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It is not unreasonable to expect to be treated fairly at work. However, it can be difficult to define what is considered fair and Unfair Treatment
At the most basic level, it simply means being treated like a person. That means your bosses and colleagues should be friendly and helpful toward you, just as you should to others. However, a fair environment is much more than that.
It also covers the opportunity for a pay rise, all employees should have this. They should also be able to get promotions and other opportunities within the company. For example, an employee that performs well can expect promotion opportunities.
If you are being unfairly treated at work you are likely to suffer from reduced morale. This can lead to performance issues and even depression. In turn, this is likely to give your employer an apparently genuine reason to fire you.
At this stage, you’ll need to speak to an unfair dismissal lawyer quickly to potentially register a claim for unfair dismissal. After all, if the employer and the company’s actions resulted in your behavioural changes and these led to your firing, they are at fault.
What Is Unfair Treatment?
In basic terms, it is being treated differently from everyone else. There are the more obvious cases where someone is treated differently because they have a different ethnic background or because they have a disability.
Discriminating against anyone due to race, religion, colour, nationality, or sexual orientation is automatically unfair.
But, that’s not all. You can also be discriminated against if you are harassed by other staff, or you are not given the same opportunities as everyone else. For example:
- Having false rumours spread about you
- Being overlooked for promotion due to skin colour, sex, or another protected characteristic
- Posting offensive things about an employee or colleague to social media
- Paying lower wages to women when doing the same job as men
- Replacing older workers with young ones, especially if they are cheaper
- This is just a few of the ways you can be unfairly treated at work.
What To Do
If you feel that you are being unfairly treated then take a moment to pause and review how you are being treated and how others are being treated. A good employer treats everyone in the same way, if you don’t feel that is happening you need to take action.
Start by documenting your issues and making a note of when specific events happened. If there is a paper trail of the unfair treatment then keep the information.
It is then advisable to see an unfair dismissal lawyer, even if you haven’t yet been dismissed. They will confirm that you have been unfairly treated and help you take the next steps.
With your documentation, you’ll need to contact your supervisor or the person above them and request a meeting. You can then present your feelings and the evidence you have collected. It’s possible to use this to help stop the unfair treatment. This will depend on how far up the management structure you need to go.
In some cases, the only option will be to quit. In this instance you can use the evidence to get a better severance package, helping you to move onto a better employer.
