This is a long one… sorry…
I’m not technically a manager but our departments second-in-charge has been out of work for surgery and chemotherapy, during that time (and prior too) the department manager has been on a power trip.
Not only did she show no care or remorse for his situation, but she has also spent the entire time belittling, demeaning, confronting, bullying and even sexually harassing the staff.
Before he took his time off, he himself had planned to express our concerns since he was the only outside perspective or new set of eyes we had, but he had no shifts with her before he went.
As a result it meant that one of us temp in-charges needed to step up.
Luckily we work in a larger company and we have a store manager, so I had planned to document everything and bring that evidence to them.
However, store manager brought in the store second as support and the entire time this guy just defended her and her actions, making excuses on her behalf (like saying her husband was made redundant so that might be why she’s acting this way), claiming she’s the best we’ve got in the region, and dismissing my every concern or cherry-picking small parts to deny.
I had a list of over 15 names and 22 seperate incidents involving some form of verbal abuse, including an additional list of 6 staff who’d left and their reason (only if it involved her), along with a further 7 planning to leave, 2 of which asked me for my contact details instead of hers for their resumes.
On top of that the sudden drop in staff and the decline of willingness for them to do additional hours to help out has meant that myself and the other temps have had to pick up the slack.
The usual 4pm finish for them and 6-7pm finish for us (normal store closing time) has turned into 10pm for us most nights, and at worst 2am three times now. Keeping in mind this also means we’ve been doing massive overtime, upwards of 14 hour days, and for some, 6 day weeks every week instead of company policy 6-4-6.
My lack of confidence that they would do anything after the meeting made me take further action and submit a harassment ticket on the company website, in hopes that a regional would see it.
I have no idea what has been done since I had the meeting because she cut my hours this week and last until I had only one (tomorrow). Not to make assumptions but she did so immediately after I asked her for a meeting, which was why I had a meeting without her on my day off instead.
Considering I wasn’t given any shifts when its as busy as it is I think they side with her and would rather believe her lies that I’m apparently turning the team against her instead of taking in the evidence I’ve provided them, talking with the team, and investigating this very serious workplace malfeasance.
I have my first shift in two weeks tomorrow and quite frankly I’m terrified of interacting with her.
I want to stay and help resolve this for those staff who can’t leave, I care about them and even about the job. I could vote with my feet any moment but I’m not that kind of person.
I still don’t know what to do though… any advice?