Redundancy & Preferential Treatment Maternity 11 September 2020 at 3:37PM in Redundancy & redundancy planning 1 reply 111 views

nclann

I currently work for a company that has announced redundancies for over 200 staff across the UK and has implemented the collective redundancy process.

The new structure for our particular office proposes the removal of several staff at various grades, i.e. office administrators, managers etc to be replaced by two newly created positions called Business Co-Ordinators with a salary band of £22-24k

Those staff who are on the at-risk list have the option to apply for these two new positions.

We have a member of staff who was off on maternity leave when the redundancies were announced – her position was a manager grade with a salary band of £30k

It has been alluded to that she is automatically entitled to one of the Business Coordinator roles because she has been off on maternity even though there are other staff who are far better qualified to perform the role and who would score higher in any job selection test.

I understand that if there was similar role to her current position of manager then she is entitled to be offered it but the new roles are significantly lower paid and not of the same “status”

Please can anyone advise if she is 'entitled' to be automatically given on of the positions over anyone else because of her maternity leave and if so, does it have to be at her current salary of £30 event though the new roles have been designated at £22-24k

Thank you

avawat20

A suitable alternative role cannot be detrimental in terms of salary and location etc. So not necessarily however, if your organisation offers some kind of pay protection then it could be deemed suitable. Look at ACAS for guidance around this.