About Constructive Dismissal, I Have Some Thoughts
Harassed and gaslit by my manager, I filed complaints with HR that went nowhere. I questioned if I was culpable in being mistreated. The idea of sharing what was happening was mortifying. My ability to trust in a work context drained away. I spiraled into depression. I struggled to function. I was traumatized, broken, and effectively deprived of my livelihood.
I was the target of a constructive dismissal campaign. At the time I didn’t know that constructive dismissal was a thing. I was at a disadvantage because I didn’t know the game that was being played.
When an employer wishes to no longer employ you but can’t terminate and won’t lay off, there’s another option: constructive dismissal. The aim of a constructive dismissal is to coerce you into quitting by making the job and work conditions miserable.
“Constructive dismissal” is a legal term and “constructive” in a legal sense doesn’t mean helpful. Without going deep into nuance, “constructive dismissal” means that the employer created a situation so adverse that the employee was forced to quit and, for the purpose of applying law, the situation should be viewed as a non-voluntary dismissal.
It was a Thursday afternoon in November. In a meeting I mentioned a known technical issue. The highest ranking participant in the meeting, an executive, angrily interrupted repeating “That’s not true! That’s not true!” I was shocked. He was calling me a liar. The issue wasn’t speculative or subjective. There was hard data. Everyone else in the room and most of the organization knew about this issue. Had the issue been misrepresented to him or was it possible he didn’t know about it at all? It wasn’t a great moment but I followed up via email after the meeting and things seemed resolved. I thought that was the end of it.
A week and a day later, I was informed that the executive had reported me to HR for being disrespectful. That was the opening of the constructive dismissal campaign. The manager that I directly reported to, ran point. HR played a supporting role. The executive kept his distance, as if none of it had anything to do with him.
My manager had been a friendly and trusted colleague. In the past he had shared disparaging stories about the executive. He delivered the news of the executive’s report. At first I was incredulous. I had spoken a truth and the executive had responded by being rude and insulting and now was saying that I had been disrespectful. I expressed my disbelief of the situation. I used words that were informal and unprofessional but within our norms. He made it clear that my expression was now unacceptable. For good measure after the discussion, he wrote me up for not being respectful enough when I was told I had been disrespectful.
Business are generally not democracies. The executive wanted me gone from the company and that’s a decision that was his to make. I don’t contest that. The problem is in the implementation.
The company had a zero tolerance anti-harassment policy, a conflict resolution policy, and an ethics agreement that all employees had to sign. There wasn’t a clause in the anti-harassment policy that said zero tolerance except when the harassment is company sponsored. The conflict resolution policy didn’t have an opt-out. The ethics agreement didn’t state that some employees are more equal than others. Yet I was not protected by these policies and the executive was not bound by these policies.
Constructive dismissal is intrinsically dishonest, degrading, and disrespectful. Even if a person is a star performer, the calculation where that one person is so valuable that the company destroys its integrity, fairness, good governance, and reputation to enable and abet that person’s retribution would seem strange. Except the potential costs hardly ever come due. Constructive dismissal is covert and thrives in the shadows.
Open discussion illuminates.
I want you to be forewarned if you didn’t know about constructive dismissal. If you have suffered from a constructive dismissal, I want my example to give you the resolve to tell your story.