The good old days? What has my career taught me about respect in the workplace

Everyone within an academic community deserves to be treated with respect and dignity by other members of that community. The community may be within one institution or involve several institutions and organisations, for example: the community of partners working together on a research project; students and supervisory staff involved in placements based in external companies; anyone in the process of publishing results from research, including the publishing company, peer reviewers and the research funders. The members of the community may include academic staff, administrators, researchers and research assistants, at various stages of their careers, representatives from external organisations and students.

For various reasons there are times when individuals are not afforded the respect due to them, which can lead to unfair outcomes and feelings of injustice.

It could involve bullying or harassment by a supervisor, line manager or colleague. Sometimes people are not given due credit for their efforts or credit for their work is claimed by someone who did not contribute to it. It may be that false allegations have been raised about their own conduct by someone intent on discrediting them or diminishing their influence and achievements. Considering my long career in academia and in other contexts, all these things have happened to me.

In the early days, being a female computer scientist in a man’s world, starting my first job as a computer programmer in 1970, it was very common to face blatant discrimination and not be taken seriously. It was taken for granted that male colleagues, usually married, would “make passes” and indecent comments to and about female staff, which would now be called sexual harassment.

Any reaction from the victim would intensify the barrage of banter, so it was generally advised to try to ignore it, there was no point in complaining, it would not be considered worthy of any action.

Later in my career, I worked as a teacher in several secondary schools and further education before moving to a university lecturing post in 1990. My earlier experiences in industry and then working as a minority female teacher in a boys’ grammar school, served me well in higher education. I had developed quite a “thick skin” by that point and became adept at defending myself, both physically and verbally. The challenges I faced from that time were different, by then there was more acceptance of the need for equality and more obvious ways of complaining when this was not the case. The aggressions were not just males targeting females – one of the worst perpetrators was a female senior manager, who often lost the plot and randomly unjustly publicly humiliated whoever happened to be in the firing line, including several male colleagues and me on one occasion. Again, fighting back would have been futile, it would have only escalated the uncontrolled rage.

However, arguing back and complaining was sometimes the right thing to do, but it could be difficult, for example, when a catalogue of lies spun by one colleague, was not challenged by other colleagues, who were duly rewarded with fun expenses-paid overseas trips in return for their misplaced loyalty.

At the time, being harassed, bullied or unfairly accused was a pretty devastating situation to face. Several of the aggressors, including the very senior female bully, appear to have escaped unscathed, by changing their jobs whenever things started to get uncomfortable for them. The inappropriate conduct of most of those people was also affecting the lives and well-being of several other colleagues. Eventually almost all of them had to account in some way for their actions and they all moved on. Sometimes they departed under pressure, but occasionally, they were rewarded with a good reference or financial settlement to persuade them to leave, together with a non-disclosure agreement.

Despite all the dreadful things I witnessed and experienced personally over the years, nobody was every dismissed or seriously reprimanded for unethical or inappropriate conduct.

I’m delighted to say that I’m no longer under any threat at work or otherwise. I’ve been very happily supported by colleagues, managers, friends and family for many years now. In return, I’ve been able to pass on some of my well-earned wisdom to many hundreds of colleagues and thousands of students over the years and hope to continue to contribute for a few more years.

So, what is the point of sharing my history with you? Well, at times I would have greatly welcomed an independent friend, a shoulder to cry on, an opportunity to explain the injustice I was facing, without prejudice, and to receive objective advice from someone who could empathise and appreciate the pressures I was facing, to give me strength and direction to keep on fighting for what I knew was right.

With that in mind, I would like to highlight the new FAITH /ENAI victim support portal – this service is now available for anyone to access and use. I am one of the mentors that can help people who engage with the portal and share their problems. My highly respectable fellow mentors come from a range of backgrounds and disciplines and bring a wide array of valuable experiences and personal histories, to help to guide and advise anyone with a problem who accesses the portal.

We can’t promise that everyone will be given a ready-made solution – the problems we have considered so far have been complex and multi-faceted.

However, we can promise that we will take care to consider your case very seriously. We will be objective and non-judgmental about how we frame our recommendations. Most importantly, we will preserve your privacy and confidentiality.

So, if you have any problems related to research integrity, academic integrity or ethics that we can help you with, please don’t hesitate to make use of the FAITH portal.