After blowing the whistle on dangerous, illegal or unethical aspects of a business’s practices, many employees may fear retaliatory behaviors and actions.
Although the law prevents these actions, that does not mean they do not happen. Thus, it is important to recognize red flags if they appear.
Small changes to scheduling
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission discusses potential signs of retaliation against a worker. Many of these red flags will appear in subtle ways at first, as most employers know they cannot take direct and obvious action or they risk more trouble with the law.
Thus, many will start with things that inconvenience a person but do not necessarily seem out of place. This can include changing a worker’s shift to a less desirable one, changing their hours, cutting shifts and so on. If these changes all happen at once or continue indefinitely, it might be a sign of retaliation.
Icing a worker out
“The silent treatment” is also another method that some employers may use in an attempt to freeze a worker out of the company environment. They may encourage other workers to avoid the target, leading to them getting ostracized from company activities or even simple conversations.
Finally, they may start making more obvious moves such as giving overly-negative performance reviews for little or no reason or even refusing to give a target the opportunities that they would otherwise be great candidates for.
Any of these actions could fall under retaliatory behavior, and would thus be something that a person could take action against.
