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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Is going to upper management really the answer?
Has anyone here ever gone to upper management about their supervisor being unproffessional or unappropriate? For ex; Do you feel as though your supervisor/manager was not fair or didn't handle things proffesionally? What was the outcome? Did the issue get resolved or did it make matters worse?
I realize it's a lot of questions without any information on my part, but I'm just trying to get an idea of other people's experience. I'm not really seeking advice persay just want to get an insight based on other's experiences.
Re: Is going to upper management really the answer?
I have not, however, I have a former co-worker (I left, she's still there) who has having major issues with our director and assistant director and she eventually went to the dean of the department and told him everything. It worked out in her favor. The dean promised her that what they said would happen to her wouldn't happen and that they'd never know she met with him.
Good luck.
TI, IUIs, IVF = c/ps and BFNs
I used to have a supervisor who thought it was my job to generate funds for the entire practice. It was not in my job description so I ignored him and kept up with my job description. Finally I went to HR to ask why my job really was because I was already working the job meant for two people, adding extra duties was just too much. HR agreed with me, and my supervisor backed off. About four months later things picked up again, and I decided I had to leave. Before submitting my two weeks I went to my supervisors boss and told them how I was feeling and that I liked to stay with the company, but my supervisor was making my work environment hostile. Upper management said they had heard my complaints, but did nothing about it. I took three days of vacation, and after my vacation decided to quit. I gave my two weeks the day I returned. For a couple of days my supervisor was trying to be nice and sweet, and took me out to lunch and asked if I would reconsider. (I was a department of one.) The next day HR asked me to do an exit interview, and I laid everything out on the table. The following day I was asked to join my supervisor in the confrence room for a meeting, not anything out of the blue, and my supervisor and HR were sitting in there. I was told immeadiately that I was fired, with no severance, or vacation pay (I had over four weeks saved up.) I violated company policy by taking vacation and then submitting my two weeks. My professionalism had been less than poor, and I was speaking disrespectfully of my superviors.
Long story short, I hired a lawyer and sued for hostile work environment and won. Everything had been documented. Although when my lawyer asked for my HR files there was nothing in them except my hire info, and several unsigned written warnings that I had never seen before. The company did an investigation after they lost, and the HR manager and supervisor were both fired.
I know my situation is pretty extreme and not typical.
Not officially, only as a mentor or in seeking advice. Luckily, my old organization was matrixed, so my supervisor was not my contract/program manager. I could have frank discussions with the person managing my career about the person managing my contract, and vice versa. And in a few cases, that led to senior mgmt discussions about how to fix the situation. When I decided to leave the company, I met with a very senior colleague for my exit interview; I let him have it.
I recognize that not everyone gets to have a matrixed organization, and I am not in one now. So now I lean heavily on mentors-both above and below me-to help me gain perspective on how to deal with certain situations. In an odd twist, an old mentor/colleague called "A" hired me, but A is two levels above me. This has added a complication to our mentoring relationship, and I've had to dance around my misgivings about my direct supervisor "B" (A manages him directly). I have found that I have had to rely on other mentors to navigate the sticky situations; those I know won't act on my behalf. My relationship with A and my desire to keep our relationship as a mentoring one when it has clearly changed to a supervisory one has already caused me some grief with B; it's not something I want to revisit if I can avoid it.
Honestly, I would never go above my supervisor's head unless I had zero confidence in his ability to change, or if he was doing something illegal. IMO it's my responsibility to address my issues with supervisors directly, just like I would expect them to address me with issues they have about me. If you haven't tried to address it directly, that's where I'd start before going over their head.
No, but last year I did have to finally go to HR about some issues I was having with my supervisor (the issues also involved the supervisor above him as well though). That was definitely the right choice for my situation.
Of course, I think it depends on the particular situation, but I would say that generally it would be unprofessional to go to upper management about one's supervisor. One possibility might be to request a meeting with the supervisor and upper management all together. Then it becomes more of a productive, collaborative approach.