigning. Taking this latter point into consideration have you raised any of your concerns/issues with HR or a more senior manager? If not I would suggest that you consider doing this first before thinking about resigning.
    If you would like a one-to-one expert consultation with me on your employment issue than I can be contacted by emailing admin@legalbeaglesgroup.com

    I do not provide advice by PM although I may on occasion ask you to send me documents this way but any related advice will be provided back on your thread.

    I do my best to provide good practical advice, however I do so without liability.
    If you have any doubts then do please seek professional legal advice.


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    You are braver than you believe, smarter than you think and stronger than you seem.



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