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?

Well if she was just stating a preference to HR, in response to their clear request that she do so, not stating a need and actually wants to go back to her old role, she should follow up with a letter clearly stating so.

While we don't know anything about the company, its culture or her role, it does sound from what you've written, as though your friend is overinvested in an idea of status, based upon career success, of a type to which she is not well suited.

Maybe she needs to get to know herself better and identify what she is really well suited to succeeding at, rather than pushing on with what she'd thought she ought to succeed at?

@TrickyD

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.

5 months is very different to two years. People can burn out.

I don't think you've answered the question about whether she raised all these issues with her manager while in the role, so has a documented history of real problems (that they agreed were real problems) not being dealt with. Without that evidence, she'd have no case for anything, surely.

She sounds like a 'bottle it up until she explodes' person, who is far too invested in the appearance of success, so paddling away internally making her own work look perfect, rather than engaging outwardly in the messy business of office politics, so as to get the job done.

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.

The question of stress and how people respond is taken very seriously in my organisation. Everyone, not just managers, are trained to recognise the signs that it is getting too much for someone and shown how the surface such concerns in a supportive way.

Being in post for two years, then needing five months to recover is not a situation where anyone would be suggesting "giving someone a shot at going back".

HR are absolutely right to ask for suggestions of modification in writing.

The big concern here is that your friend still doesn't seem to realise that there is no evidence that she is up to that job.

Taking one with less stress (and full salary to sweeten the blow) while doing the work to make herself ready for that or a similar role sounds like a very good way forward.

The way to salvage her career is to step back, regroup snd then press forward when ready. Imagine the stress involved in going back to that job. How she would feel if they were foolish enough to let her back to the original job and she failed again?

There is a lack of sensible thinking here which is its self a sign of stress. What is she doing to manage stress going forward and how is she applying it to her thinking about this 'demotion' or opportunity to regroup ?

She feels that they tricked her to declare in writing that she was unfit for the job.

I see no evidence that they tricked her into declaring that she is not fit for the former role. She has declared herself to not be fit and still wants it rather than another role on the same package.

She doesn't see the benefit of another less stressful role to give her time to practise the skills needed for a step up.

Very few people in top jobs have not at some point made mistakes and had setbacks. It's how you deal with those that will make or break your career.

Wanting to go back to the original role with the difficult bits just magically removed is not a good and robust strategy.

I would encourage her to take the other job and be glad of it while she works out a good strategy, that that means that she really can come back stronger.

p.s. no one wants to work for a 'perfectionist'. That would be a great place to start, for her new way of doing things.

because she thinks now she has given legal grounds to the company to claim she is unfit for her original role

I mean, she has done that, but she also doesn’t sound like a good fit for the original role regardless. I does seem like it is better all around for her to not return to that role, because saving her mental health is the upmost priority. I don’t think HR tricked her per se, your friend didn’t have to disclose adjustments that would majorly change the scope of her role. Presumably they would have complied with reasonable adjustments.

As her friend, I would be encouraging her to get more help for her mental health. People in the midst of depression or anxiety episodes often behave very unreasonably but are unable to see it. I've been there and things that seemed perfectly sensible to me at the time now make me want to roll up in a ball and cringe. I suspect this is what's going on - she's still not recovered.

But she IS saying she’s not suitable for that role, surely?

Assuming she has regular Fit Notes from gp, what have they suggested about a potential return? You have still not clarified if Occupational Health has been involved, either internal or external.

She sounds like a dream employee

Wants the salary and title, doesn't want some parts of the jobs AND is miffed by more than reasonable and fair adjustments to accommodate HER and no one else...

Who wouldn't want to keep someone on a higher salary but less responsibilities and lower workload, have to pay for someone else to do her job AND deal with threats of legal claim because she is not happy. That employee of the month badge is coming her way...

I'd advise her to take the offer while looking for somewhere else to work with a better culture and nicer people. Perhaps doing some interim work if that is possible in her field? That way you get to try out a lot of employers without getting overinvested.

@lottiegarbanzo

I don't think you've answered the question about whether she raised all these issues with her manager while in the role, so has a documented history of real problems (that they agreed were real problems) not being dealt with. Without that evidence, she'd have no case for anything, surely.

She sounds like a 'bottle it up until she explodes' person, who is far too invested in the appearance of success, so paddling away internally making her own work look perfect, rather than engaging outwardly in the messy business of office politics, so as to get the job done.

She had verbally raised issues with her manager regarding excessive workload multiple times, and the manager allowed her to recruit for a "right hand" position reporting to her to help with her workload. That person is the person who has been running the team ad interim for the last 5 months.

So has her "right hand" person coped in her absence? How long did she work alongside them before going off sick?

She had verbally raised issues with her manager regarding excessive workload multiple times, and the manager allowed her to recruit for a "right hand" position reporting to her to help with her workload. That person is the person who has been running the team ad interim for the last 5 months.

It seems to me that the company has been more than reasonable. How long was the deputy type role in place before she went off sick?

So she approached them before and they made quite a substantial adjustment of hiring someone else to help, yet still she has stated that her job as was wouldn't be manageable. They have been more more reasonable in offering a different role for the same play that presumably omits many of the stressor. I have to ask, what the fuck else does she want?

Pay*

@paralysedbyinertia

She had verbally raised issues with her manager regarding excessive workload multiple times, and the manager allowed her to recruit for a "right hand" position reporting to her to help with her workload. That person is the person who has been running the team ad interim for the last 5 months.

It seems to me that the company has been more than reasonable. How long was the deputy type role in place before she went off sick?

Person was hired a year before she went on leave. She had a good relationship with him but she now feels very conflicted about going back and working essentially for this person who was previously her right hand.

@LIZS

So has her "right hand" person coped in her absence? How long did she work alongside them before going off sick?

Friend doesn't have any info about this person's performance in the last 5 months, but she thinks they are thinking to offer him the role long-term based on some vague hints the HR person dropped. She doesn't know for sure. They worked together for a year before she went on leave.

Is she really ready to go back? Given she got to her position in the first place, she should know that HR work for the firm — not for her. If a nice chat with HR got her to overlook this critical principle then I’d suggest maybe she extends her sick leave if possible until she feels either robust enough to do her job as per all requirements; takes the less prominent position acknowledging the stress of her career isn't for her (and there is no shame in that!) or seeks out a position elsewhere. Given her position, I hope she didn’t deal with HR without seeking legal advice, but if so, she needs to get that now. All communication in writing or with her representative present.

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.

It does sound a bit devious. I assume there's no record of that 'nice chat'? If not, is it possible for her to put down some notes about what was said and who said it? and/or ask someone who was present but perhaps not the HR lead in that meeting to put together some retrospective notes?

OK, so she had an extra person to help with the workload for a year before she went off, but she still struggled to cope with the workload?

I'm very sorry to say it, but it's sounding increasingly like a competency issue. I do understand that it will be a blow to her ego to go back under the person who was originally hired as her deputy. That would be very difficult for both parties, I think, but they will both just have to be professional about it. Realistically, what's the alternative? It doesn't sound like she is actually up to the job, so unless she can find something else or can afford not to work at all, she will need to find a way of setting aside her ego and her pride in order to make the best of the situation.

I've worked in senior corporate management positions. In my view the company are being fair and reasonable. She would be mad not to take this opportunity and she should focus on doing the job she has been offered really well and show her value to the company.

If anyone is not being reasonable it is your friend. You can't choose to manage only the easy people and not the difficult ones! Life, and management, isn't like that. I know she is struggling, but as her friend you should help her see this is a good opportunity.

What a ridiculous post. She wants to keep her old job....except it won't be her old job because she's stated that she wants the role revised so she doesn't have to do anything she doesn't want to.

She can't do the job = can't have the job.

I fail to see any areas of debate, tbh.

@HarebrightCedarmoon

I'd advise her to take the offer while looking for somewhere else to work with a better culture and nicer people. Perhaps doing some interim work if that is possible in her field? That way you get to try out a lot of employers without getting overinvested.

I am sorry, what??!

What exactly did you expect the company to do? She doesn't want to do some parts of her former role, so that just.. doesn't get done anymore?

Being offer a less stressful and much easier role at same pay, you don't think that's good enough?

So again, what do you suggest would the right solution?

But most jobs shouldn't be like that, and it's a sad indictment of society that people feel they have to put up with it.
She doesn't have to put up with it, she's been offered a role with the stressful areas edited out at the same salary, and she's still not happy because she wants the prestige of the job title while opting out of the actual role.
Ffs! How are people defending this bollocks?