Return from maternity leave - employer gave role to maternity cover

BabyBoots

Hello, I'm looking for advice on behalf of a friend. She is due to return from maternity leave in a couple of months. Her employer recruited someone else as maternity cover for her role.

The employer has told my friend that the cover person will now have her existing job, and my friend will have a new role on her return. The new role has been newly created - no-one is currently performing this role. My friend's current role is a product manager for an academic subject, which my friend has a related degree in and has previously taught. The proposed role for her is to be product manager for two different academic subjects, which she has no experience of.

I don't think they can effectively give her job to someone else, but they have told her the role she is returning to is the same, still product manager, just in a different subject. The newly created role is for 50% one subject and 50% another, which sounds to me like the kind of made up role you'd strike off first if you needed to reduce headcount.

Is that they're proposing legal? I thought you can't just give someone's job to someone else while they're on maternity leave. Does anyone know the relevant bit of legislation to look at?

Any

Returning to work

Employees have the right to return to their job if they take:

• Ordinary Maternity or Ordinary Adoption leave
• Ordinary Paternity Leave
• Additional Paternity Leave
• 4 weeks or less of parental leave

The rules are different if the employee takes:

• Additional Maternity or Additional Adoption Leave
• more than 4 weeks of parental leave

In this situation, employees have the right to their job or a similar job (if it’s not possible to give them their old job). Similar means the job has the same or better terms and conditions. If the employee unreasonably refuses to take the similar job the employer can take this as their resignation.

linky https://www.gov.uk/employee-rights-when-on-leave

Depends how long has she been off for... but yes, in certain circumstances the employer has a right to do business in teh best way possible and does not have to keep exactly the same job for person who is off for prolonged period of time...

The question is how long have your friend been off?

Any

Statutory Maternity Leave

Eligible employees can take up to 52 weeks maternity leave. The first 26 weeks is known as ‘Ordinary Maternity Leave’, the last 26 weeks as ‘Additional Maternity Leave’.

LannieDuck

Agreed with above poster, it depends how much mat leave your friend took. If she only took OML, she has a right to have the exact same job back. If she also took AML, her employers have the right to return her to an equivalent post.

BabyBoots

I'm surprised it's allowed, but thanks for clarifying. She has taken 9 months off, so I see why they are able to offer her a similar, rather than the same role.

Intuitively it seems wrong that her current job is still in existence, but she has no right to it back, even though she's been there so long, and the replacement has only been covering for 9 months.

Takeaway_Addict

BabyBoots wrote: »

I'm surprised it's allowed, but thanks for clarifying. She has taken 9 months off, so I see why they are able to offer her a similar, rather than the same role.

Intuitively it seems wrong that her current job is still in existence, but she has no right to it back, even though she's been there so long, and the replacement has only been covering for 9 months.

She should have known the conditions of maternity leave when she took it....

She did have a right to it back as mentioned but only to a certain amount of time. Businesses need to run efficiently as possible and in limbo as minimal amount of time as possible.