Dear All,
I recently have any issue where my account manager has written a mail degrading my personal reputation in company. I am taking the case with HR team but I am not sure whether I can get any justice. Is there any law which protects employee from such harassments and can I take this to court against manager or company? I need serious suggestions on this please.
Regards,
Sandeep Tiwari

From United Kingdom, Cambridge
Dear Sandeep,

At workplace, we must maintain professionalism. If some manager sends you derogatory mail that degrades your personal reputation, it is most unfortunate. However, filing lawsuit is too early stage. I recommend you following the procedure however, before recommending a solution, we need to know the type industry that you work in, your designation, number of persons that report to you, whether your company has approved Standing Orders.

While you may find it difficult to explain what were the contents of the e-mail. nevertheless, it is important for us to know whether the contents of the mail degraded your personal reputation. Occasionally in a feat of anger, managers send a mail. Was it a case of momentary lapse of judgement? To whom the mail was sent, on what subject it was sent and why personal reputation came in picture in the official contents of the mail? Is it really degradation of your repute or it is perception?

As a first step, you may put up application to HR with printout attached to the your application. Submission of hard copy is preferred over the soft copy. Keep duplicate copy signed by HR with you. This is called as grievance by junior employee against the manager. Give heading of your application as "Grievance Against __________ (designation of the manager)" or "Grievance Against the Reporting Authority".

On receipt of your application, your HR will conduct the investigation. If you are not satisfied with the outcome of investigation or if you are not satisfied with the quantum of the punishment awarded to the defaulting manager, you may put up second application to the highest authority of your company asking for the review.

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of the review then you need to take the matter out of your company. Find out the labour office of your area. Approach the Labour Officer (LO) and explain your problem in sequence. Carry with you evidence of all of types including proof that you are employee of your company. On listening your complaint, LO might issue letter to your company. This is called as industrial dispute. On a specified day, he will call both the parties, listen viewpoint from both the sides, and give his verdict. If you are not satisfied with the verdict then then you may send the notice from the lawyer. Your lawyer will give you further guidance as such.

Final Comments: - While I have given above the procedure for settling the grievance, I recommend you settling the matter without taking it too far. It could impinge on your career. Taking on manager could prove risky. Managers are representatives of the management. Incensed by your application, you management might fix you in some or other matter. Therefore, take into account the support from the top that your manager enjoys.

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar


From India, Bangalore
Dear Sandeep,
You may please take cognizance of the following
1.Firstly, sending mail in derogatory manner in an organization, is uncalled for, he has exceeded his limits
2. You can take up the matter with the Vigilance Department/Employee Relations/ Grievance cell which ever is applicable in your company.They will conduct an inquiry and submit the report
3. In case the Accounts Manage is at fault action against him will be definitely taken by the
Management and to ensure that such incidents do not occur again.
4.It is too early to proceed legal action against the said official or the company.
5. Please remain calm and follow the company rules and procedure
After all every body is a human being and to err is human to forgive a person is really a great quality.
All the best.

From India, Bangalore
Anonymous
email are not recognized as legal document by court/labor office/govt of India. Tc
From India, Bangalore
nathrao
3131

First thing is to try to sort out matter within the company.
Put up a written complaint to management and ask them to inquire into the matter of damaging email.
Is the email sent to you or to many others?
What are the wordings of the email?
Civil and criminal laws provide you protection.
But this case is not fit to go to court and should be settled in house only.(Prima facie opinion)

From India, Pune
Thanks Dinesh for the responce. As suggested by you, currently the matter is with HR and they are discussing this with cluster head. I’ll have a meeting with Clustor head very soon to discuss the matter along with HR team.

Just to brief a bit about myself and the matter, I am into IT, Currently as a test manager, onsite. I was heading the delivery in SAP competency for my company for UK and Ireland region before I moved to onsite the current role I am doing. There was a testing new bidding for a testing project coming up in US and since company didn’t had anyone suitable to travel for project defense, I was asked to travel. When asked, I told testing competency to get in touch with account manager as I report to him and get buying from him. Competency did the same and I got a call from my account manager to discuss about it. Then, I received a mail from cluster head to travel as he is the one who has discussed with my manager. I took his mail as approval and travelled. I have done arrangements with client at onsite for the work which will be stopped during my absence and shared the responsibility with other team mates. Up on my return, my account manager started claiming that he was not aware about the trip and why I travelled and my trip has bought bad rapport with customer. He gave me all the stories which he could have given which where just cooked up stories. When I went and checked with customer they were cool about it and have extended my contract also. Because of all this episode, my account manager thought that I don’t respect seniors and he wrote a nasty mail to me keeping all the higher authorities as well as HR in loop. When I discussed the same with HR team, They also agreed that the language used is harsh and unofficial. So the matter is up for discussion. In short, he is begging for the respect just because he is higher in hierarchy and don’t believe in hierarchy in service industry for respect.

This episode has made me dull for about a week and resulted in bad week with my family and other work collegues. This is spoiling my personal as well as professional image and as far as I understand, no one in the organization, Whatever is the position, has the right to humiliate you in public through any medium. I know I am fighting a tough war where I’ll not gain much other than my satisfaction, but I’ll still be happy to gain the satisfaction and loosing this job. All I asked HR is either an apology mail from my manager on top of the same mail which he wrote or convience me that it was my fault in the entire episode.

I am waiting for HR to response and am ready to go to court also against company if I am not getting what I deserve. I just want to know if we can take this to court and fight against company. This will be case against the company as a whole or just the manager. Which court I can appear for such things.
I hope I clarified myself and if you think you should see the mail to decide whether it is humiliating or not, I can forward that too.

Regards,
Sandeep Tiwari

From United Kingdom, Cambridge
nathrao
3131

My advice again is to sort out such matters in house.
Court is no paradise.
You will face delays,tareek pe tareek and have to relive this experience for long periods of time.
Insist that HR remedies the matter and move on in life.
I can understand the anger and humilation but remedy is not a legal battle.

From India, Pune
Dear Sandeep

I welcome you to CiteHR.com !!!

I presume you joined us to seek a remedy to your problem.

I have gone through the thread.

No doubt, your ego is bruised and you are feeling hurt.

Do you know, there are places in India where people feel hurt and humiliated, if you do not wish them or acknowledge their presence. Sometimes, they become so aggressive, they might even attack or hurt you physically.

I am sure, you must be aware of such places, which are so well highlighted in Bollywood movies !!

Are you one of such people ???

"he wrote a nasty mail to me keeping all the higher authorities as well as HR in loop." and this was a humiliation for you !!!

Your self-respect and self-image is so weak n fragile that you felt humiliated and spoiled a week and had strained relationship with family and friends.

Now, you want to teach him a lesson, you are looking for revenge !!

All because of an e-mail that your senior sent.

To repeat :

"he wrote a nasty mail to me keeping all the higher authorities as well as HR in loop. "

So what does this episode in your flourishing career, depicts about you as a person ??

Your education, temperament, personality ?

Your MATURITY to handle criticism and other's opinion, however erroneous their opinion may be ??

Please think over again.

Just a critical email CONSTITUTES Harassment ???

That email was not obscene nor you are a female worker in a company who are protected by "Prevention of Sexual Harassment at Workplace".

My humble suggestion would be to, simply ignore such small incidents. These keep happening frequently in one's life and career. However good and hardworking you are, you can NOT STILL MAKE everyone Love you or Like you.

It would give you much more and richer dividends, if you focus on your tasks. instead of making everyone including yourself, unhappy, sorrowful and gloomy by focussing on an unsavoury mail send by one of your senior.

If you are REALLY THAT GOOD, then instead of getting affected, YOU SHOULD SHOW him that his Nasty mail doesn't affect your spirits n Motivation, nor it has any value except revealing his own nastiness.

Warm regards.

From India, Delhi
nathrao
3131

Raj Kumar,
Extremely well written and conveys the whole solution to nasty emails or verbal arguments.
Ego should not be so fragile.
No wonder our judicial system is so overwhelmed with cases which take decades to resolve.
One email however nasty should not derail your composure and equanimity.
Give a detailed reply to Accounts Manager,keeping all other addressees in the loop.
This is my prima facie opinion on the topic.

From India, Pune
Good reply has been given by Mr. Rajkumar. In Corporate company these kind of nasty mail is a routine job. You should be bold enough to revert on such kind of mails.
From Japan
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