Facing Workplace Harassment: Can I Legally Challenge My Manager's Actions?

Dear All,

I recently had an issue where my account manager wrote an email degrading my personal reputation in the company. I am escalating the matter to the HR team, but I am uncertain if I will receive any justice. Are there any laws that protect employees from such harassment, and can I take legal action against the manager or the company? I would appreciate serious suggestions on this matter.

Regards,
Sandeep Tiwari

At the workplace, we must maintain professionalism. If a manager sends you a derogatory email that degrades your personal reputation, it is most unfortunate. However, filing a lawsuit is too early at this stage. I recommend that you follow the procedure. However, before recommending a solution, we need to know the type of industry you work in, your designation, the number of persons that report to you, and whether your company has approved Standing Orders.

While you may find it difficult to explain the contents of the email, it is important for us to know whether the contents degraded your personal reputation. Occasionally, in a fit of anger, managers may send an email. Was it a case of a momentary lapse of judgment? To whom was the email sent, on what subject was it sent, and why did personal reputation come into the picture in the official contents of the email? Is it really a degradation of your reputation, or is it perception?

As a first step, you may submit an application to HR with a printout attached to your application. Submission of a hard copy is preferred over a soft copy. Keep a duplicate copy signed by HR with you. This is called a grievance by a junior employee against the manager. Give the heading of your application as "Grievance Against __________ (designation of the manager)" or "Grievance Against the Reporting Authority."

Upon receipt of your application, your HR will conduct an investigation. If you are not satisfied with the outcome of the investigation or with the punishment awarded to the defaulting manager, you may submit a second application to the highest authority of your company requesting a review.

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of the review, then you need to take the matter outside of your company. Find out the labor office in your area. Approach the Labor Officer (LO) and explain your problem in sequence. Carry with you evidence of all types, including proof that you are an employee of your company. Upon hearing your complaint, the LO might issue a letter to your company. This is known as an industrial dispute. On a specified day, he will call both parties, listen to viewpoints from both sides, and give his verdict. If you are not satisfied with the verdict, you may then send a notice from a lawyer. Your lawyer will provide you with further guidance.

Final Comments

While I have outlined the procedure for settling the grievance above, I recommend settling the matter without taking it too far. It could affect your career. Taking on a manager could prove risky. Managers are representatives of the management. Incensed by your application, your management might retaliate in some way. Therefore, consider the support that your manager receives from the top.

Thanks,

Regards, Dinesh Divekar

Dear Sandeep,

You may please take cognizance of the following:

Firstly, sending mail in a derogatory manner in an organization is uncalled for; he has exceeded his limits.

You can take up the matter with the Vigilance Department/Employee Relations/Grievance cell, whichever is applicable in your company. They will conduct an inquiry and submit the report.

In case the Accounts Manager is at fault, action against him will definitely be taken by the Management to ensure that such incidents do not occur again.

It is too early to proceed with legal action against the said official or the company.

Please remain calm and follow the company rules and procedures. After all, everybody is a human being, and to err is human; to forgive a person is truly a great quality.

All the best.

First thing is to try to sort out the matter within the company. Put up a written complaint to management and ask them to inquire into the matter of damaging email. Is the email sent to you or to many others? What are the wordings of the email? Civil and criminal laws provide you protection. But this case is not fit to go to court and should be settled in-house only. (Prima facie opinion)

Thanks, Dinesh, for the response. As suggested by you, currently, the matter is with HR, and they are discussing this with the cluster head. I’ll have a meeting with the cluster head very soon to discuss the matter along with the HR team.

Just to brief a bit about myself and the matter, I am in IT, currently working as a test manager onsite. I was heading the delivery in SAP competency for my company in the UK and Ireland region before I moved onsite to the current role I am doing. There was a new bidding for a testing project coming up in the US, and since the company didn’t have anyone suitable to travel for project defense, I was asked to travel. When asked, I told the testing competency to get in touch with the account manager, as I report to him, and get buy-in from him. The competency did the same, and I got a call from my account manager to discuss it. Then, I received an email from the cluster head to travel, as he is the one who discussed it with my manager. I took his email as approval and traveled. I made arrangements with the client onsite for the work that would be stopped during my absence and shared the responsibility with other teammates. Upon my return, my account manager started claiming that he was not aware of the trip and why I traveled, and that my trip had brought a bad rapport with the customer. He gave me all the stories he could, which were just cooked-up stories. When I checked with the customer, they were cool about it and even extended my contract. Because of this episode, my account manager thought that I don’t respect seniors, and he wrote a nasty email to me, keeping all the higher authorities as well as HR in the loop. When I discussed the same with the HR team, they also agreed that the language used was harsh and unofficial. So the matter is up for discussion. In short, he is begging for respect just because he is higher in the hierarchy, and I don’t believe in hierarchy in the service industry for respect.

This episode has made me dull for about a week and resulted in a bad week with my family and other work colleagues. This is spoiling my personal as well as professional image, and as far as I understand, no one in the organization, whatever the position, has the right to humiliate you in public through any medium. I know I am fighting a tough war where I’ll not gain much other than my satisfaction, but I’ll still be happy to gain the satisfaction even if it means losing this job. All I asked HR is either an apology email from my manager on top of the same email he wrote or convince me that it was my fault in the entire episode.

I am waiting for HR to respond and am ready to go to court against the company if I do not get what I deserve. I just want to know if we can take this to court and fight against the company. Will this be a case against the company as a whole or just the manager? Which court can I appear in for such matters? I hope I clarified myself, and if you think you should see the email to decide whether it is humiliating or not, I can forward that too.

Regards,
Sandeep Tiwari

My advice again is to sort out such matters in-house. Court is no paradise. You will face delays, "tareek pe tareek," and have to relive this experience for long periods of time. Insist that HR remedies the matter and move on in life. I can understand the anger and humiliation, but the remedy is not a legal battle.

Raj Kumar,

Extremely well-written and conveys the whole solution to nasty emails or verbal arguments. Ego should not be so fragile. No wonder our judicial system is so overwhelmed with cases that take decades to resolve. One email, however nasty, should not derail your composure and equanimity. Give a detailed reply to the Accounts Manager, keeping all other addressees in the loop. This is my prima facie opinion on the topic.

I am not so sure that "action shall definitely be taken by the top management against the manager." I beg to differ. Normally, if it is a matter between non-managerial staff and a manager, then the top management seldom takes any punitive action against the manager, even if he is at fault. At most, they shall ask him (that too verbally) not to do this again! However, if by any chance the unit head has some grudge against this manager, then he/she shall use this opportunity to settle scores with him.

Shri Raj Kumar Hansdah has very aptly advised you. By the way, do you not feel that you have become overly sentimental and emotional in this case? Also, it may not be with any wrong intention on your part, but don't you feel that you have skipped one step for the purpose of close coordination within the organization by ignoring the instructions of some superior, when you say, "I got a call from my account manager to discuss it. Then, I received an email from the cluster head to travel as he is the one who has discussed with my manager. I took his email as approval and traveled." Just think, did that email state anywhere that there was no need for you to meet the account manager?

The "testing competency" might have contacted the Account Manager at your request to get in touch with him, but the responsibility to ensure proper invoicing and accounting rests with the accounts department. The Accounts Manager would have been interested only in avoiding any communication gap in a triangle of the 'accounts manager,' 'competency,' and you, as you were supposed to visit on-site for the purpose of testing/delivery in SAP competency, whatever it may be.

Since you also hold the status of a manager, just think, for the purpose of proper coordination, as part of your responsibility, if you had asked someone to meet you for discussion before proceeding on-site to ensure proper testing and his superior directed him to proceed, would you not feel ignored by the said person?

If the competency approved your tour/travel, that did not mean the element of coordination between the other concerned departments was dispensed with unless formally desired.

In any organization, close coordination between the concerned departments is a must. Though the competency has done its duty by approving your travel, it would not have restrained you or disapproved your meeting with the Account Manager.

Therefore, in case you wish to proceed against your company's Account Manager or even the company for your satisfaction, even if the incident hurt your ego, I anticipate that you would only be jeopardizing your career and be a loser at the organizational level as well as potentially in court on one or both of the following counts:

1) Insubordination on your part, having ignored the instructions of the concerned superior authority; and/or

2) Not discharging your responsibility with due diligence and in keeping pace with the requirements of some other related department.

Sometimes compromises with one's position become imperative. So, my elderly advice is to make sure not to take any step that may jeopardize your own position and reputation. Better weigh the pros and cons of your idea properly before you decide to proceed further. Sometimes bitterness in relations between one and the other party may prove quite harmful to the interests of each one in the future due to the development of revengeful attitudes. No one can anticipate when one would need the help of an adversary in some difficult time.

Regards

From your post, I understand that you are not based in India but in the UK. Humiliating a subordinate or harassment may be something that is more tolerated in some places, but it is not acceptable in developed countries. You are protected by workplace mental health and harassment guidelines and statutes. You may go ahead and file a written complaint with the authorities. The legal process in the UK is swift and fair. Please take all the evidence and consult with a good lawyer. You are also entitled to fair compensation for the humiliation you have experienced, which could amount to at least a couple of million pounds. I have handled such a case in my UK office, where both the concerned employee and the superior who harassed him were incidentally Indians. The concerned employee was awarded a compensation of GBP 2.5 million. Additionally, he was declared a protected employee and was not allowed to be terminated. So please go ahead and contact a lawyer who handles workplace issues.

I am really sorry to see so many responses suggesting to let it go. I am sure you all are senior enough to understand self-respect, and anyone trying to hurt that will definitely not be taken lightly. I believe that because most people prefer to remain silent in such incidents, we have so many occurrences, and we Indians, with a 'chalta hai' attitude, have started taking it for granted. I apologize to those who tried to preach the same attitude to me. I'm sorry again to see the response and wonder what you are teaching your kids. I am in the UK, and in the Western world, self-respect is paramount.

I read a response where someone said you are not a woman to feel harassed. Sir, self-respect is irrespective of gender, and I request everyone to understand that I will not allow anyone to walk over me just because he is my account manager and higher in the hierarchy.

Please don't waste your time responding to me with reasons to tolerate this; just tell me the process. I guarantee that I will be responsible for the result and no one else. If Citehr suggests that I am wasting my time here by posting this query, I am happy to quit and search for my solution.

Sorry if I hurt anyone with my response, but for me, it's much more acceptable to fight and get a result than to sit and evaluate today and think tomorrow, 'I wish I could have done it.' I believe in my ability, and I command the dignity of labor.

"I am sure you all are senior enough to understand self-respect, and anyone trying to hurt that will definitely not be taken lightly."

Most of the posters are senior enough to understand the real meaning of self-respect. That is the reason for the sane and well-thought-out advice of giving a strong reply to the accounts manager and copying other addresses who were in the loop of the email on the subject. That should be enough to clear the matter. But seeing the trend of replies, I will not add anything further on this topic.

As Mr. Nathrao has suggested, if you decide to go to court, be prepared for at least an 8-10-year long legal battle and a hefty bill from the lawyer! Tell me honestly, is it really worth it? Secondly, there is no guarantee that you will get justice because, remember, solicitors/lawyers can stab you in the back by colluding with the opposing party. I'm telling you this from my personal experience.

Next, do you think this Accounts Manager is an exception? Whichever organization you work for, you will find some such people. Where will you escape to? Once, my unit manager insulted me in front of clients to such an extent that the client intervened and told him that I should be considered a valuable asset by the organization. The client, being a top-ranking bureaucrat, silenced the manager of my CPSU. So, forget, forgive, and concentrate on your goals. I wish you all the best in your career!

All right, everyone. Thank you for all your valuable advice. I have forwarded the case to the HR team and senior management, and the result is that a warning has been issued to the account manager, who has sent me an apology email. This satisfies my ego now. The lesson I have learned is to fight for your rights, and you will achieve what you deserve. There may be many who will say no, but at least one will guide you in the right direction. I am thankful for the first response to the post, where the process was clarified instead of people choosing to become personal and using capitalized words to show their emotions.

Thanks, everyone.

There's one line that's often spoken in Human Relations/Psychology: "What the other guy says or does is NOT in your hands; but what's in YOUR hands is how you respond/react to it."

How often have you been in a situation where the house may be full of noise, but you focus on your studies as if you are alone [as a student]? The same applies to everyone at various phases of life, albeit with a change of situation and purpose.

All I can see in the situation you described is a case of ego hang-up and low self-esteem of your account manager and NOTHING to do with your caliber.

I think there's a bit of a communication gap too between your cluster manager and account manager—he SURELY should have been informed 'in-writing' about your travel, etc. Since that aspect in the whole discussion seems to have been missed out, this guy took offense. You were just the cog in the wheel, getting ground/affected.

While I may be wrong, are you sure there's nothing between both of them? Is there any possibility of the cluster manager using this to get even with the account manager for something else?

Like Raj Kumar succinctly put it, when your account manager is already losing sleep, why do you want to lose yours too?

Now that your HR is in the loop, just get on with your work and answer whatever and whenever you are asked.

All the best.

Regards,
TS

Thank you for keeping all concerned members informed about the recent developments and the company's efforts to resolve the issue to your satisfaction. I am pleased to hear that a significant amount of resources, including time, money (lawyer's fees, etc.), and mental strain, have been saved.

I also appreciate your update stating, "This satisfies my ego now...!" The additional exclamation marks are for emphasis, and I hope they do not offend you, similar to the capital letters you mentioned.

Allow me to summarize and conclude our discussion. As many have rightly pointed out, this issue primarily pertains to your "ego" rather than "self-respect," as you have acknowledged. One member correctly highlighted the distinction between the two concepts.

Self-respect is not easily diminished by external factors such as insults or abuses. It is a personal attribute that can only be lost through one's own actions and choices. For instance, failing to uphold one's commitments or behaving in a manner inconsistent with personal values can lead to a loss of self-respect.

Insults directed at others reflect more on the person delivering them rather than the recipient. In the case of the Account Manager, his behavior revealed more about himself than about you.

It is commendable that you have recognized the value of the initial feedback. Other suggestions provided by different individuals essentially conveyed similar messages in varying ways.

I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiment that one should fight for their rights, but it is crucial to do so in a respectful and constructive manner. As the saying goes, "If a dog bites you, do not bite back with your teeth; instead, use a stick to defend yourself."

Please note that the above reflections are not intended to prejudge the other party's perspective, as we lack information about their side of the story or the content of the disputed email. It is conceivable that the Accounts Manager may have felt slighted for not being kept informed about a team member's whereabouts or activities, potentially leading to his actions.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Best regards

Really, nothing more to add after Raj Kumar's exhaustive response except this. Your line "But the lesson I got is fight for your rights and you'll get the dew" suggests an approach of 'aggressiveness.' Even though this might win you a few battles, in the long run, you will get hit. I suggest modifying your approach to be 'assertive' rather than 'aggressive.' In short, 'assertiveness' focuses on the issue while 'aggressiveness' focuses on the individual. Hope you get the point.

All the best.

Regards, TS

Thanks for your response to my post. However, regarding your post, "I will not force you to put yourself in my place but just request that our thoughts are not matching and I can't take your suggestions positively as they are making zero impact on me," I would like to inform you that at this very late stage, no one can force me to put myself in your place. That stage passed long ago, about 15 years after my retirement from active service. I want to clarify that during my service period, I championed self-respect, not ego. I took appropriate precautions to protect my self-respect and was fully equipped to handle any challenges on my own, without relying on the top brass, third parties, or the law courts.

My advice was impartial, not taking sides with any of your company's adversaries. Opinions, suggestions, or advice are always subject to acceptance or rejection by the recipient. Some people appreciate advice, while others do not. You were free to accept or ignore the advice given by members, and it does not hurt my feelings if our thoughts do not align.

I was pleased to see that, as a manager, you chose to make your own decision based on your resolve. Decisions, whether right or wrong, must be made by managers and leaders, even if they do not like the advice or suggestions of others. However, it appears that at the last moment, you backed down from your original proposal to take legal action against the erring manager and the company. You mentioned, "I have forwarded the case to the HR team and senior heads, and the result is that a warning has been issued to the account manager, and he has sent me an apology email. This satisfies my ego now. But the lesson I learned is to fight for your rights, and you will succeed."

Regardless of whether our thoughts align, in my opinion, you did not fight for your rights but rather to satisfy your ego. Your initial proposal to file a lawsuit against the company revealed indecision, especially when seeking advice from members of this site. Despite receiving several pieces of adverse advice, you eventually decided to stick to your original proposal. However, upon receiving an apology from the Account Manager, you abandoned your plan to take legal action, stating that it satisfied your ego. This raises questions about the justification of your premature query to the HR team and whether you were willing to follow their decision, especially when you were not inclined to act on any suggestions from the members.

This situation reflects a wavering mindset, which is not conducive to a manager working in a company in an advanced country like the UK. It appears to be more about ego and revenge rather than self-respect and prestige, which is not a healthy trend in any organization. Mutual respect among colleagues is always beneficial, unlike the confrontation of individual egos and values that can lead to undesirable outcomes.

While this advice may not resonate with you now, you may realize its value at some point in your career.

Best of luck!

Dear psdhingra,

Sandeep's question is very clear. If you know the steps that need to be taken, please inform him. Please don't tell him to adjust as this is a valid point for some people. He is here because he doesn't know what to do, so please don't degrade him; instead, help him out with the steps or simply provide the necessary guidance. The most important thing to remember is that ego has come in between your interactions.

Best Reply Credit goes to - Dinesh Divekar
Thanks,
Jagadish