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Redundancy and maternity leave

4 replies

Hadeda · 06/01/2014 19:20

I'm hoping one of the employment law experts will see this and can help me...

Our nanny is currently on maternity leave. However, when DD2 started school in Sept last year her position became redundant. This is because she worked full day but we only need someone after school now the DDs are at school. (We have a temporary nanny on a fixed term contract at the moment.)

I have to talk to her fairly soon about what she wants to do going forward. I understand that we have to offer her the new after school nanny position and that's fine.

But what is our nanny's current status? I have not formally made her redundant, so I guess she is still an employee?
If she is an employee, am I right that we offer her the new job and then:

  • she accepts, her job continues (albeit on new terms) and her years of continuous service continue or
  • she rejects, her employment terminates and we pay her redundancy pay.


Basically, I have no desire to screw her over or do anthing wrong. I just want to know what her status is right now and what happens if she does/doesn't accept the new position so I can answer questions like whether she is accruing leave etc.

Thanks for your help!
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flowery · 06/01/2014 22:07

If her position was redundant 4 months ago you needed to talk to her ages and ages ago, not "fairly soon"!

Did you really not speak to her about it? Hadn't she been asking about what would happen when DD2 started school? All very strange.

At the point you decided you would not require a nanny working full days from September and would instead want after school only, you should have told her that, and written to her explaining that you propose to make her role redundant, that you intend to employ an after school nanny and would like to offer her that as an alternative. You should have outlined what her entitlement to redundancy pay would be, and in her case, if she is receiving SMP, also confirmed that she would continue to do so even after her employment with you ended.

Once she'd had a chance to ask questions and consider the other role, you should then have given her written confirmation of her redundancy (assuming she wasn't interested in the new role), with the correct amount of notice.

I'm astonished you have left it this long to do something about it, and that she hasn't been asking you, (assuming she hasn't).

Hopefully she is not busy taking legal advice and you'll be able to walk this back, but as you've effectively made her redundant without the appropriate procedure, without even notification, while she is on maternity leave, there is the potential of some hot water.

At the moment she is still employed because you haven't terminated her employment even though her position was redundant months ago, so she is accruing leave etc.

If she wants the new job, yes her service is continuous.

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Hadeda · 07/01/2014 23:19

Thank you very much for your reply, and sorry I wasn't clear. I did tell her before she went in maternity leave that her role was redundant. I also set out the terms of the new role. I have all of that in writing. My nanny didn't want to commit to anything (ie yes or no to the new role) before she had the baby, which seemed fair enough to me. So we left it until she was ready to talk about coming back and I'd like to initiate that conversation now. I really hope I'm not in hot water - I really didn't want to put extra pressure on her just before she had a baby so I thought it would be ok to postpone the discussion. This is such a minefield!

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flowery · 08/01/2014 06:33

Ah ok, no that's fine, if you've done it all properly and already offered her the new position/redundancy, but just held back on confirming her actual redundancy or new terms while she takes time to consider, no problem at all.

Yes do get in touch, I would write, further to whenever your most recent correspondence was, and explaining that you do now need to know whether she wants to take up the new role at the end of her matter it leave, or whether she would prefer to opt for redundancy. Offer her the opportunity to meet up for a chat about it.

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Hadeda · 08/01/2014 07:37

Thanks very much!! I'll get in touch then and see what she's thinking. We have seen her on and off and I think she's got her head in the sand a bit, not wanting to make a decision. But I need to know before our temp nanny's contract ends so I can make sure we have a plan...

Thank you for your help Flowery.

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