Redundancy on maternity leave! Please can you give some adive?

mabell1 · 3 January 2018 at 10:31PM

My wife went on maternity leave in Sept 2017. In November 2017 she received a letter to meet up with her boss. It was at this meeting that it was revealed that her job may be up for redundancy.

A bit of info...
- She has worked at the company for 22 months.
- There are 3 people in her company who currently do the same job as my wife (lets call these person A and person

. 1 of these roles is going.
- Person A is covering my wife's maternity leave.

We have since received another letter telling my wife that she is to attend a competency based interview with her manager and 2 directors. We have a very strong feeling that my wife is going to be selected for redundancy (although we have no hard evidence).

Our questions are...

1. Does my wife have to attend this interview? She is on maternity leave and we feel that she would be at a disadvantage due to being out of the work environment. We also feel an interview is not suitable as she would have a baby with her (I work full time, baby is breast fed and no child care is available). Is an interview fair in these circumstances?

2. Secondly do we have any rights? I am aware that they have to try and find another position for a redundant person on maternity leave by it is my understanding that they only have to do this if the person has worked there for 2 years or more. Is this correct?

3. Can anyone please advise the best course of action?

We are trying to be realistic so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Matt and Jo

nimbo · 4 January 2018 at 10:31AM

I’m not an expert in this and while I recognise it may be a ball ache. I’d personally advise you take a day of leave to baby sit for the hour or so your wife needs to do the interview. (Although to be fair I shouldn't refer to baby sitting your own child). You and baby could travel with her so if baby needed feeding as soon after the interview as she was available then this could happen. If it were first thing then you could maybe just go to work a little late. Most bosses are sympathetic to issues such as this and if you asked for a few hours of flexibility they may be able to support you and your wife with this.

Even if you think she had been ‘pre’ selected - she needs the best chance she has to get through the interview. Turning up with a babe in arms is automatically disadvantaging her. I know i’m Not the employment guru - but let your wife do what she can to keep the job if she wishes to - support her with the interview at the least. It may not be that she has been pre selected - but it would be really hard to make a case to keep someone in employment who brings a child to the interview.

If she were to be made redundant she would also need a reference. Turning up with a baby on her nipple would not project professionalism. I’m not sure how a Reference stating she bought a baby to an interview would go down if she needed to look for another job. (References have to be factually correct - and if she did that then it would be).

I hope it goes well for her.

silvercar · 4 January 2018 at 12:49PM

http://www.acas.org.uk/media/pdf/r/f/Managing-redundancy-for-pregnant-employees-or-those-on-maternity-leave-accessible-version.pdf

Redundancy on maternity leave! Please can you give some adive?

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