Advice for a tam member about to go on maternity leave; advised her post might not be there when she gets back....

[emskaboo]

I work for a local authority, one of my team is about to go on mat leave. She has a half time permenant post in my team, no problems with that, and a half time post in another team on a temporary contract without a end date which she has been in for over 18 months.

The person she job shares with in that team has just resigned (he's on a permenant contract) and she's been told that because of this her post might not be there when she gets back as they would rather have a full time person.

We're both wondering if her other team manager can do this. I know given current issues at work the full time post will prob be advertised as a temporary contract so surely this means they would have to offer her her part time contract back? What if it is advertised as permenant full time?

I have advised her to apply for the full time role if it comes up whether permenant or temporary and then apply for flexible working before she returns to work if she decideds she wants to carry on with her job in my team is that the right thing to have said? (Given she's been doing it as a job share for over 18 months I don't think they'd be able to come up with a business reason not to let her go part time.)

Any advice would be great, she's 36 weeks pregnant and can do without the worry.

Thank you

[flowerybeanbag]

If it's a job share there's normally (or should be) something written into the contracts about what happens if one half of the job share leaves.

Normally something along the lines of the employer will make every effort possible to find someone else to fill the other half but if the worst comes to the worst and they can't manage to recruit someone for those hours, in a reasonable timescale, the other person may be redundant or redeployed or whatever.

Anything like that?

[emskaboo]

It was never set up as an official job share, just as two separate part time contracts, which in practice formed a job share! The policy says that if there is a job share that yes they will try to replace the other half but if they can't will have to look at redeployment/redundancy, does that apply even though one person is on perm and one on temp?

Thank you.

Em

[flowerybeanbag]

I can't see why it wouldn't. As her colleague is leaving at the same time as she is going on mat leave they could recruit someone full time on a temp contract to cover her maternity leave, then as she is due back from maternity leave, attempt to recruit someone for the other half of the job.

If there is no end date or no event specified as ending the contract, like someone returning from maternity leave, or project coming to an end or funding due for review or whatever, on what basis is it temporary anyway? That doesn't make sense.

[emskaboo]

Thank you for replying, sorry for the delay in getting back to you. meeting hell today! It is temporary in that wonderful local authority...we might want to restructure at some point and won't want to make you redundant...way!

Your advice makes perfect sense to me though, thank you

[flowerybeanbag]

No problem. Btw have never worked for a local authority so I don't know about their procedures or motives but if your colleague is worried about redundancy you might want to make sure she knows that just referring to her contract as 'temporary' doesn't get her employer out of having to go through a redundancy process or pay redundancy pay if they want to restructure....

Giving it a specific end date or event triggering termination might, although not necessarily.