Mehul Mehta
4

Hi JM,
If I understood this case correctly the Sr Eng and the lady administrator seem to be very rigid on their stand and not willng to come to any solution. In such situation I would call both of them and sit them down togather and ask to give explanation infront of the senior management panel and let them take the decision. Another possible way is issuing show cause notice to both of them and take the decision accordingly. I think both of them will think twice before alleging or misbehaving with each other if they realize they have to answer a show cause notice. I would also think about transfering a lady administrator to another location if she is ok to move because I think as per you the Sr Engineer has some key responsibility of projects.
Thanks & Regards,
Mehul Mehta

From India
dpray
2

Hi,

Be careful while handling this case. I have some suggestions as I faced same type of situation before and had a tough time.

1. What you mentioned if is true, then try to get that lady keep quite at anyway.Just discuss with her and convince her that you are just doing the internal inspection and ask her to give her statement on this situation when the senior engineer and she both exchanged some abusive words. Please tell her to write each and everything clearly and tell her to write the whole senario with 150 words. Ask her to write an essay.

ask same from the engineer. But in a different way, In this situation you should show that you are neutral. But,,,,,,you should internally support the engineer as he is driving the business. If there is no business there will be no office if there is no office what will be the requirement of that lady.

Always take care of the people for whom the revenue generation of the company is tied up or who is a resource that generates or helps to generate revenue.The admin can not generate revenue, but the service engineer can.So, be careful, in the mean time also try to convince the lady to keep quite and everytime he asked for the final decession ask her for a statement. First ask for detail statement and then for a particular statement and then for next and always convince her that you are trying to help her and trying to fix the problem for ever.

After somedays the situation will come in to control or the lady will leave. But, for the lady do not loose your senior engineer.It will be a loos to the company. You can get some one else for admin but certainly not anyone like senior who is working quite long time.This is the normal situation and is happening in service sectors (business is in small scale.)

Hope you got my point.

Regards

dev

From India, Gurgaon
richa_ferns
24

Mr. Dev
Are you saying here that just become the sr. engineer brings in business he should be excused from this sick behavior. The character assasination that he has been indulging in, is acceptable to you.
Sorry to say, I would rather fire the sr. engineer and lose business than have an image of my company as a company which tolerates sexual harrassment.
Wake up mr. dev its the 21st century and women are no longer door mats where you can just walk all over them and they will not say anything.

From India, Pune
neerajatfore
All very good advice. Let me just add my bit. First of all, are you aware of the 'facts' of the case? Or you have based your opinion just on heresay and allegations? Any which way, you must first and foremost, ascertain the facts, the best that you can. Discreet enquiries with colleagues of both, specially those things which can be independently verified. This will not be perfect but you may be surprised at the results. And it will help you decide a course of action. Game playing almost always boomerangs in such situations so my advice would be to be discreet, quick and straight. What Cyril has suggested in the very first post makes sense, it may, if not properly handled, lead to a case of sexual harassment and things would get further complicated. While finding facts of the case, involve a woman colleague (neutral and respected).

Next step could be confronting them with facts as they emerge. There can never be any compromise with discipline, I know it is a cliche but it is tested and pays in the long run. Whether the engineer gets you business or not, if he is in the wrong then he has to be dealt with. As to who gets revenue can never be the deciding factor in matters of discipline. That is what 'professionalism' in HRM is all about.

To cut a long story short, 1) do a discreet and quick fact finding 2) Take the help of a woman colleague (or a neutral respected person) 3) Buy some time by telling the engineer this may blow up into something nasty 4) Take any of the possible actions (formal enquiry, show cause, transfer) based on the facts as they emerge 4) Don't take 'sides' and don't appear to be taking sides. Your impartiality is important.

This is just my opinion....

From India, Delhi
srinivas k
dear sri jm,
in your query you say that the senior engineer is in clash with the apparently jr lady engineer. the former must be having difficulty to deal with an opposite gender. both should understand their roles in the office or work spot. before that what are the goals? are they clear of their goals? independent goals join together for team goal. entertain discussion with them as a team and as individual. i made this experiment and i could rectify some situations. members of the team should have a common platform to perform and to have a say. this is participative management.


bnvpradeep
1

Hi
I believe seeing the other posts you might have understood that if the lady complains against the engineer, you need to officially review this and this is going to become more publicized. Warn the engineer about the same thing, but its up to you how well are you gonna tell him this and make sure that the engineer doesn't get angry on you or the lady.
Do the same thing with the lady saying that it would spoil her image and future if the issue gets public and try to cool them for some time
Slowly you create a work environment where there is a need for both of them to coordinate with each other.As they get more coordinated i think the gaps get reduced and every thing gets set

From India, Hyderabad
unusual_indu
3

HI JM

I have gone through the entire thread of discussion and somehow I feel that the issue is not that the "admin" person is a "lady".It has nothing to do with "Gender".If a male was given the responsibility to handle the senior guy the situation would have been the same.But nevertheless the situation becomes even more complex if there is a "lady "in question.

I feel it is more important to counsel the lady on an urgent basis.Tell her that she is new in this office and she has to prove here worth before she dictates her terms.The senior people will never take directives from her until and unless she can prove that she is trying to coordinate and manage the show in an efficient manner and not trying to boss the situation

As for the senior guy is concerned he has to be explained that just because he is senior he cannot take things for granted .I agree with the other comments on this post that he should be warned that in case the lady drags him to court he is going to have tough time.

I have myself faced this situation in my organisation where I had to implement company policies with seniors and junior guys .I had a tough time doing that.I first identified what are the problems the senior guys are facing and why they are reluctant to follow simple things like wearing ID cards.I tried and solved a few of their workplace issues and now they have accepted me in the system.You can narrate the same to the lady and ask her to rethink on this matter.

This is my personal opinion and I do not intend to challenge any of the views or comments made on this post

I hope this makes sense to you

Thanks and Regards

Indrani Chakraborty

If you wish to speak to me then please drop me a mail at

From India, Pune
bnvpradeep
1

you are right saying that the situation is gonna be same whether it is the female or male employee. but the situation became more serious the moment the engineer started abusing her about her character, and complained about her that she is spoiling the environment too, dont you think so the mistake lies with both of them? being a responsible person and being a senior guy, do you think the engineer behaved in a right way?
Thanks
Pradeep

From India, Hyderabad
unusual_indu
3

Hi Pradeep
Thank you for your comments.I am trying to find a way out of the situation and not judge who was right and wrong as whatever I know about this situation is from Mr JM and based on his comments I cannot decide who is right or wrong .The opinion I gave was just to show a way out to JM from this trouble.
I hope you understand.
If I assume that JM is right and the senior guy has actually tried to defame this lady in public then it is definitely not acceptable but you must agree with me that we are making a comment on this situation only through the information gathered from this forum and hence we can give a suggestion and not a judgement
I hope I have cleared my point
Thanks and Regards
Indrani Chakraborty

From India, Pune
bnvpradeep
1

i believe i already gave the solution , i donno whether you accept with it or not but try it out once
speak to both of them separately, try to cool down the things initially and create an environment where there is a definite need for both of them to work together, try it out and i hope it works as the communication gaps and ego blocks between both of them breaks down

From India, Hyderabad
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