by Wayne Ramsey

Created on: March 20, 2007   Last Updated: April 17, 2007

Standing alone against your company is sometimes one of the most difficult things to do. However, there come points in time when you have to do what is right, or live with the consequences. One of the biggest fears about standing up against your own company is that your employer will lose trust in you and ultimately you will be fired from your position. While this is an obvious possibility, it is much better than living with sexual harassment, abuse, or whatever else the problem might be.

The reality is that in our modern day of business, many supervisors are extremely sensitive to the needs of their employees. Due to this heightened sensitivity, many are much more willing to work with you to remedy the issue rather than deal with the consequences of ignoring it.

When it comes to the disagreement of a company policy, it is pretty much the same. There is a major difference however. When you are disagreeing with a company policy, you have to make sure that you do it in the appropriate manner. Don't broadcast your disagreement. By doing this, you are creating a negative work environment and essentially creating a riot against the company. If you disagree with the policies of the company, your best bet is to follow your chain of command and speak out against those policies. While you may not accomplish anything with your immediate supervisor, you may eventually be able to make an impression upon someone in the chain. Just make sure that you write down the times and dates that you talk to each level in your chain of command and give them adequate time to react to that conversation. If you skip over members of your supervision, then there will most likely be a backlash towards you for not following protocol.

Depending upon how you go about the questioning of the policy will determine the result. If you do it privately, and keep it amongst yourself and your supervision, then most likely the issue will be resolved privately, possibly resulting in the revocation of that policy. However, if you verbalize what you are doing to your coworkers, then you will most likely face some form of disciplinary action.

If you are fired however, it's not the end of the world. There are plenty of attorneys that would be willing to hear your case for free and will tell you whether or not you could win in a lawsuit against your former employer for wrongful termination. As most employers want to avoid this risk, many will not fire you unless it is creating a negative atmosphere of rebellion throughout the workplace. So if you feel the need to organize, make sure that you do so outside of the workplace, so that the employer has no grounds for termination. If they terminate you, they are violating your right to assemble and take up union. This of course would have great ramifications for the company and could make a pretty good paycheck for yourself.

The big thing to remember is that regardless of how afraid you might be to bring up the topic, it's always better to say something and face up to the potential punishment of doing so than to say nothing at all and have to deal with it for the rest of your time at that company. Just remember that if you do it in the proper manner and leave it between yourself and supervision you are more likely to get the favorable results that you want.

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