tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691620995030959485.post5724029386726252350..comments2023-06-03T02:32:22.738-07:00Comments on Paul's Testing Rants: (Reprint) Bullying in Tech - It Has to StopPaulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11331245801412369551noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691620995030959485.post-23390820254887609812019-01-04T00:43:11.655-08:002019-01-04T00:43:11.655-08:00A useful and timely reminder.
Something else to w...A useful and timely reminder.<br /><br />Something else to watch out for is a change in senior leadership causing different attitudes to cascade down the organisation. In a previous life, I was a UK Civil Service trade union organiser for a complete Government department and over a period of some twenty years often had to deal with bullying issues. Certainly, senior management always supported middle managers who were implicated in this sort of behaviour, though often those middle managers' behaviour was indeed indicative of their own situation and experiences. (In one case, a notorious bully against whom I'd pursued a number of complaints got a new role outside the organisation, and his attitude to co-workers changed completely for the term of his notice period when the pressures he was being subjected to no longer held any meaning for him.)<br /><br />One case I took was from a colleague who was dismissed for what in UK law is called "some other substantial reason", a phrase used by managers to effectively say "their face didn't fit". The senior manager in question left the organisation shortly thereafter, only to return as CEO about six months after I left. Within two months, staff relations fell apart under this new CEO as they began to play favourites and pressure many staff at all levels whose faces no longer fitted or were otherwise seen as too closely aligned with the old regime - in complete contravention of agreements between the employer and trade unions, and probably of UK employment law generally. In a way, I'm sad that I wasn't there to fight this, and I get the impression that my absence may well have encouraged this CEO; but in another way, I'm glad I wasn't.<br /><br />So the lesson to be drawn from this is that no matter what measures an organisation takes to combat bullying, there is a need for continual vigilance because things can change in unexpected ways at a moment's notice.Robert Dayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04351414198776218617noreply@blogger.com