Hi all – I was let go from my role at a tech company back in August where I was hired to lead a large 40+ person international team, but I have this nagging feeling it was due to retaliation and need to check my sanity.
Background: was hired a year and a half prior to lead said large, disperse team. The job description was crystal clear. When I arrived things were different. I “led” the team but they technically reported into regional GM’s. So all teams in each region, sales, customer success, etc all reported up to the GM’s (so GM’s had like 100+ direct reports – weird but ok)
I navigated the situation and was given control and say over the direction of the team, goals, kpi’s, etc. But when I dug into compensation for team members I noticed that everyone was paid wildly different wages, even in the same region. I tried to rectify this as I had heard rumblings that people were unhappy and were starting to talk to one another and I wanted to stave off a headache for the company. I was very Strategic and got sign off for a restructure that would allow a tiered system of senior individual contributors and more junior employees and we could adjust pay based on that. This was due to take place in the spring.
Well, I went on vacation in the spring and when I returned I found out that one of the individual contributors (who was paid FAR less than anyone on the team despite having a decades worth more of experience) had gone to the GM (the restructure wasn’t occurring or announced yet) to ask for a pay rise to be paid in-line with their peers (exactly what I had warned would eventually happen as people were starting to talk) they were told by this GM that “non-US citizens don’t deserve to paid as much as US citizens” and that “they should go to city hall and marry their partner since that’s only a $2.50 subway ticket instead of making the company pay for their visa” (the visa, mind you, was part of the employment agreement when they relocated from Europe. They were obviously incredibly upset, hurt and confused and I was in shock.
I brought this to HR and to my boss as this could really be bad for the company and neither did anything or even spoke to the GM about it. A week later I was invited to an impromptu meeting with said GM and the CEO to talk about this person. I had no idea what the call was about and was given no time to prepare. I had spoken at length with the individual in question after what had occurred as well as their direct manager and understood that they were highly offended, trust had been lost and that they were likely going to seek employment elsewhere. The GM starts talking about maybe giving this person a raise and I flagged during the call that at this point it would likely take more than that and that we needed to rebuild trust with the employee after what occurred. The GM and the CEO went wild on me. Starting cursing, calling that person ungrateful and that I have a lot to learn and have no idea what I’m talking about. They hung up on me.
A few weeks later my boss has a call with me and tells me that I’m in the wrong for ever raising what was said to anyone. Tells me that this GM is out to get certain people and needs respect and that I essentially need to keep my mouth shut.
Fast forward a week and all of my responsibilities are essentially stripped from me. Every leadership call I’m on the CEO makes it a point to state that the team reports to the GM’s and they make the call on everything (but naturally I’m still responsible for the goals but no say on how we get there)
I am then told I need to go into the office on a routine basis and if I don’t then I’m “a bad leader” – mind you this is a remote first company, I was hired as a remote employee, I did occasionally go into office but I also have a documented disability that makes that environment hard to work in and I had submitted said documents to HR.
I still worked to try and navigate this weird structure (was trying to find other employment in the interim) and did well enough that the team was close enough to hitting goals that I was receiving bonus payouts.
I was then just – fired. No reason, no justification, no warnings, no documentation on performance, nothing. I was just told that I lost the trust of the team.
Am I insane or was this all in direct retaliation for me calling out that GM in the spring? Literally other than the bizarre org structure everything was great up until then. I received an incredible annual review from my boss and traveled for work throughout Europe. If it is retaliation – do I have any legal recourse?