AIBU about being treated unfairly after maternity leave?

If I've understood it right - you have been given a role 3 days a week, are finding it hard to get everything that's expected of you into 3 days a week, and are having quite a lot of time off as well.

I think you need to accept that this role is one that needs to be done more than 3 days a week, or with less absences to be done properly. That either means it's not the right role for you at the moment, or it means you've got to look at improving your productivity by may be taking on another day a week, and making a plan for someone else to provide some of the childcare when your child is sick.

I have a disability and in the last couple of years work has become harder for me. I won't go into the details here, but I admitted that and have just got a few hours a week with a support work set up. This has made a enormous difference to a) my productivity, b) my confidence, c) how much people have to support me in their own work time. Sometimes the grown up thing to do is to admit you aren't actually coping with what's expected of you and either accept a change in role and expectations to fit in with your personal needs (e.g. smaller workload, shorter hours, more time to catch up if you miss days) , or make personal changes to improve your work (e.g. more childcare = longer working week. Someone to look after your child when they are sick = less days missed.) You can't do everything and trying is just stressful for everyone.

The reality is OP, that you can’t have it all ways round. You complained about being given a lesser role and a lower workload, but then you say “I’ve had a fair bit of time off due to my child being unwell a lot” and “I’ve found it difficult to get into the swing of it and I’m always playing catch up” Well if you are missing a lot and always playing catch up, that would indicate your workload is too high and you need a lesser role? You say you have had “no choice but to take time off to look after a sick child” which is completely fair, and true for most parents.

I’m sorry but if you aren’t keeping up with your role, it IS totally fair that they give you a lesser role. You say you “haven’t been given the opportunity to see if the role is possible in 3 days”, but if you’ve not worked enough 3 day weeks in 3 months to know whether the role is possible, then it’s irrelevant, because clearly you can’t normally manage a 3 day working week. Even if the role were possible in 3 days, if you are usually taking a day or 2 off each week, you can’t manage a 3 day a week role.

Sadly just because you have an EXCELLENT reason to have time off, doesn’t mean that you can just carry on being slack in your role. If you aren’t doing the work, then it isn’t the right role for you just now, regardless of how good your reason for being off is. You either have to find a way of getting dad or another relative to look after your child when he is sick, or you need to accept that you can’t do your current role just now, and move gracefully.

Exactly what I thought. They are hiding how long they have actually taken off

I think that they have taken more than 4 days. Notice how they say that they have been off four times but don't mention how long they have actually been off

So true, my dd2 went back to work full time when her ds was 7 months old and for the first 6 months he was probably home more than at nursery with one sickness or another. Fingers crossed this winter he'll be fine but the nursery seems to send them home at the slightest cough. She's the main wage earner and luckily her dh's job is very flexible- and she was able to wfh some days ds was ill.

I think some of these responses are a bit harsh. They agreed to part time, if they thought that wouldn't work they shouldn't have allowed you to do it. The amount of times you've been off looking after your kid is irrelevant to that completely. I think having your role reduced in terms of responsibility should have been agreed mutually - a reduction in hours should necessarily mean a reduction in responsibilities. I also think that only giving the revised agreement a week isn't right - there should have been an agreed trial period and an evaluation at an agreed date. You shouldn't have to feel like you're being managed out - I also experienced this after mat leave but am public sector with a strong union who backed me up. I don't see how making an employee feel they are being managed out is being accommodating - it's their job not to discriminate against you because you've had a child. In saying all that I do agree some jobs don't work part time, and that's probably why we still see an overall gender pay gap. I really feel for you. But you will find your feet again in this job or somehwere else. Just 100% know your rights and be assertive (and don't take it personally, I think this is unfortunately very common)

What would your take be if you were the employer and paying the salaries? I think they've been more than reasonable to be honest, they've made accommodations that haven’t worked so have offered something that seems a better fit. Your past track record is probably why they're adjusting this much but harsh reality is that they've managed fine while you've been off and need to maintain their business efficiently.

It sounds like they gave you a settling in period and then when you asked for more work you struggled to complete it for various reasons. So I can kind of see their side but also totally sympathise with you that it’s just been bad luck with you child getting poorly. Could you ask your employer if there’s chance for a job share with someone else? Or maybe just ask for another trial period/settling in period and explain you’ve struggled to settle back in and your DC being ill a lot hasn’t helped. Definitely take a look at your family friendly policy as well and see what their and your actual rights are. Being part time is hard, as is working and having a child in nursery which you didn’t have to balance before. All I can say is the never ending illness when they first start at nursery is normal and settles down. I did part time as part of my phased return to full time after maternity leave. I always struggled to catch up with what I’d missed when I was off and felt guilt for not being able to complete things. My LO was poorly a lot in that time too and basically my husband and took the time off if it fell on my working days as I really really felt I needed an initial period of time to buckle down and focus on getting back into my job - being off for 9-12 months with added baby brain made it sooo difficult to just switch back into work mode!

https://www.gov.uk/time-off-for-dependants

This is not only for children, but elderly or other close family that require help

Not necessarily, we fired someone from our business a while back in a pretty similar situation and it was the dad. He wasn't in enough to learn the job and it was so much extra work on everyone else's shoulders (to make up for him forever being off and getting things wrong when he was in, because he could never remember things despite being told 4-5 times). It wasn't just that his child was ill a lot (nothing major, different things), but also things like he'd be out taking calls from his child's nursery etc. about very minor things, even when his partner wasn't working her shifts and could have done it (he wasn't a single dad and his partner also worked part time, different shifts).

I don't know what size company you're at. But it's really, really hard for us small employers who have had all salaries gone up massively overnight, a lower amount coming in, and have people being off all the time so even less work is done but we're paying huge amounts for it to not be done. Every day you have no idea whether someone will be in or not. Especially when the staff member isn't even sick, it's a childcare problem. The govt desperately needs to cover some of the pay costs or actually fix childcare and social care. 99% of people obviously have no other choice, but I just wanted to add the other perspective. We have lost about £65,000 worth of staff work this year from people needing days for looking after their kids and it's just not sustainable long term for small companies.

^This

We also don't know that OP only had 4 days leave - she says she took annual leave (presumably at short notice) 4 times.

if she only works 3 days a week that could have been a significant proportion of her working time.

OP does need to help herself too though. She made it harder for herself by asking for extra work which she couldn't then complete and taking more unplanned leave than her DH when it was possible to share it out more evenly or even have DH take more at first whilst she adjusted.

I wouldn’t have complained about not having enough work to do 😆

3 days is hard for a senior role in a fast paced business. As a pp says if you're doing consecutive days it's even harder.

I did two days and two half days. It's not the most cost effective way to pay for nursery, that's for sure, but it meant I was never out of the office for a really long time. And I wasn't coming in to 30 emails and behind before I had even started.

Yes, but the company has agreed to the part time role. The op doesn’t need to be grateful; the company was happy to agree to it. So the op should not diminish her own expectations and rights out of some ‘allowance’ the company has made.

#1 the role turn turned out to have less duties/responsibilities than the hours warranted

#2 the op felt under-used for the hours she was employed for

#3 her new-to-nursery child needed her to take four days unplanned leave

#4 all this has happened within a few short months. If the op were a new employee she’d be only halfway through her six month probation.

The company is mealy mouthed if agreeing to part-time post-maternity, and then ‘failing’ the op after three months.

To be fair most privately owned business priority is marking a profit so they are Commerical. They are not all altruistic where they're main concern is promoting the work place for new mothers . If they can make accommodations then of course they should but you can't expect free reign to be given to working mothers regarding hours and absence levels , it's simply not practical in most businesses .

I had a good experience but I think that's for two reasons.

I went back full time
I took a shorter maternity leave.

Some interesting perspectives on this thread - seems to me there are two sides - the employers legal (and moral?) obligations and the reality of working mums (and other main caregivers) - to me they just don’t match currently. I think employers should be forced to do more to accommodate and there should be much better state support for new parents. As it is society nor the majority of employers see much value in new children or their parents’ especially mothers. As I said in a previous pp, I don’t know a single woman who has ‘been fine’ or had a good experience going back to work after maternity leave.

You do realise that some companies do not allow return to PT ?

The department I worked in was FT only

A couple of people asked for PT & were declined, but they were offered PT in other departments on a lower salary due to change of job & hours

The point that I am making is that they have allowed you a PT job

I think some of the views on this thread jar with the realities of a professional career.

The employer isn’t a parent with a responsibility to financially provide for an employee and work around their wants or lives. It’s intended to be a mutually beneficial arrangement - the employer has a job which needs to be done for which they pay a fair salary, and the employee does that job to the employer’s expectations in return for the salary.

Good employers will try and keep good employees if they can by offering part time or flexible working patterns if this is consistent with the job being performed and meets their business needs - clearly a theatre nurse can’t choose to work at a different time of day to the rest of the surgical team or walk out of a surgery early if it hasn’t gone to plan and the same applies for lots of roles. But a tax accountant for example could probably work 3 days a week and flexibly.

It’s pretty clear from what the OP has posted that she isn’t providing the employer with the work output they need - whether that’s based on volume or speed of delivery - and rather than just saying it isn’t working for them and she needs to shape up or ship out, they are trying to see whether she can deliver value in another part of the business. The hard truth though is that if the amount or kind of work which the OP is able to deliver based on her caring commitments is not what her employer needs, or not worth the salary being paid to the OP, they are entitled to say it doesn’t work for them. Just because she has worked for them for a while doesn’t mean they have any obligation legal or moral to support her financially if she doesn’t want to do the role she was employed for adequately. And this is only fair to the other employees who may be child free, older parents, or investing in good quality childcare, who should not be expected to pick up the OP’s slack for no extra salary and would likely mutiny if they were asked to do so.

most annual leave is planned for in advance, I would imagine that the OP is taking it at very short notice, and that can cause issues with cover etc

@babyproblems Yes, it is shit and trust me I was so angry about my own situation - I mean, what a waste of all my training and experience in a shortage occupation! - that I wrote an article about the need for flexible working in the national trade publication for my sector. My union were useless btw, the regional rep accompanied me to the meeting and just shrugged her shoulders and said: 'I can see they're not going to agree'.

There are two aspects at play here - the bigger picture (which you rightly say shouldn't be accepted) and the psychology of handling the people immediately involved.

The problem is that if the OP irritates her management further by not accepting the new role then she may well be be side-lined, have life made uncomfortable or be made redundant in the not too distant future.

@MaybeDoctor just because it’s a shit standard generally for women returning to work doesn’t mean we should all just put up & shut up.. I wonder when things will really change. Maybe when the birth rate is so low companies have no employees as there’s so few people in the workforces?? Perhaps then people will place some value on parents both in wider society and the workplace.

Also I don’t think taking 4 bouts of annual leave in 3 months is unreasonable at all - you’ve earned it and it’s your right to use it and be paid for it.

I think you a being a bit unreasonable because you have already had the huge win of them agreeing to part-time hours in a demanding environment. Yes it’s common to go back pt after maternity leave, but it’s by no means a given. They don’t have to agree! You can leave, but it can also be pretty hard to get a role advertised as part-time as naturally a lot of women want them. The competition can be fierce. Trust me on this because I am writing from experience!

I had a well-paid senior leadership role before maternity leave (working 55-60 hours per week) and my flexible working request was turned down. It was full time or nothing. At which point I left. I felt as if I had given so much but been cast out from the system. I had to cancel the nursery place that I had lined up (London, so it cost a fortune) so was then in the double bind of no job and no childcare. It then took me more than a year to find a new part-time job (even way below my original pay-grade) as every woman and her sister were after those roles! Oh and during that year my (D)H decided that he ‘wasn’t sure’ about our relationship…It was not a good time!

In the long run they did me a favour as I moved on to much better things, but it felt truly awful to go through it and my confidence plummeted.

To be honest, you probably made a bit of an error in complaining about not having enough work. You would have been better off keeping quiet, being grateful for the lull and letting things pick up gradually.

I would take the new role graciously, show appreciation (even if you don’t feel it) and make the best of it.

I don't understand why they have taken issue with this then? Annual Leave is there to be used. And presumably they've approved it.

Why does it matter if you take ad hoc AL across 3 months or a fortnight off once a quarter or so? It's AL built into your employment rights.