Work appraisal, difficult team leader

LegacyUser

I'm a lad working in a large company. Not an Irish company but it's the Irish branch and all the staff are Irish. Large company anyway, all office drones, a job is a job.

Anyway, it's December and we have to do our annual appraisal. Usual corporate procedure, I write my part, my team leaders all have input, the manager signs it off and then I go to a meeting and my team leader gives it

Nothing unusual, goes on in any large company, civil service too probably.

Anyway, I do respect my team leader, she's good at her job and got promoted rapidly. Never had a cross word with her. I wish I was as strong at my work as her.

But the issue wasn't to do with my work performance. She and her girl friends in the office do take coffee breaks and send around emails.

And the team leader cc'ed one to me discussing "the talent" in the office and it seems I'm "a minger". Not sure where in Ireland she is from, I know what it means but not a phrase I've ever used myself.
Wasn't meant to be sent to me, must have been thinking of my name and just automatically cc'ed me

Hey I'm no Brad Pitt but I'm not all bad.
To be honest if this was a team mate I'd laugh it off and forget about it.

But this is my team leader and it's different, she is supposed to held to a higher standard.

I want to opt out of my appraisal next week, just refuse to go. Is this petty?
At the same time she is supposed to give unbiased feedback on my work so how do I sit in a meeting and say nothing and just take criticism and feedback from someone who can't stand me?

Say something and I may seem petty but say nothing and I've just been laughed at by lots in the office.

Ickle Magoo

Moved from PI - think you'll get more relevant advice here OP. :cool:

Mrs OBumble

Realistically, what do you want to happen?

Seems to me that your choices are to go along with the flow, or organise for her manager to hear of your concerns.

Do you think you could get her fired, or demoted? Do you want to?

If all that happened is that the manger intervened and she didn't do your PA, then what would work be like next year?

A really cunning approach would be for someone else to tell her manager about the problem. Hmm ... wonder if there's anyone you could set up to tell? (Does her manager have any spies in the department???)

Eoin

First - I am absolutely not defending what she said. But it doesn't sound like she can't stand you, she's just being superficial about your looks. She might well enjoy working with you.

Again, please don't take that as a defense for her email; that was hugely unprofessional. Look what happened recently enough in PWC when the lads sent around emails rating the women in the office.

I don't think it would be the least bit petty to say something to her. What she did was not acceptable from a peer, let alone your team leader.

If you refuse to go to the meeting, you'll have to explain why. If you don't refuse, you'll probably just sit there pissed off, which won't do you any good if it's supposed to be a two way process.

So I'd definitely do something before the meeting. I reckon your options are to bring it up with her and make it clear that you're very unhappy with emails of that nature being sent around, and see what she says. Or you can escalate it to her boss and/or HR department for them to investigate further, which would most likely involve all the other people on that email chain.

Out of interest, has she even realised she sent you that email yet?

Opinicus

Is there any way to backup that email or download it with relevant info just in case it mysteriously disappears?


At the very least I'd hit reply and say something like "Thanks, that's really boosted my confidence!" just to make her feel like a complete arsehole altogether.

Heavy Duty: Pass it up the chain to her boss.

LegacyUser

Cool, thanks for replies

Oh she knows I got it alright, she tried to recall the email though I've not talked to or emailed her since. Barely looked in her direction. And while I've been talking to some of the girls we didn't say a word over it, almost pretending it didn't happen.

Team leaders are there for meetings and escalation, if my work is going well I don't need to speak to a TL for days at a time. Not speaking to a TL is actually a good sign as you can handle your work

I don't want to get HR involved. My experience is once HR get involved they follow their procedures and have no discretion, all by the book. So I don't want to launch an official grievance procedure, if I start it I can't stop it

If I got an one line apology and I got another team leader to sub in for my appraisal I'd be happy.

But how to raise it? My concern was I'd be told I'm just making something out of nothing and then get labelled hysterical or dry. And then even more emails get bounced around.

But as I said if this was a team mate I'd laugh it off but I can't take let this go from my so called leader. I cannot take appraisal feedback from someone making a laugh of me. If I say nothing then I become the office pushover I feel.

If it was the other way around and I sent a PWC style email about the girls in the office I'd be murdered by management over it.

Thanks for reading anyway

tenchi-fan

First, print out the email and put it somewhere safe at home.

Second, what exactly do you want to accomplish? She obviously sent the email by accident and I don't think confronting her with it is a good idea.

See how the work appraisal goes. If she keeps it professional everything should be fine.

But it is nice to have that email in reserve. In the case of a disciplinary down the line you can use it to discredit the TL or the people she sent the email to.

castie

There was a major item on this about X company who rated the new graduate girls in the office and alot of them were fired and from what I remembered people were thinking they deserved it.

This is the same case except it seems directly at male employees.
You cant send stuff like this around in emails and if you do and are caught it should be considered gross misconduct and out the door with you.

Eoin

castie wrote: »

There was a major item on this about X company who rated the new graduate girls in the office and alot of them were fired and from what I remembered people were thinking they deserved it.

Yep, that was PWC. I don't know if they were fired or not, but it was front page news.

As I said earlier, OP - you are well within your rights to bring this up with senior management / HR, but you need to think about what outcome you want.

As unfair as it sounds, if you go down the formal route, it will make things awkward for you one way or the other.

tenchi-fan wrote:

She obviously sent the email by accident and I don't think confronting her with it is a good idea.

I disagree - it's made the OP uncomfortable, through no fault of his own. He can bring it up in a non-confrontational manner, but he should bring it up.

kildare.17hmr

i would bring it up with her anyway. Cheeky bitch imagine the shoe was on the other foot you would probably have got in a lot of trouble. Id let her know you were annoyed about it and tell her you have not yet decided what to do with it. Let her sweat for a while sure she deserves it. Wouldn't bring it further tbh but i would certainly make sure she knew it pissed me off

bbam

My advice would be to keep it separate from your appraisal...
Your turn to be professional...

If you're unhappy with the e-mail then make a complaint about it's inappropriate content. You need to either act on it or forget about it..

Your EOY appraisal is about feedback to you on your performance and should be kept separate, if you get a bad review and produce this it will look like your trying to use it to leverage a better review...

If it were me and I was unhappy about it I'd be jumping in before my appraisal and have the complaint lodged...

looksee

Talk to her before the appraisal, something along the lines of - look I know you sent that email as a joke. It wasn't very funny though and I think you owe me an apology. I don't want to take it any further but we need to clear the air about it. If we can't sort it I will have to request that I be moved to another TL and I really don't want the kind of hassle that would cause.

And see what she says. If she apologises and there is no further mention, just let it go. Otherwise you will have to take it further.

Keep it very calm, polite and mature. Take the high moral ground, but also have a copy of the email.

Teyla Emmagan

You definitely need to speak to her about this OP. Directly, not by email. I can't believe she hasn't approached you directly to say sorry. That just compounds her already completely unprofessional behaviour with cowardice.

I think you're being very calm about this by the way (most of the women I know would be having conniptions in your shoes). But you do need to be treated with respect by your colleagues, and it's totally unfair to you to have that out there unaddressed and to have people laughing at you.

I wouldn't personally get HR involved, but I would definitely clear the air. Just tell her you would like to talk to her later and find a meeting room for just the two of you. And you are absolutely not making something out of nothing, I would be completely livid in your situation.

But all that aside, keep it separate from your appraisal. And in fairness, the two shouldn't be connected anyway.

Claregirl

OP my tuppence worth!

Have your review as normal with your team leader. I would imagine she's mortified that she sent that mail to you and hopefully she's learnt a valuable lesson. You have done nothing wrong and should in no way feel uncomfortable or embarrassed - she's the one to my mind who'll feel that way. You therefore have the upper hand.

If your review works in a similar manner to the PMDS you'll find at the end of your review after the rating there's a section entitled upward feed back where you get to rate her performance as your manager.

Depending on how your review / rating goes I would use this part of the review to mention the e-mail and the breach of trust this involved. You have to have trust in your manager and know that what's said in confidence at your review will go no further.

Eoin

You have to have trust in your manager and know that what's said in confidence at your review will go no further.

I would be surprised if that review doesn't get submitted to HR as part of the process, so you're pretty much escalating the issue and putting a complaint in writing by doing that. It might be easier to clear it up in a more informal manner.

Also, the OP hasn't said if the team lead has actually realised she's sent the email at all.

Claregirl

Where I work it's just the rating and training required that goes to HR - upward feedback stays with the manager unless review is not signed off on and then it goes to next line manager if rating is disputed.

OP stated that manager attempted to recall the mail. She knows!!

Eoin

Claregirl wrote: »

Where I work it's just the rating and training required that goes to HR - upward feedback stays with the manager unless review is not signed off on and then it goes to next line manager if rating is disputed.

We send copies of the reviews to HR in our place. But either way, I don't know if formalising it is definitely the way to go.

Claregirl wrote: »

OP stated that manager attempted to recall the mail. She knows!!

Missed that part somehow - she should really have brought it up then.

Mrs OBumble

Claregirl wrote: »

.... You have to have trust in your manager and know that what's said in confidence at your review will go no further.

Sorry, I have to disagree.

You should never assume that anything you say to your manager is "in confidence".

Some companies may write something like this into their performance-assessment process, but I would be very sceptical even then: a manager could so easily be manipulated by a devious employee if they cannot consult other managers or HR in deciding how to deal with issues.

Irish_Elect_Eng

A difficult situation.

(My advice presumes that you like your job and think that you can move forward with the company)

You need to think what is best for you, both in the short-term and long term.

Your manager is being a coward, just hoping that this will not flare up into a major issue, she knows that this could potentially end her career. But while she can afford to ignore this, you cannot, if you do not stand up for yourself her respect for you, if she had any to begin with will be gone. You might end up with a terrible working relationship, her fear can easily turn into a bias if the issue is not resolved.

The best way to approach this is to act if this is a one-2-one issue between two co-worker, take the boss-worker relationship out of it, at least until the personal relationship bit has been dealt with.

The best outcome is to address the issue directly with her in a calm and professional manner. Arrange a meeting, probably better if you don't let her know what it is about initially as she will not have time to stress about it and will be in a better frame of mind. Then at the meeting present her with the email, explain how the email made your feel and ask her how she would feel if she was the subject of the mail? Stop talking and wait for her response.

When she has finished speaking, presumably including a sincere apology if she is remorseful, ask her some questions to determine where you go from here.

(1) What steps are you going to take to deal with the sexual harassment being experience by the male employees in the office?
(2) How do you suggest that we repair the damage that this has done to our working relationship?

Make it clear that if you are satisfied with her response and follow-up that will be the end of the matter.

Then if you are satisfied with her response, arrange a follow-up, either another meeting or other forum to confirm that the issue has been closed out to your satisfaction.

If you are not satisfied, then escalate the issue to her manager before following the formal route

Give her the benefit of an opportunity to redeem herself, everyone deserves a second chance, but I would follow the issue to your satisfaction, don't be a victim.

Note: One thing to remember is that if this email was distributed widely and replied to by many people, an IS/HR investigation may result in many of the women in the office getting into hot water*, not just your boss. In fact there may be a history of such mails, remember the email server never forgets.



*Not the nice bubble bath kind either.

fat__tony

It seems pretty clear cut as to what you should do OP:

Seek an apology in a professional, non-confrontational manner or if she fails to do this,escalate the situation and go above her head.

I would imagine it will not end well for her if you go with option 2.