To think a company can't demote you after stress leave?

[GreenHeritier]

Hi all, posting here for traffic and have NCed to protect friend's anonymity.

A close friend of mine has been on stress leave for 5 months following a burnout. Her role was a high-pressure, high-responsibility managerial role running a large team. She is now feeling better and had a few conversations with HR about returning to work.

She has requested that they make some tweaks to her role so she can avoid stressful, high-pressure responsibilities like dealing with well-known difficult people or particularly stressful projects.

HR has now said that they can't accommodate her request and that they therefore don't think she is fit to take her original role back as she can't perform the duties the role requires. They have offered her a smaller, low-responsibility role with no managerial duties, but with the same salary as before.

AIBU I think what they are doing is illegal and she should speak to a lawyer?

BTW. Your friend really shouldn't feel humiliated at the thought of taking the less stressful job. I bet most people would not think badly of her for choosing a less stressful job. She has already had 5 months off which all her colleagues will know about.

BTW (2) is this a private company or is it NHS or similar?

She has requested that they make some tweaks to her role so she can avoid stressful, high-pressure responsibilities like dealing with well-known difficult people or particularly stressful projects.

This is the reason I think your friend's company is being perfectly fair.

A manager can't just turn a blind eye to projects in their domain because "they're stressful" expecting other people to take up the slack...and not wanting to deal with known difficult people, how on earth can HR accomplish this without setting a precedence? "I'm sorry that Gertrude won't deal with you, because you're known for asking awkward questions we've decided you can't talk to her and must speak to another person on the team even though she's the decision maker for the issue you're encountering" that's an alternative complaint to HR for bullying from the off.

I'm not normally in support of big business and the casual way that people are dumped by the powers that be but it really does sound like they're trying to make it possible for your friend to return to work with less stress but on the same money. As to what that holds for the future, you could make all sorts of assumptions and guesses but right here and now her job has been secured.

Surely that's better than returning to the same level of stress and being managed out for underperforming?

@EverythingRuined

BTW. Your friend really shouldn't feel humiliated at the thought of taking the less stressful job. I bet most people would not think badly of her for choosing a less stressful job. She has already had 5 months off which all her colleagues will know about.

BTW (2) is this a private company or is it NHS or similar?

Private big company.

By law all they have to do is consider it and offer an alternative ‘on the same terms’. I work in banking and often after a breakdown managers will move to SME or ‘head of’ roles within specific product areas so they can keep their status but reduce managerial responsibilities; but companies only do that if they are desperate to keep the employee. Sounds like this is what they did with your friend.

@TrickyD

I feel sorry for the employer. They seem to be doing their best to accommodate this person, who seems to be an entitled, ungrateful and unreasonable person.

Maybe their employer should've taken steps to avoid an employee having to take 5 months off work due to work related stress?

Also she shouldn’t underestimate how stressful bringing a claim will be. They will have deep pockets to defend it. It’s a pretty bruising experience for any claimants far less one who already has fragile mental health.

@RedcurrantPuff

Also she shouldn’t underestimate how stressful bringing a claim will be. They will have deep pockets to defend it. It’s a pretty bruising experience for any claimants far less one who already has fragile mental health.

Depends on the organisation. Many large ones like to settle before it gets to the claim, because claims often fail on failure to retrieve documentary evidence.

Sounds like it would be worth her making her counter proposal to her employer, including explaining how issues 1 and 2 could be addressed.

Is it all just part and parcel of the senior role and her personality is unsuited to managing this? Is there training she could do to learn techniques that would help her manage time and difficult people better, without it all overwhelming her and eating her up? Or are there genuine problems with workload and toxic colleagues that the company has failed to address, so creating an impossible role?

Are the colleagues junior people she has tried and failed to manage, or been unsupported in managing effectively? Or are they senior, or clients, in which case she'd need to toughen up her own style, one way or another?

Does the company give a damn about its employees, at her level? Or does the whole place have a toxic culture?

I think there's a lot to think about, to determine whether it's her or them, or a bit of both that's the problem. Then, whether they're interested or persuadable in fixing it. I think she has to be proactive in giving them a chance to fix it, so identifying the real problems, solutions and what she sees as intractable, or only solvable by them.

If their culture is intractably toxic, then I'd take the junior role and use it as a buffer while looking for other jobs.

She thinks she made a mistake putting her desired tweaks in writing (as HR asked her to do) because she thinks now she has given legal grounds to the company to claim she is unfit for her original role, when in fact she could have at least given a shot to going back to that before discussing a demotion.

Now she feels she has out herself in a vulnerable position and the company will use that to back up whatever they want to do.

But given she has made her proposal and it's been rejected, she could perhaps think about whether there is a case for constructive dismissal. Would she have the evidence for it? Did she repeatedly raise these issues when in the role, are they really unreasonable expectations for someone working at her old level, and did the company fail to deal with them?

Her being stressed does not automatically tell us she is weak or prone to stress. She might be but it is also possible that company is a somewhere with a poor culture and high churn rate, that chews people up and spits them out. Perhaps it values swagger more than competence?

But if that is the company culture, then perhaps it's not the company for her. It seems to me that she'd need to be able to identify that there was something exceptional going on; a pocket of toxicity, poor senior management, or a role that expanded out of control without anyone fully noticing, in order to have a chance of persuading people within that company that there was a problem they could solve. (Or persuading anyone outside that company that the company had been unreasonable in regard to her role, in particular).

@GreenHeritier

Thank you all for your comments. I was clearly off base with my initial assumptions. I will relay the points I read on this thread to my friend.

To answer some previous questions:

1. friend identified three main issues that led her to burnout: her excessive workload, some colleagues' toxic personalities, and her own perfectionist tendency. She is committed to addressing issue #3.

2. friend had been in her role for 2 years, through which she was consistently really stressed about work given the issues mentioned above.

3. someone mentioned the possibility of friend taking the smaller job temporarily with a view of getting her old role back. That is not possible as they would give her job to someone else in the meantime as the team needs to be managed.

Point 1 is completely subjective. Dare I say, her “perfectionist” tendencies are very likely contributor to her not being able to get through her workload adequately, and may also explain while people are not positively disposed towards her and subsequently more difficult to deal with. I think we’ve all dealt with human bottlenecks in work- it can be very frustrating.

On point 2, if she’s been consistently struggling for two years, it’s likely that her performance in that time has been poor. Poor performance leads to stress, stress further impacts poor performance. It’s a horrible and vicious cycle.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t sounds like your friend is capable of performing the requirements of the role. Given someone else filled in for her while she was on leave and is being considered for a permanent appoint to the role, it would suggest that the workload and stakeholder management aspects are manageable.

I’ve worked in HR at a very senior level for a long time. I’m also a labour court adjudicator (albeit, I’d imagine, in a different jurisdiction from your friend, but I’ve that’s likely to share a lot of legislative basis).

Based on what you’ve said, I think “your friend” would struggle to argue that she’s been treated in any way unfairly. She hasn’t been dismissed. She hasn’t resigned (and is a long way from showing constructive dismissal based on what you’ve said). It sounds like she’s still out of work and has been quite upfront about her inability to perform required activities.

Impossible to know without all information, but I genuinely can’t see what more the company could do for her here. It appears that they’ve been more than fair. Most companies would be well into a capability review by now.

@GreenHeritier

She thinks she made a mistake putting her desired tweaks in writing (as HR asked her to do) because she thinks now she has given legal grounds to the company to claim she is unfit for her original role, when in fact she could have at least given a shot to going back to that before discussing a demotion.

Now she feels she has out herself in a vulnerable position and the company will use that to back up whatever they want to do.

No she has protected herself. Stress can be classed as a disability. Now if they want to get rid the company must take her needs into account.

She is unfit for her original role if she is unable to fulfil parts of it. Who is going to do the parts she can't manage.

What did she write to HR though? Was it 'here are the things I struggle with and wish you could take away'. Or was it 'here's how I believe the role could be restructured effectively within the department, without dumping anything unreasonable or ill-fitting on anyone else, given my evidence x,y,z that it has become too large, compared to other roles at the same level. I believe this restructuring would work brilliantly for the company'.

Stress can be classed as a disability

It can, in certain circumstances. From what OP has written, there’s no evidence that her friend would meet that test.

Now if they want to get rid the company must take her needs into account

They have taken her needs/wants into account. They have deemed that her requirements aren’t reasonable in view of doing the job she’s in, and they’ve offered her an alternative that has no tangible drawback for her at this time.

At the end of the day, her company is a business and not a charitable institution. They have a right to ensure that work in carried out within the structure they’ve designed (ie, person with title X carried out duties A, B, and C, and needs to work with person in title Y to do it).

In the case of a disability, a worker has a right to request reasonable adjustments. Here, we have no evidence of a disability (albeit we have limited info around timelines and medical reviews from OP that could be taken into account), and the company had determined that the adjustments requested are not reasonable/workable. They could have looked at dismissing her due to the fact that she is not capability of fulfilling her role, but instead they’re working with her to get her back to work in a job that takes away her stressors. They’re even paying her the same amount of money to do a job with fewer activities.

What more can they do?

Kirinm
Maybe their employer should've taken steps to avoid an employee having to take 5 months off work due to work related stress?

The person who has replaced her seems to be getting on fine.

As JudgeJudee put it :
Unfortunately, it doesn’t sounds like your friend is capable of performing the requirements of the role. Given someone else filled in for her while she was on leave and is being considered for a permanent appoint to the role, it would suggest that the workload and stakeholder management aspects are manageable.

Not sure what she's complaining about. Same money for a less stressful role (and she can look for something else while she does the less stressful role).

Some people really want the moon on a stick. And I know I'm being unsympathetic but either you can cope with a job or you can't. And while employers may be toxic and unreasonable, you can hardly complain about them paying you the same to do less.

In most cases they'd just sack you for not meeting the requirements of the role.

But she can't do the original job or she wouldn't have been off with stress for 5 months and she wouldn't have asked for part of the JD to be removed. It would be unfair on her team to have had no Line Manager for 5 months and then on her return for their LM to go back to the role knowingly struggling with elements of it.

Personally her best option here is to suck up,the generous offer with a smile on her face. She has been promoted beyond her capability- mistake both on the company's part and hers. People are always trying to suggest I go for promotion but I know that the cut and thrust of Senior Management and the robust method of challenging, plus the time demands are not for me.

@GreenHeritier

She thinks she made a mistake putting her desired tweaks in writing (as HR asked her to do) because she thinks now she has given legal grounds to the company to claim she is unfit for her original role, when in fact she could have at least given a shot to going back to that before discussing a demotion.

Now she feels she has out herself in a vulnerable position and the company will use that to back up whatever they want to do.

But in the kindest of ways she has essentially communicated to her company that she isn't able to do her original role as she's asked for tweaks rather than saying "yes I'm ready to return to my original role". If she wanted a shot at going straight back to her original role then that's arguably what she should have started with? Again, I don't think she should view this as a demotion but more them accommodating her needs to have a less stressful role??

The 'desired tweaks' was a re-writing of the role. She wants to someone else to do the unpleasant parts of it without the recognition and remuneration whilst she keeps both.

Stress can be classed as a disability. Now if they want to get rid the company must take her needs into account.

It can but not necessarily and we don't have enough info to know that.
The company is very much taking her needs into consideration by generously keeping her salary the same whilst reducing responsibilities. That is very different to giving her everything she wants, which they absolutely do not have to do.

@mummabubs she feels tricked as she had a nice initial chat with HR, where she was asked to have a think about how she would have liked her role to be shaped upon her return and to send an email pointing out the bits of her job that she wanted to do less of/ not do anymore, and the bits she wanted to keep/ do more of.

She did so, and during the following chat with HR it became clear that they were now holding that email as proof that she couldn't go back to her original job and proposed the smaller job instead. She feels that they tricked her to declare in writing that she was unfit for the job.

Are the toxic people colleagues or clients who bring the company a lot of money? I don't think it's unusual for companies to tolerate fairly intolerable people, if they're good for business, while simply accepting a regular turnover of junior / less profitable colleagues.

There might be a case to be made in those circumstances but it wouldn't be an easy one, or probably one your friend could make alone.

@lottiegarbanzo

Are the toxic people colleagues or clients who bring the company a lot of money? I don't think it's unusual for companies to tolerate fairly intolerable people, if they're good for business, while simply accepting a regular turnover of junior / less profitable colleagues.

There might be a case to be made in those circumstances but it wouldn't be an easy one, or probably one your friend could make alone.

Colleagues at her same level, so other team leaders. She has no contact with clients.