Returning to work from Maternity leave and major issues advice needed!!

Britneys_Firefly

Hi, I'm hoping someone on here can help as I'm in a but of a sticky situation and need advice ASAP
Eariler on this week I returned to my work place for a conversation with my boss about my plans for returning to work from maternity. Because I am a single mum with very little family help on offer my flexiable working request on my old hours was significantly less
I was basically told that my old position no longer existed due to a huge department shake up recently taken place and the need for part time/casual staff was small to none.
Basically with this reverlation it is looking like I won't be returning and I will be a stay at home mum. My boss then brought in an option of a 'golden handshake' style deal (to persuade me to go!)
I was wondering if anyone who knows about this sort of thing can advise as to how much I can expect from this? Because I was previously a full time employee I have also accrued hoilday pay. From last September. Could I ask for this pay as well as any golden handshake deal that is offered to me?

Thanking you all in advance

Millie321

You need to speak to ACAS as your boss has acted against the laws, and clearly knows it by offering you a payoff.

You'll be able to see in your contract what a 'redundancy' pay should be. But firstly you need to know that whilst on maternity leave they cannot make any changes to your job. Only upon your return to work, can they go through the redundancy process with you or discuss changes of hours etc.

Your application to flexible working is aside from that. and they should answer either a yes or a no to it, but the no needs to be backed up with some very valid reasons.

Hope this helps, and definitely call ACAS before you decide what to do!

SarEl

Millie321 wrote: »

You need to speak to ACAS as your boss has acted against the laws, and clearly knows it by offering you a payoff.

How do you deduce that? That OP's right is to return to her full-time job or to a suitable alternative on the same pay and conditions and hours if that is not possible. The OP has asked for a change in her position and the employer has said that there is no such position available. None of that gives a definitive view that the boss has done anything wrong at all.

It is absolutely untrue that whilst on maternity leave an employer can make no changes to your job at all - total fiction. And it is equally a fiction that they cannot discuss changes in hours before you return - most women negitiate changes in hours before they return.

Britneys_Firefly

Hi
I have asked for a change of hours but not a change in position, sorry if it came across as this

The situation is that my job and hours has been spit into two chunks for two other members of staff to increase there hours, both have job roles in my department, these roles are new. My job in the way of how I left it (35 hours per week, box office assistant) is no longer there, if I could work it out to go back it would be box office assistant + something else, with a decrease of hours

Millie321

i've just been through this myself. They cannot change your job until you return. Redundancies were made whilst i was on mat leave. Mine had to remain open until i returned. Then on my first day of returning they could start the ball rolling with redundancy if they wanted to. I took advice from ACAS on this matter.

Yes the employee can and should request a change of hours before return but the employer can't.

Britneys-firefly, speak to ACAS because i'm certain they were in the wrong to get rid of your job like that whilst you were on leave.

good luck!

fannyadams

So if I read this right, technically if your job is not there for your to return to (what your boss said) then your position has been made redundant and you should get redundancy pay???
have a look here:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/index.htm
there might be some stuff that's useful...

SarEl

The employer is obliged to allow you to return either to your job or to a suitable alternative position if that job is redundant - this means the same pay, hours and conditions. As soon as you ask for a change in hours it is you that opens the Pandora's box because you are asking for something different that your legal right. So the right the employer must observe is the return to full-time hours in your job or one that is a suitable alternative if that genuinely does not exist any more. Given that I don't have details of exactly what has happened in the "shake up" then it is hard to determine an accurate answer - if your job has simply been carved up and given to others, and there have been no other changes in the department, then this would lend itself to the conclusion that the employer may have acted unlawfully - but it still wouldn't be 100% conclusive. It is, contrary to myth, possible to make a post redundant whilst someone is on maternity leave - but the employer has to be very, very careful because this opens possible claims of sex discrimination in addition to unfair dismissal.

But the request to vary hours definitely opens up possibilities of the employer being able to justify on business grounds the lack of a suitable position being available.

Personally, I think it may be worth taking legal advice before you come to any conclusion. Most solicitors will offer a free introductory session, or if you check your insurance policies then you may find that you have some legal cover. I would defintely advise this instead of ACAS - I regret their telephone service is not as good as it ought to be. You may be lucky and have a Law centre nearby - or possibly CAB have legal advisors (ask for a referral to a legal advisor - not one of their staff: their staff are great at a lot of things but unless they have a legally qualified person on staff - and few do - employment law of this type is not their forte).

SarEl

Millie321 wrote: »

i've just been through this myself. They cannot change your job until you return. Redundancies were made whilst i was on mat leave. Mine had to remain open until i returned. Then on my first day of returning they could start the ball rolling with redundancy if they wanted to. I took advice from ACAS on this matter.

Yes the employee can and should request a change of hours before return but the employer can't.

Britneys-firefly, speak to ACAS because i'm certain they were in the wrong to get rid of your job like that whilst you were on leave.

good luck!

Then the ACAS advice was wrong. Redundancies can be made whilst someone is on maternity leave - the right is to return to your job or to a suitable alternative if that is not available. And even then it is actually quite possible to make someone redundant whilst on maternity leave - some employers have no other choice at all. Are you suggesting an employer has to avoid going bankrupt in order to offer a member of staff their job back? There are many circumstances in which redundancy can happen and does happen - entirely within the law. Just because your employer may have done it wrong does not mean every employer has. And it was the OP who asked for the change of hours, not the employer.

Millie321

yes but the employer had already cut up her job regardless of her request to change of hours.

And yes redundancy can happen, but they have to allow your maternity leave to end, and then start the process, not just drop it into conversation and then offer you a golden handshake.

SarEl

Millie321 wrote: »

yes but the employer had already cut up her job regardless of her request to change of hours. That is your assumption - it is not yet in evidence. The employer has claimed that they have restructured jobs / the department. There is not enough information from the OP to test that claim adequately here - and this is the wrong place to test it. At best we could give informed opinion (or some of us could) on whether such a claim may be valid, and that is why legal advice is the best way to go.

And yes redundancy can happen, but they have to allow your maternity leave to end, and then start the process No they do not. There is nothing unlawful in itself in making someone redundant whilst on maternity leave provided the employer can do so whilst complying with the law. QUOTE]

Your advice on this matter does not conform to the law - it is possible to make someone redundant whilst on maternity leave, and you are asserting misleading assumptions as truth when they are not. If the OP's job has been made redundant - and I do not think it has, but I cannot make such glaring assumptions based on virtually no information - then the fact that the employer has not then made the OP redundant menas that the OP has the right to return to a suitable alternative position on the same pay and conditions as their previous post. That means on the same hours. The issue of whether a flexible working request has been reasonably turned down is entirely separate. The OP has not tested the premise that the employer has not got a suitable alternative for her to return to because she hasn't asked to return to a suitable alternative role because she does not want to work full-time.

This scenerio is increedibly more complicated in law that you appreciate, and it is not helpful to simply keep repeating information which is inaccurate and wrong.

Annisele

From what we know, the "cutting up" of the OP's job isn't necessarily permanent.

I'm currently doing a large part of a colleague's job (he's on extended paternity leave - I have a very enlightened employer!). That means somebody else is doing bits of my job, other people are doing other parts of his job, and about ten of us have had a big switch around. That's because his job actually does need doing - whether he's here or not - but he's the only one of us who can do all of it.

When he comes back, his job will definitely still be there for him.

If there was a law that said you couldn't make somebody redundant while there on maternity leave (there isn't), I'm pretty sure it would be open to challenge on sex discrimination grounds. All the men made redundant while their female colleagues kept safe jobs would rightly be annoyed.