I handed my notice in at work in October this year as during my maternity leave there had been a number of issues that made me feel it was impossible for me to return to work for the company. I raised a grievance regarding these issues, the process for which has now finished. The issues in question were:-
- Lack of communication with me during maternity leave regarding changes to my department.
- Secondment of my colleague (only the 2 of us in the team at this higher level) into a newly created Team Leader role to take effect on the date I was originally due to return without informing me of the vacancy or asking if I wished to be considered for it.
- The girl covering my maternity leave was taken on on a permanent basis into my role just 4 months after I went on maternity leave. The level of the role was demoted so they could employ her within it as HR would not allow them to recruit anyone else in at the higher level but she was and is effectively doing the job I was employed to do.
- The company were insisting I return to another job which meant sitting with a different team although they were adamant the role was within my existing team! I argued on this point that the job they were asking me to return to had always sat within the sales team and I felt it was just bits and pieces of other peoples jobs and was not at the level they were saying. At first they were adamant that I did not have the right to return to my old job as I was into AML but I udnerstand I did still have the right 'unless it was not reasonably practicable' and in this case it was 'practicable' except they had given the job to my cover during maternity leave!
Following the grievance process they did reluctantly back down on the alternative job although they were still saying I could return to my old job but with changes although these changes were not clarified. My position was worsened by the fact that since I had gone on maternity leave there was a new manager in place whom I had never worked for but during meetings I had with him I found him to be aggressive when I challenged why I hadn't been informed of changes, and I found him very evasive when replying to any e-mails asking direct questions regarding flexible working. At no point did I get a direct answer out of him. I felt at this point that they didn't need me to return (the team had almost doubled in size since I went on maternity leave and just 2 months later the credit crunch arrived!)and were making it as difficult as possible for me in the hope I would just give up and go away!
Anyway the grievance process finished some 7 months after all this rubbish started and by this time I felt that the relationship with my new manager was in tatters as I had had to go above hime and raise a grievance against him in order for them to consider allowing me to return to my existing job or reduce my hours at all. As I've already mentioned they did finally agree I could return to my old job but with 'changes'.
I was then advised to raise a grievance regarding the outomce of the family friendly working request which I won't go into huge amounts of detail about here. I have just received a letter from the company regarding the outcome of this grievance meeting and there is a section which troubles me greatly as I think it opens up a whole new load of issues with them. I should also mention that I have already submitted a claim to the ET for sex discrimination and constructive dismissal.
The paragraph in the letter in question states "just to confirm......also there was a reduction in workload in your department and there wasn't a demand for two Lead Advisors in that team any longer. As yoy were into aml you were entitled to return to the same terms and conditions but this may be a different role"
.. to me this is effectively saying my position has been made redundant whilst I was on maternity leave but this is the first time they have said this - there was no mention of it during my meetings with managers or during the grievance process. Should I not have been informed and/or consulted at the time, if only one job remained in that team at that level should I not have been given the opportunity to apply for that role against my colleague? Surely I should have been consulted? Also given her comments in that paragraph why was I continually being told during the grievance process that this role did sit within my existing team when I was arguing that it didn't and never had and I was also saying taht it wasn't at LA level. Her comments here seem to confirm this. As I have already put a claim in to an ET can I add this information to it? Should I reply to their letter asking these questions or just keep quiet until the tribunal. I did have a right to appeal but was unable to do so as my little boy was in hospital for a few days (unforseen)and I was with him. I also feel that this information relates to the previous grievance and is not related to the Family Friendly one anyway. Where do I stand on this??? Can anyone help? Please!!!