HR Help! Unfair contract change?

Knittybob

Hi,

I don't know if anyone can help me...
I work at a school in a very part time role (100 hours a year). I was asked if I could help out with an admin role for 10 hours a week and agreed. After starting the job I was told this would be permanent and I would be sent a contract letter in due course. I was then called in a few weeks later to be told that the new headteacher doesn't want the role to be permanent, so they are putting me as a temporary worker instead.

Can they actually do this, as I have already been doing the job and have been told it is permanent?

To make it worse I felt really unwanted and rubbish about it so I have quit, but not sure if there's anything I can do about it now? Don't really want to tell them they have to let me work there again, but also don't want to let them get away with it?!

Any help greatly appreciated.

ohreally

To make it worse I felt really unwanted and rubbish about it so I have quit.

Did you inform them when you resigned that you disagreed with events?

Based on info provided I suspect you've no-where to go with this.

Knittybob

ohreally wrote: »

Did you inform them when you resigned that you disagreed with events?

Based on info provided I suspect you've no-where to go with this.

They knew I was unhappy about it because I wanted permanent, but at the time I didn't think there was anything I could do, because the person in charge had spoken. Since then, someone has suggested to me that they are not actually allowed to change a permanent role to temporary as they did, however I was still waiting for my contract so I don't know...

KatrinaWaves

Knittybob wrote: »

They knew I was unhappy about it because I wanted permanent, but at the time I didn't think there was anything I could do, because the person in charge had spoken. Since then, someone has suggested to me that they are not actually allowed to change a permanent role to temporary as they did, however I was still waiting for my contract so I don't know...

The 'someone' doesnt know what theyre talking about.

There is no such thing as a permanent or temporary role in practice. Any job can be ended. Yes it affords different protections at different points but in the first two years a 'permanent' job can be ended for any reason, so you have thrown this opportunity and your current job away over nothing.

Knittybob

KatrinaWaves wrote: »

The 'someone' doesnt know what theyre talking about.

There is no such thing as a permanent or temporary role in practice. Any job can be ended. Yes it affords different protections at different points but in the first two years a 'permanent' job can be ended for any reason, so you have thrown this opportunity and your current job away over nothing.

The new headteacher decided to review the admin roles so that she could incorporate the 10 hours I was doing into someone else's role, so it was made temporary and I just felt rubbish because I knew any day they were going to say 'thanks we don't need you anymore'. It was not a comfortable feeling going to work knowing that.

If I had remained on a permanent contract and they wanted to do this, surely they would have to make me redundant and then create a new role encompassing the extra work?

KatrinaWaves

The 10 hour role was a new role, yes? So they could have ended it at any time in the first 2 years without redundancy or creating a new role.

I appreciate your feeling of not being wanted, its awful to feel like that and Im sure we've all experienced it in one way or another, but the headteacher is not the school. Im sure the school till value your work and company.

Blatchford

I do wish people would stop listening to "someone". Someone is often wrong. It's almost certain that there would have been nothing you could have done about this change, but the advice might have been different had there been answers to a few questions that we didn't get a chance to ask. But you've resigned. So the questions are irrelevant, and you've burned your bridges, so they won't want you back anyway. Not being quite so impetuous would be good advice. You can't just up and resign the minute something doesn't suit you - there could have been and were better ways to play this, even if you'd still ended up without the job. And there is no guarantee you'd have lost the job anyway.

Knittybob

Blatchford wrote: »

I do wish people would stop listening to "someone". Someone is often wrong. It's almost certain that there would have been nothing you could have done about this change, but the advice might have been different had there been answers to a few questions that we didn't get a chance to ask. But you've resigned. So the questions are irrelevant, and you've burned your bridges, so they won't want you back anyway. Not being quite so impetuous would be good advice. You can't just up and resign the minute something doesn't suit you - there could have been and were better ways to play this, even if you'd still ended up without the job. And there is no guarantee you'd have lost the job anyway.

It's not that it didn't 'suit me' - as I already mentioned, I was told that they would be encompassing the 10 hours into another admin role so there WAS a guarantee that I would have lost the job.

Not sure how I've 'burned bridges' as I currently work there in another role - as stated in my original post.
Not sure why the need to be quite so rude...

General_Grant

Your OP says, "I was asked if I could help out with an admin role for 10 hours a week and agreed." So initially it was to help out and, though quite early on you might have been led to believe it was permanent, you seemed happy enough to take it on on a temporary basis. (At least I would use the phrase "help out" for something other than permanent.) So it is not that different for you than when you first started this secondary role.

I think some other posters will have thought you had burned your bridges because it was not clear that your resignation was just from the newer role rather than the original one in which you are continuing.

You can continue building your relation ship with them.

Knittybob

General_Grant wrote: »

Your OP says, "I was asked if I could help out with an admin role for 10 hours a week and agreed." So initially it was to help out and, though quite early on you might have been led to believe it was permanent, you seemed happy enough to take it on on a temporary basis. (At least I would use the phrase "help out" for something other than permanent.) So it is not that different for you than when you first started this secondary role.

I think some other posters will have thought you had burned your bridges because it was not clear that your resignation was just from the newer role rather than the original one in which you are continuing.

You can continue building your relation ship with them.

It is a bit of a muddle...
They offered me a role, I asked if it was permanent, they said they'd find out and let me know. I started the job, then they told me it was permanent.

KatrinaWaves

Knittybob wrote: »

To make it worse I felt really unwanted and rubbish about it so I have quit, but not sure if there's anything I can do about it now? Don't really want to tell them they have to let me work there again, but also don't want to let them get away with it?!

.

Yes this part in particular certainly made it seem like you had quit working for the school altogether.

if its just the new job, and you are adamant it was being got rid of anyway, you havent lost anything if you continue to work in your old role. You cannot force them to give you this new role.