You might be working with a difficult boss or co-workers and often reporting certain extreme complaints about your manager might not make it to the HR. Approaching the HR directly with your complaints may land you in the “trouble maker” books as you might anticipate and even part of your personnel record, but depending on the seriousness of the complaint you have to choose how you want to take on from here.
Here are some tips on what to do when your boss does not report your complaints about him/her or other problems at workplace to the HR even when you have requested him/her to do so?
According to attorney Jonathan Segal, a sought-after speaker on HR legal topics, “You must tell your supervisors and managers that they are required to report complaints, says Segal—even if the employee asks that it be kept confidential, and even if the supervisor thinks the claim lacks merit. The decision of whether to investigate is yours, not the manager’s.”
Certain academic institutes maintain a Grievance Procedure to review complaints regarding terms of employment and working/academic conditions.
If there have been previous such incidents where a particular manager has failed to report your comments to the HR or upper management, you must approach the HR directly and inform of your complaints. Of course taking the first step first, reporting to your immediate supervisor first, asking him or her to escalate the issue to the HR and if you see that there is no response or action from your boss – then the next step must to be to approach the HR directly with your written complaint.
However in case of complicated situations dealing either with your manager or an employee conflict where you want to play safe, protect your job, identity but also go ahead with a proper reporting procedure it is usually suggested to contact certain law firms dealing with employee workplace conflicts and grievances.
All said, I must mention an article in the BusinessWeek some time back titled: “Caution: Don’t Count on HR- You can’t assume that your confidence will be kept, and chances are only your boss’s boss has the real power to solve your problem”
Well the title says it all, Liz Ryan adds: “The fact is sharing your woes with an HR person can be a self-destructive move.”
If this is all true in most companies then the system surely sucks.
If there are any employee grievance attorneys or senior HR personnel reading this post, would you comment on the possible solutions for an employee in a fix – whether to approach the HR and how?
Or perhaps you have had any such experience in the past – how did you deal with it?
Maybe you’ll enjoy this one too: Bad Bosses – Profiles of today’s bad bosses – A video on BusinessWeek.