Have you ever made a formal complaint about a lazy or dishonest coworker to management at work? (employee, interviews)
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When I think back at all the jobs I have held through the years, there is one constant: my coworkers loved to complain to each other about the fellow employees and managers.
But I can not remember many examples where someone successfully went to Management or Human Resources and made a formal complaint. When coworkers went to me and gossiped and complained about employees and managers I would always say, "why are you telling me this if they are really so bad to make a formal complaint!" But they never did.
If the fellow employee or manager is really that bad, shouldn't they be called to the carpet and a dedicated employee should make a formal complaint? Right?
Have you ever made a formal complaint about a lazy or dishonest coworker to management at work? Tell us more!
I don't know how "formal" the complaint was, but we had a guy taking hour long smoke breaks, and knew the details of virtually every car on the lot. We were basically covered up from starting to quitting time. I brought it up to our manager, who was at HQ in another part of the country. He was eventually terminated.
I have never filed such a thing, but I have had a few filed against me by staff with an axe to grind. Each time the investigation was thorough, annoying, and took considerable time from many people. Each time the investigation found that the complaint was groundless.
I had a boss that was demanding I do things that the company said were not in my job description, think demanding unpaid overtime, demanding I ask permission to leave at my company specified quitting time, do her personal Facebook page at work for her, etc. I went to my bosses boss who told me no, I didn't have to do this it was against company policy. Big boss then talked to my boss and said stop. My boss got upset and retaliated and said no one tells her what to do not even her boss. The company allowed this. I quit. My old boss is still there. We had no HR, I did email my bosses boss and the CEO as a paper trail. Whatever one does, have good evidence before one goes to complain or this is ignored.
We had a few at my old job. I had one who wanted me to falsify documents because she had not processed them timely and I sent that to my supervisor/manager immediately. My understanding was that numerous employees complained about that person and somehow she still has a job. No one gets it.
I also had a few other coworkers who simply weren’t doing their work. I had to participate in the investigation for one to get her to admit she had falsified information and lied about doing the work. Talk about awkward. However, her lies were extremely extensive and she had fooled the entire office into thinking she’d done work that was pretty important with strict deadlines. Thankfully they were able to get it worked out.
When I think back at all the jobs I have held through the years, there is one constant: my coworkers loved to complain to each other about the fellow employees and managers.
But I can not remember many examples where someone successfully went to Management or Human Resources and made a formal complaint. When coworkers went to me and gossiped and complained about employees and managers I would always say, "why are you telling me this if they are really so bad to make a formal complaint!" But they never did.
If the fellow employee or manager is really that bad, shouldn't they be called to the carpet and a dedicated employee should make a formal complaint? Right?
Have you ever made a formal complaint about a lazy or dishonest coworker to management at work? Tell us more!
Actually yes and more than once on more than one job.
It helps if other people also join in with theirs otherwise HR just thinks it is one person complaining. It is vital to document every incident.
In one case I and most of a very solid crew wrote in about a very bad GM. We wound up having interviews with the Regional and that GM was reassigned as an assistant in another location.
In another case it was a long long battle. It required a lot of documenting of incidents by a lot of people. I had 5 years of a really horrible work situation which I stuck out because I really love my job and it is a small niche job market so not that easy to just leave. The person in question was abusive and manipulative probably Borderline personality or a psychopath. It did eventually lead to multiple interviews with HR and the head of our department before the person was removed from management/demoted. The person continued to cause trouble and eventually made a huge mistake that cost them their job. Things are much better now.
It can be done but it has to be done as a team by people who have proven their value to the employer enough that they will stop and listen. Even then it takes some time. Again. Documentation is very important.
Most people don't bother to make a formal complaint because they are afraid of losing their job, being marked as the trouble maker instead of being taken seriously and listened to. Which is why it took quite a long time in the last case I mentioned to get enough people on board to actually accomplish anything.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Not me, but as a manager I have had people reporting to me that made formal complaints. Non were dishonesty, all were related to the person's "failures" in the performance of their duties. In the end the investigations showed them to all be nothing more than personality conflicts, so we went to HR who arranged for outside mediation between the accused and accuser.
When I think back at all the jobs I have held through the years, there is one constant: my coworkers loved to complain to each other about the fellow employees and managers.
But I can not remember many examples where someone successfully went to Management or Human Resources and made a formal complaint. When coworkers went to me and gossiped and complained about employees and managers I would always say, "why are you telling me this if they are really so bad to make a formal complaint!" But they never did.
If the fellow employee or manager is really that bad, shouldn't they be called to the carpet and a dedicated employee should make a formal complaint? Right?
Have you ever made a formal complaint about a lazy or dishonest coworker to management at work? Tell us more!
Nope, not a one at the current place. Mainly as my supervisor won't tolerate lazy workers or liars and gets them removed. It's quite refreshing from the past where they'd "move" the person to either a different shift or office.....
I don't ever want to be the one guy who lodges some kind of complaint against someone else. If I'm the only ones who's unhappy, there's far too much chance that it'll blow up in my face. If they're really that big of a problem, then several people should be speaking up, and I'm happy to lend weight to credible allegations.
At my last job, there was a guy who was such a problem I had to go to program management and give them a sort of "It's him or me" speech. He was actively looking, and I wasn't actually going to refuse to do my job over it. But nothing positive came of my going to them... he wasn't fired, my morale was in the dumps, the morale of the whole team was suffering partly because he was so difficult to work with but also because our inability to work together spilled out. Ultimately, I quit when I was offered my current job, actually after this guy had left. In retrospect, seeing that management knew about his issues (and had been specifically warned about him when they took him on), I should never have said a peep... I should have just started looking for a new job then, rather than after seeing animosity and negativity build up.
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