Company relocation during Maternity Leave

journosam

My partner is due to go on Maternity Leave from the start of March to end of November, 2025. She has been told off the record that the company is planning to relocate in the summer to a location that would double her daily commute and she wouldn't want to go with them because of this. This has not yet been put in writing to staff but could be in the coming weeks. 

At the moment, she is not telling anyone of her plans to leave post-maternity for obvious reasons. The current plan is for her to start job hunting in October time.

How does this situation affect her rights? How should she navigate this situation in order to maximize financial certainty and minimize time spent without income? When should she inform the employer of her plans?

Any advice would be most welcome. I suspect her employer will be annoyed and feel mislead but we don't see any other choices. She can't get a new job now and forgo maternity pay. 

For context, she is a full-time employee. The company is small and gives the minimum required employment rights in most cases. Her current commute is 30 minutes each way but this would be over an hour each way in the new location. 

elsien

 Until the employer confirms what the plans are, I’m really not sure there’s much that you can do.
She  just needs to sit tight, wait for any announcements and decide then what action she wants to take. She’s under no obligation to inform anyone about her plans until she’s ready to return from maternity leave anyway. 

Anything more than that at the moment it is just speculation. 

El_Torro

An employee can accept redundancy rather than accept a new location of work. This depends on what it says in her contract and whether the new commute is considered reasonable or not. I'm not sure if a 1 hour commute would be enough reason to be eligible for redundancy. 

If she is already on maternity leave when made redundant then I believe that she should still be paid the rest of her maternity pay. I might be wrong on this though. 

I suggest contacting Acas as they can give a good idea on this situation. 

Savvy_Sue

Agree, until there is something definite on the table, then she need do nothing. 

And her employer can feel as annoyed and misled as they like: lots of people change their mind about when and whether to return to work post-baby. 

Marcon

journosam said:

My partner is due to go on Maternity Leave from the start of March to end of November, 2025. She has been told off the record that the company is planning to relocate in the summer to a location that would double her daily commute and she wouldn't want to go with them because of this. This has not yet been put in writing to staff but could be in the coming weeks. 

At the moment, she is not telling anyone of her plans to leave post-maternity for obvious reasons. The current plan is for her to start job hunting in October time.

How does this situation affect her rights? How should she navigate this situation in order to maximize financial certainty and minimize time spent without income? When should she inform the employer of her plans?

Any advice would be most welcome. I suspect her employer will be annoyed and feel mislead but we don't see any other choices. She can't get a new job now and forgo maternity pay. 

For context, she is a full-time employee. The company is small and gives the minimum required employment rights in most cases. Her current commute is 30 minutes each way but this would be over an hour each way in the new location. 

See https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/maternity-and-parental-rights/check-your-maternity-and-parental-rights/maternity-leave-and-pay/maternity-leave-your-options-when-it-ends/#:~:text=If%20you%20decide%20not%20to%20go%20back%20to%20your%20job,you%20were%20on%20maternity%20leave.

and 

https://pregnantthenscrewed.com/ is a mine of useful information!

DullGreyGuy

How long has she been working for them? Over 2 years to have rights to redundancy? 

Have you checked the contract to see if there is a mobility clause?

Ultimately you need to wait until there is some form of notice and what the offer is. There is no point pre-empting the official announcement. 

Years ago I accepted an internal move to a place that was difficult to get to for me because the head of location strategy had assured me that in 6 months they'd be relocating into the office which I was currently working in. Sure enough after 3 months the move was announced but our MD fought against it tooth and nail. Disappointingly 6 weeks later they announced the move had been cancelled. Very annoyingly a month later the MD announced he was going overseas to head-up starting a new branch/operations there and so by the time the 6 months were over he'd already left and I was stuck with a painful commute. 

Undervalued

journosam said:

My partner is due to go on Maternity Leave from the start of March to end of November, 2025. She has been told off the record that the company is planning to relocate in the summer to a location that would double her daily commute and she wouldn't want to go with them because of this. This has not yet been put in writing to staff but could be in the coming weeks. 

At the moment, she is not telling anyone of her plans to leave post-maternity for obvious reasons. The current plan is for her to start job hunting in October time.

How does this situation affect her rights? How should she navigate this situation in order to maximize financial certainty and minimize time spent without income? When should she inform the employer of her plans?

Any advice would be most welcome. I suspect her employer will be annoyed and feel mislead but we don't see any other choices. She can't get a new job now and forgo maternity pay. 

For context, she is a full-time employee. The company is small and gives the minimum required employment rights in most cases. Her current commute is 30 minutes each way but this would be over an hour each way in the new location. 

She has no more and no less rights in respect of the relocation because she will be on maternity leave. Business needs change and companies move or merge offices all the time

Almost any well drafted employment contract will have some degree of mobility clause. It is unlikely that an employment tribunal would find a 30 min commute increasing to an hour to be unreasonable. 

Andy_L

Is she getting statutory maternity or better than statutory contractual mat pay?

If its the latter then there's often a claw back clause that says anything better than stat has to be repaid if you don't return/leave soon after returning which could influence how she handles relocation

RAS

My workplace required staff to return to work if they wanted to keep their full maternity pay entitlement. Although it wasn't for long.

In practice HR would often negotiate a deal that allowed them to give notice without penalty if they planned to leave. Particularly if there was some re-organisation planned, so that they could start organising a replacement, or explore continuity if someone had acted up.