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Role changed whilst on Mat leave - what should I do?

2 replies

snowydrops · 28/11/2015 09:33

I posted on here last week regarding my role which has changed whilst on Maternity leave.

To cut a long story short (ish) whilst I was on Mat leave my then boss left and I now have a new boss who has shuffled things around a bit. He came to me during my Mat leave and (respectfully) asked If I would be keen to take on a new role when I returned (well more that my role was being changed). I said I would be as basically didn't want to be made redundant. Nothing was produced in writing ever.

In short I have gone from going 3 days a week in a mid level manager role for one company to now working for 3 companies in a senior level role. The advantages are he has let me return 2 days a week (up to 3 in January) and it's a very flexible, mostly work from home job.

The disadvantages (as I am swiftly discovering) are that I can't keep up with my role, I can't manage my team effectively at 2 days a week (but actually more pressingly from home as they are office based).

I earn the same as I did in my more junior role which I would estimate entailed less than half of the work.

I am wondering what to do, my options are:

-Leave, take the holiday pay owed and start up freelance / own business (i have done this before but in a different city so have a lot less contacts) Financially we could survive as I've just calculated that by being back at work 3 days a week I am actually £500 better off after childcare fees than not working and being a SAHM (DH earns enough to cover this if necessary and could take on more work)

  • Stay and ask that the conditions of my old (still valid??) contract are honoured and I go back to just doing the role I was doing when I left on mat leave or similar?


  • Ask for a pay rise (I don't think he will go for this)


I just can't see why I am bothering because the job is loads more stress and responsibility and quite frankly I can't do it effectively on 2 days a week. On 3 I could potentially do a better job BUT i have calculated that from that 3rd day a week I am only going to be £40 a month better off after tax and childcare which is massively depressing. What's the point?!
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flowery · 28/11/2015 11:38

"I can't keep up with my role, I can't manage my team effectively at 2 days a week (but actually more pressingly from home as they are office based)."

Well clearly a pay rise won't address these issues will it? Whether the salary is appropriate for the role may or may not be an issue, but if it is, it's a separate one.

Is your old role still available? I assume so, since you list that as an option.

I would see the options as a) leave, b) ask to increase your days (which you say you are doing anyway, is 3 days enough?) and work less from home in order to make your new role manageable, or c) ask to go back to your previous role.

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EBearhug · 29/11/2015 12:52

Have you worked out how much of your role you're not keeping up with? You say you're now working for three companies, not one - would you be able to cope if it were two companies instead of three? Is there anyone else who could take on one of the companies? Are there other tasks which could be delegated to help reduce your load, but also help develop others?

I can't manage my team effectively at 2 days a week (but actually more pressingly from home as they are office based)

Are you making use of all the tools available? It's always good to talk to people face-to-face, but we have lots of teams where the people are often not just in different offices, but also different countries. This means face-to-face contact may only be possible once a year, if that. But there are lots of options like video conferencing which make that less of a problem; it doesn't make up for not being physically together entirely, but it definitely helps. So maybe you could work one day in the office, and also make more use of video, telephone, workplace social media tools and so on - there are loads more options for working together these days that means it's easier to get round some of the issues of not being physically present together.

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