Jerry Maguire...

TheBrig

A couple of weeks ago all staff were called into whats known as a Self-Assessment Workshop, this is to assess our performance as a centre, our strengths & weaknesses etc. Only one supervisor was leading the group as management wanted us to be as honest as possible. We were told it was a confidential, anonymous and honest forum and to speak our minds. One of the topics to discuss as a group was "Management..strength and weaknesses" - the room exploded, there has been a lot of unrest recently and a lot of people were relieved to finally say what they thought. It was mainly to do with one manager in particular who is nasty, spiteful and prone to bullying.

This led to a huge unification between staff and a great sense of relief that we weren't on our own with this. Plus its always great to vent :-)

We were asked to submit feedback afterwards to the supervisor leading the workshop.

I sent a mail with the summary of what we had discussed and some solutions.

Management were then told absolutely everything that was said. They are now calling individuals into their office for a meeting to find out what their problem is, verbal warnings are being issued - and because I sent the mail, my job is on the line.

I haven't been called in yet and am just wondering if I should contact HR as I feel we have been well and truly set up. Im considering going straight to HR in the morning and one of the directors, bypassing all management completely.

Any thoughts or advice?

Mrs OBumble

If your job's on the line anyway, it sounds like you've nothing to lose.

(Ye were all a bit naive to believe there'd be no consequences of spilling all, IMHO. But that's by-the-by now.)

LegacyUser

Hi TheBrig


I know how you feel...i've heard of & experienced situations like this before. Mgmt tell you that things are confidential & that they want openess and honesty...but not if they are being criticised!

I would suggest not going to HR just yet...wait till somebody talks to you first. Has somebody specifically told you your job is on the line?? Sending a summary email of the meeting to your supervisor should not be a reason to fire you.

AFAIK if you were told that the meetings would be private and confidential then it would be unfair and probably illegal to give people warnings (especially if one of the topics was "Management..strength and weaknesses"

Do you have any emails/ docs stating that the meeting was to be confidential?

maybe try to talk to somebody at NERA and see what they say about it

ongarboy

It seems crazy that a workshop that has a module on Management Strength and Weaknesses (which I assume was designed to give management a better awareness of their S & Ws to help improve them based on employee feedback) was used to instead victimise the attendees because some manager egos have now been bruised?? What was the point of the training in that case?

I've been to many internal and external training workshops in my company and have also been told that anything said in the training class was strictly confidential to encourage open and honest dialogue. This was always respected. Names of individuals would never be mentioned even if it was very obvious who the person was so that is something to be careful for. I would suggest you contact HR and say that the promised confidentiality was breached and ask why was it promised if it was not going to be adhered to? Off the record became on the record without your permission. I suggest collectively you all (all of those of you aggrieved) request a single meeting with your HR manager to discuss in a group the issue. ( the more people participating should result in it being taken more seriously). If no satisfaction from HR, take it higher. If you have a union, I would consult them also.

However, before doing this, I would just make sure that you have tangible evidence that the feedback you and your colleagues gave is now being used against you by how you are currently being treated by your manager. Perceptions are not enough so start documenting incidents so you have a record.