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?

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

Does that mean the right hand person was managing the team and workload successfully without needing their own right hand person? And that your friend couldn't manage despite having assistance? It really doesn't sound as if it was the right job for her, and she needs to think about whether she wouldn't actually be happier not to have managerial responsibilities. It's no reflection on her, it sounds as if it's simply the case that her talents lie elsewhere.

You say your friend is ambitious, but perhaps she needs to think about whether or not she is cut out for the level of work she wishes to be at.

I think she is getting a good deal here.

She feels that they tricked her to declare in writing that she was unfit for the job.
She is unfit for the job. Informing them she was unable/unwilling to continue doing major parts of it has done just that, strangely enough
How could she possibly have been tricked into that?

Your friend sounds more like a CF than anything else. Wants the glory, the pay (which she got) and none of the duties that go with the role.

I think she’s getting a good deal. Working high up in HR does involve working with people and projects that can be stressful - so therefore she can’t do her job anymore.

What if this was a job at a supermarket? Your friend works on the tills but find it too stressful when there is a large queue or a customer is in a hurry. So the supermarket says that’s ok, she can move to the bread counter where it’s quiet but it is a lower rank job. They are not going to say “ok you can stay on the tills and we just swap you out for someone else when it’s busy”.

@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 think she will be hard pressed to find a more considerate employer than the one she has right now. Before her sick leave they hired a whole second person to help her, a person who has managed the job by themselves unlike the OP which demonstrates it was doable and not overwork.

OP has now been offered a role with less pressure but the same salary and it seems that she is annoyed because she wants the status of the higher title without actually doing the work. If she carries on like this, somebody at the company might actually grow a spine and stop pandering.

Lots of places ask if you have been off sick or for how long anyway in the previous 3 years etc

Gosh your friend sounds like one entitled fool who doesnt realise how good she has it. They could easily demote her without keeping her on the same salary. She can't do the job!!
Tell her to kick up a fuss - and then they can replace her with someone who actually realises that they have a reasonable employer. She's only been there 2 years, and behaving so entitled.

@wesowereonabreak

Your friend sounds more like a CF than anything else. Wants the glory, the pay (which she got) and none of the duties that go with the role.

I really feel this sums up the situation, when you boil it all down. When you add in the fact that she was given a deputy, and still couldn't cope; and that deputy is now managing fine in the role alone...🤷🏻‍♀️ Who could possibly take her whining seriously? Her career progression is irrelevant when she appears to have been promoted above her level of competence already.

Your friend should take the offered post and use the reduced responsibilities as respite time to build back her strength and then look for another role somewhere else.

While they may be offering redundancy in the future, I think this company is actually being very reasonable as in my industry she'd have been managed out.

Sounds like your 'friend' wants her cake and eat it too...

She wants a job that requires AB&C that pays X amount - let's say she's a Account Manager.

She want to only do A and B, wants the same pay and same job title.

Company have said "Of course, just do A&B, We'll call you Assistant Account Manger, and we'll still pay you X Amount"

Alos, as an aside, why does she think she'll be able to cope with the stress again? When she eventually Returns to ABC job? And cope even more stress higher up as she progresses?

Hasn't she taken these 5 months to take stock, and perhaps realise that money and jobs aren't worth sacrificing your health over?

plus... this totally sounds like your friend is Prince Harry LOL

PH: Yeah, hi... I want to paritally step down from this role. But I still want paying the same amount, and I still want to do these things and have these benefits and my Title. thanks!

RF: ummm....

PH:

;)

@00100001

plus... this totally sounds like your friend is Prince Harry LOL

what a stupid comment

Not really...

@wesowereonabreak

Well, it does....

I agree with @dangerrabbit

Look, your friend hasn’t really worked for 5 months. I think she needs to build her confidence back up in the workplace and this new role will allow her to do that without a pay cut. If she dives back into her old role with all the stressors it entails, in the long run it will only set her career progression back further if she’s signed off for stress again. This role will help her get back on her feet.

So take the new role, rebuild confidence and start looking elsewhere for the role she wants. She’s in a good position. At least being signed off for stress recently can be partly attributed to the pandemic. She won’t have this same “get out of jail free card” if she’s signed off for stress a 2nd time.

Feel free to call acas for independent advice though.

[quote GreenHeritier]@Putdownthecake yes, you nailed it. Friend is an ambitious person who has worked her socks off to get where she is now, and going back would be humiliating for her as well as having a potential long-term damage on career progression.[/quote]
Yes, but she has told them she can't do the job as it is. She's proven that she can't. So how can they just let her carry on in the job?
It sounds like they are being very generous to her in fact.

If it’s the title that’s the problem, just negotiate it? So many people sound more senior than they are through title alone - she can talk this role up to future employers and make it seem more like a promotion in an exciting new division

[quote 00100001]@wesowereonabreak

Well, it does....[/quote]
why, did the friend's partner got bullied and racially abused?

Also, she probably should speak to a solicitor, ACAS or her union etc regardless of what she chooses to do.

No offence intended OP, but you’re not best placed to advise her regardless of the great replies to this thread.

My old large public sector employer put around a communication saying they can sack us for being off sick even if we are genuinely sick.

I think your friend is extremely lucky. She has effectively told her employer that she in incapable of doing her job and instead of them dismissing her, they have not only offered her a less stressful role, but they haven't even adjusted her pay down to the level of that lesser role. That's remarkably generous. My old employer would NEVER have done that.

Yes, I understand why she finds it embarrassing but to be blunt sometimes people are promoted above their abilities/ or their current life circumstances and that means they can't manage the demanding role they are doing and need to take a step down. I know other people who have done this and those around them adapt quite quickly. They are too busy with their own roles to spend their time thinking about others. Your friend needs to brazen this one out and be grateful for what is a very generous offer.

Given that your friend has been told they can’t make the adjustments she’s asked for, it’s not clear what she actually expects now?

Has she been seen by occupational health?

Imagine if everyone started cherry-picking bits and pieces of their job.

There's certainly some stuff I'd like to palm off onto someone else, and some people I don't like working with.

But it's in the job description so I do it, and if I decided I didn't want to anymore (for any reason) I would totally understand my employer saying okay, we can't o that but we can offer you this role instead.

Also how exactly is she expecting to progress if she can't deal with her current job?

The higher up you go the more stressful the roles will become, and the more insufferable people you will meet.