Workplace Inappropriate boss

[J_L33]

My sister works at the bank and feels ostracized by her boss. Apparently, he picks on her a lot and blows things out of proportion when other people get a pass in most (if not all) cases. She feels physically ill and has taken sick days due to this and has signed up for counseling sessions. She also finds it inappropriate that her boss informed her that the reason why he's being very hard on her is because she reminds him of his own daughters. I told her that it could be a manipulation tactic so that he can get away with treating her like crap.

What should she do? I tell her to escalate this to the hierarchy or HR, but my mom is adamant that she doesn't because it would burn bridges. She needs this job to develop further into a career she really wants to work in.

We live in Canada, and she works at one of the Big Five banks, by the way.

 

[kbell]

Your sister is going to have to make that decision on her own.
You are only hearing her side of course, I'm not saying she's not correct, there are just always 2 sides to every story & then
there's the truth.

In my own small office I have hesitated to bring up tardiness to one employee and not to another.
I finally did though because...
a) The person I spoke to is responsible to answer the phone. That means be there when it starts ringing when we open. This person is out the door the second it's 5p.
b) The other person who is consistently tardy is not responsible to answer the phone and skips lunch & stays late almost every single day.
c) I explained to the employee why I was speaking to her about it and not the other party. I'm not a micromanaging boss. If you do your job I leave you alone. A ringing phone I/others have to answer because someone is tardy is a problem. The other persons work doesn't actually need to start right when we open.

She fully understands I was not "picking" on her- but the story could easily be manipulated to make it appear that way.
The same employee and the management had a meeting because she thought I used a different tone with her... which in her defense I sometimes did but in my defense it was because I had to repeat the same things over & over & over & OVER. My tone was not such on the 1st go round or even the 2nd. Completely frustrating. I do not have to repeat things like this with anyone else. Again - it could seem I was picking on her but I was not. We both walked away with a better understanding and things are much better now.

 

[ccbaggirl89]

even though she's family you don't know what type of employee she actually is b/c you're not at work with her every day. even the people closest to us are strangers to us when it comes to their workplaces and what they do/don't do on the job. she might be earning some disapproval from her supervisor b/c of her work performance .... it's impossible to know. tell her to start to document all incidents where she feels 'picked on' b/c before she even goes into HR she'll need some evidence of the treatment she's claiming to receive. that'd be the first step