Accused of Bullying

[Zeena3]

I got brought into my managers office on friday where he accused me of being a bully. l had been training a new employee for the last 3 months, he said that l was her rock for the first 2 months but the last 3-4 weeks she was in dread of coming into work and facing me. That she was phyiscally sick every monring before coming to work.

l would never knownly treat someone in this way. l know that l may have got a little toughter in the last couple of weeks only because she was making the very same mistakes over and over again. But everytime she made a mistake l always explained clearly where she had gone wrong and l always ended with praise on how well she was doing. We work in a very busy office where we imput orders and answer the phones at the same time. I am very aware that it is a hard place to be trained. The girl in question is very sensitive and on a few occasions has said that she was going to leave because she found the work and the office very stressful. She left her last job in simular circumstances she went out on stress leave.

On friday my manager started the meeting giving me the option of being informal or formal. I opted for the informal as l didn't know what was to come. He also said the if he felt l wasn't telling the truth that he would supsend the the meeting and go the formal route that he didn't tolerate lying, saying that people have lost their jobs for less. He then went on to say that if this girl went ahead and took legal action that l would be sacked.

This isn't the first person that l have trained but l know l won't train anyone else again. This has totaly devistated me I don't know where to turn. Have you any advice.

[mike11111]

A classic case of, "You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't" Unless training new employees is specifically part of your job description, then refuse to do it in future and concentrate upon your own job. It is a thankless task. I was once accused of bullying the shop steward ( I am five feet and a bit with less meat on me than a butcher's pencil, whilst she was ten feet tall with thighs that make nutcrackers redundant).

[A1Mikey]

Your manager does not seem to be on your side. Provided you have worked there for more than one year, from now on keep things 'Formal'. If you are subject to disciplinary action, 'bullying' is very difficult to prove (unless she has a video of you pulling her hair etc). Just being disapproving of her making the same mistakes again and again is not bullying (it might not be great management either) but it's not bullying. Get all disciplianry meetings minuted and put the word around you have taken legal advice.

[buildersmate]

This is an example of poor line management. The better way to start these conversations would have been to ask your view of the way things were going - not launch straight into accusations of bullying before even hearing your side of the story.
You could go back after Xmas on the lines of 'I've been thinking very carefully about what you said to me. I'm as committed as anything to this job, as you know, and if you think I was was over-exorborant then sorry, but really I find it very strange that you chose not to ask me my version of events before launching into you're a bully. By doing so you seem to be accepting newbe's version of events, and I don't think that was very fair'.
See where that gets the conversation.