When you work for a Texas employer, you have a right to call attention to violations that occur within your place of business. You also have protections in place, should you decide to exercise a protected right. Some of these protections prevent your employer from taking retaliatory action against you for speaking out about wrongdoing at work.
Per the Ethics & Compliance Initiative, retaliation that occurs in a particular workplace is detrimental to those who work there and often creates an atmosphere of fear. Workplace retaliation takes on many forms, and some are more obvious than others. Subtle retaliatory tactics may be harder to identify, but many such subtle actions still constitute retaliation. Some subtle retaliation tactics you may want to watch out for after speaking out about wrongdoing taking place in your work environment are as follows.
Verbal harassment
Even if an employer does not verbally harass you directly, his or her actions may still fall under the retaliation umbrella. If your employer speaks ill of you to someone else while you are in earshot, this may still count as workplace retaliation. In some cases, your employer may try to mask such harassment by positioning it as a joke.
Nonverbal harassment
Your employer may take subtle adverse action against you in other, nonverbal ways, too. Everything from rolling his or her eyes when you speak to shaking his or her head or even ignoring you when you walk into a room or speak up may count as retaliatory behavior.
Your employer may also take subtle retaliatory action against you by ignoring your professional input, spreading rumors about you, or purposefully keeping you from company events, among other examples.
