Dignity at work

 Disclaimer:- This is a long post. Please bear with me till the end.

I would like to share one experience which I faced in one of my previous organizations. Without naming the organization or people in this article, as my intention is not to besmirch anyone, I only want to highlight the farcical approach of organizations in handling serious matters. 

Let’s understand the organization as O and the specific person as Mr. X.

After joining one of the established and known organizations, I was certainly excited about my new role, responsibilities, technologies, and the domain. The Induction went great and it was difficult not to get impressed with the values, culture, and history, so much so that I easily made a long-term commitment to the O, in my mind at least. I got an awesome team, extremely supportive peers, and great buddies. We all were trained together and it was fun. Everything was going great until I started having weekly meetings with Mr. X. Mr. X was two levels higher than my designation and two levels down from the CEO, but he wasn’t my direct reporting manager. 

Anyways, in the first meeting itself, which had many others present, I heard him shouting and threatening someone with his job. It was a cultural shock to me as in 18 years of my corporate experience, I had never seen someone talking and humiliating others like that, with impunity.  I initially thought it may just be a case of a bad mood, but what I didn’t realize that I was the next person in the line.  

So Mr. X picked me as his next target to exert his bossiness – he simply could not bear a different thought and a No used to hit his ego so badly. If things were not his way he could easily disrespect or rather humiliate me in front of my peers and my team members in the online meetings. Unfortunately, my direct reporting manager was not part of these meetings. Earlier I thought maybe it’s just a matter of a day or two, but this just went on and on. In each meeting, he used to pick someone or the other and with no reason will only start accusing and humiliating the person like a piece of dirt. Attending his meetings just became a nightmare for me and I used to get stressed out a day prior to these meetings. 

So, finally, I decided not to keep silent and approached HR. After meeting HR, I realized, I was not the first and only person complaining. They had already received many such complaints about Mr. X. I was also asked by HR if there is an issue with my performance, for which I told them that they can verify that with my direct manager, my team, and my peers. In any case, it has nothing to do with performance and was rather a simple case of an abusive boss mistreating his subordinates. I even told HR that I can’t work with him and am planning to resign. I was assured that this is not a regular work culture there and just based on one person’s behaviour, I shouldn’t take such a big step.

I was even told that the policies there are very strict, and few warnings are already given to him. So, I should be a little patient. However, after waiting for few more weeks nothing really improved. Though the meetings with Mr. X got reduced, but his behaviour never really changed. The meetings rather became nastier, whenever it used to happen. So finally, I could not handle it anymore and decided to resign. But even after that, things became worst and I then escalated the issue with the top management.

A case of abusive behaviour was raised against him and soon the investigation started, where both the parties and their witnesses were questioned and cross-questioned and my allegations were proved. The investigation panel was supportive and was neutral for both parties. The report was submitted to the higher management. This entire process took 5-6 months and even though I had left the organization, the final report was shared with me. To my dismay, the verdict was just a serious warning to Mr. X. In any case, the warning was given to him earlier as well so what is different this time. I called HR but was told that ‘The warnings given to him are serious and would be taken seriously’, ‘What else did you expect ?’, “Are you questioning authority’s judgement ?”. I got the tone and accepted the fact that now I am no one to them.

Though there is a lot more to this whole bad episode, here I would like to put some Q&A for myself, which might be coming to other’s minds as well:

Q- Do you think whatever you did was right?

A – Yes, absolutely.

Q – Did you give your 100% to O?

A – I gave my 200% to O till the last date of my tenure in this organization. I compromised my personal life and was working a minimum of 12 hours each day.

Q- Will you again raise your voice if this happens to you in other organizations?

A- Yes, I will. 

Q- Don’t you think that this is a regular work culture in any organization and it was ok to let it go?

A - No, I don’t think so. No one no matter in what position they are, has NO right to disrespect or humiliate anyone in the working environment. Everyone deserves to be respected and treated nicely.

Q – Do you call this harassment? Isn’t only sexual, caste, color, gender-based comments are considered harassment?

A – Well, harassment can be any dialect that you find offensive, insulting and humiliating. Which gives you mental stress and can impact your work and health.

Q- Are you disappointed with the conclusion of the case?

A – Yes, I am. I had big faith in O.

Q- Do you regret quitting this job?

A – Not at all. Especially after hearing the final verdict, I am happy that I didn’t take my resignation back.

Q- Would you like to join this organization in the future if a better opportunity is given?

A – No I won’t

The problems that I see:

During the entire process, I spoke to many people and almost all of them had complaints with Mr. X as they faced similar sort of humiliation by him, but most of them kept silent. So, I asked them about the reason for their silence. These are the response I got:

·      We have already raised the complaints, but nothing happened.

·      We can raise a case against him but eventually there is always a fear of retaliation as the guy was quite senior.  

·      I may lose my job. I have a family to take care of and EMI to pay.

·      It’s easier for you to do that since you have already resigned. 

·      I don’t want to work with him but I don’t have a choice.

·      A complaint will impact my ratings and my monetary appraisal?

The Solutions:

Though the solution lies in hands of both employees and employers, but I believe 80% is in the hands of the employer. 

I would like to put some humble points to all the Organizations and the people who oversee them:  

·      Please don’t make the policies just for the sake of it. I understand that they are made with a lot of considerations and discussions, but please see if the policies have a real impact for the benefit of employees and don’t just exist for statutory reasons.

·      Having transparency in such serious complaints is good. But if employees are not speaking up, it means they are hesitant and do not trust the policies and the processes.

·      Please make sure to have a platform where employees can freely, confidently, and un-hesitantly speak up which they think is wrong and not acceptable to them. Especially mental harassment.

·      Do you take the ratings of the managers as well from the subordinates? If you do, how seriously do you take it?

·      Please take exit interviews very seriously if the reason for quitting matters to you and you are willing to minimize the attrition. 

·      It’s really sad to see so many young people suffering from Cardiovascular disease. Out of the reasons is work-related stress. People can still cope-up with the work, but provided they are respected and treated nicely. Shouting or humiliation by the bosses should be a strict NO. 

·      The entire organization works and succeeds because of its employees, but sadly, they are still treated unfairly in many places.

·      Employees want to trust and rely on HR policies. Please take every word from them very seriously especially if it’s a complaint. Do the required investigation but at the end, Take a Just Action, which can send the right message, 

I would also like to say few things to employees:

·      Do not tolerate harassment. 

·      Speak up. It’s not a do-or-die situation.

·      Have some trust. If you won’t speak you will never know.

·      Respect and treat each other nicely whether they are your peers, team members, or the ones working under you. 

·      If your organization’s policies are really employee-friendly, make wise use of them. Don’t misuse it for taking out any personal grudges.

Finally, quitting the job was the hardest decision for me. I love working and at times have been called a workaholic. So would certainly advise everyone to Love their work, achieve their dreams, be a workaholic (if that keeps you happy), be loyal to yourself and your work, but not at the cost of any kind of harassment.