Chain of Command Issues

I just had an event occur to someone close to me with their chain of command and now i have this question.

should you be forced to speak to your direct supervisor that you believe is mistreating you and discriminating against you before informing the HR department? Is it legal to reprimand someone for "not utilizing the chain of command" for wanting to seek a third party intervention because of fear of reprimand in the first place?

I guess i don't understand civilian chain of command rules. My only experience is from the military where lowest level possible was preached but there was always a way to report a grievance by skipping one link. I guess because there was about 20 or more levels to the chain it would be able to handle this situations and the one in which the issue occurred only has 3 or 4 its different. Seems to me this is a serious abuse of chain of command and also unnecessary punishment. Please give me some feedback I would like to know if getting a lawyer is necessary.

a reply to: TexasSeabee

I think the nature of the mistreatment would be important. If it's somewhat minor a company may prefer their employees to try to work out their problems with each other before going to HR. However in the case of something more serious, like sexual harrassment, I would think jumping to higher links would definately be more appropriate.

I would not hesitate to consult one at least. One should not be reprimanded for reporting a problem. Something wrong there. Sounds like the buddy system protecting the supervisor. Al HR should do is investigate, it does not automatically hurt his job to be accused of something, they need to find if it true first. Sounds like a complete failure to investigate and discredit the accuser. They also should not fail to investigate the accusations on the supervisor. If nothing was done on that end i would think there is a case.

You don't state the circumstances here so it's difficult to respond accurately. On the one hand you have the serious issue, as mentioned above, and on the other hand you have the trivial. It is not wrong to suggest you try to "work it out" with your superior first. It's very disruptive for someone to run to the "Uber Boss" if their superior looks at them funny. I've seen this happen when an employee decides their "feeling" are hurt, so off they run to Mommy.

well its not minor. i don’t want to give too much information in case it does become something larger. This is a police department for starters and the supervisor neglects the officers authority on issues in which they are in charge of basically rendering any decisions made nullified. this supervisor shows favouritism to male officers, and many more things of that nature. It has been noticed by most at the department. this is not a "run to mommy" type of situation otherwise i would not be asking about legal actions, i would tell them to suck it up.

The supervisor in question is also in trouble himself and on "probation". I believe he is taking out things on the other party because he see them as not an important individual and taking up payroll for more patrol officers and a raise for himself since he was supposed to be a captain and is only a lieutenant. As soon as the individual talked to HR the supervisor went to the Chief and filed a bunch of equipment due to negligence and misuse complaints and had the officer put on probation. and the cheif stated this was before the complaint so it stands and is not "payback".

a reply to: TexasSeabee

Agree with eeyipes on this one - if it's something minor, then chances are the company would rather you and Person X resolve it yourselves. That's how it was done at my previous company; my manager and myself really didn't get along too well (he would say comments in a negative context when I didn't even deserve them, complain about how I didn't get my work done when it wasn't done his way, say things that are low morale comments in general). In my case, I finally snapped, and said out loud that I was not appreciating the comments, and we solved our issues out in a private room. Added bonus was I got him as close to an apology that he would go.

Most companies nowadays have a way for you to report the issue anonymously; in my case, I can go to the HR, or through an anonymous hotline (not to mention another O'Brien-like person, who's job is to find out what is going on in the company).

In Short: If it's something minor, you can either go to the person's boss, or try to solve it out on your own - something major (corrupt manager, assault, threats, etc), take it to a higher level.

-fossilera

Thank you so much for the replies I really do appreciate you taking the time to give me your input.