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?

I think she should consider objectively whether she wants her old job back, the new job, or the old job while she looks for a new job. If she decides on the old job, then she should send a note back to HR saying that since her "wishlist" for her job clearly isn't feasible, then the adjustments she would need to continue in her old role would be x & y (and make these really uncontentious and easy to grant. Hopefully this will dilute the impact of her earlier email, as it says the earlier list was 'in an ideal world' but in reality she could manage with a lot less adjustments. Ultimately though, maybe she should consider a career change - not everyone is cut out for high pressure roles and it's not worth losing your mental health for

It’s not illegal.

If she is unable to carry out her role they are legally required to make reasonable adjustments. The ones she requested weren’t reasonable. They’ve offered her an alternative.

She has three options.
Accept the new role
Take a medical exit
Ask for a risk assessment to return to original role

Is there a reason why your friend hasn’t been more proactive beyond her initial proposal? For someone at her level and who wants to remain at her level, she should be more proactive. I can understand her concerns but it isn’t her employer’s responsibility to save her face.

I’m not really sure what else your friend would expect. They have expressed that they are essentially unable to fully fill the role they applied for without being at risk of further stress and subsequent leave. Essentially not fit for the role. I think their response is perfectly adequate, if UK based I’d speak to Acas before a solicitor

They can demote her but not reduce her money. TBH her tweaks sound U. No difficult people, not difficult projects, no stress. If she can't do the job then she should be demoted and thank her lucky stars she still has a job.

@ConfusedCarrie

They can demote her but not reduce her money. TBH her tweaks sound U. No difficult people, not difficult projects, no stress. If she can't do the job then she should be demoted and thank her lucky stars she still has a job.

Yes they absolutely can reduce her salary in line with her new role. As I said, in the NHS unless the change in role is temporary and accompanied with a yime limited work plan to resume the previous role, then the salary cannot be protected. As I said earlier, they have laid themselves open to a challenge from other employees who are doing the same or equivalent jobs for less money.

Op, she can either suck it up, leave with dignity or leave with a black mark essentially. She is unlikely to win any claim because she is being unreasonable. If she still wants to go ahead with a lawsuit, go ahead but she shouldn't be surprised if it doesn't work.

OP, if this was your boss, would you be happy doing part of their role for no extra pay while they get the same pay as before?

@EggysMom

she now feels very conflicted about going back and working essentially for this person who was previously her right hand

That is something I personally wouldn't agree to, I can understand the reluctance there. I think your friend should accept the change of position, but not a reporting line back to her replacement. Can she not report to the same person she did previously (whoever was above the Head role)? That would also give her some sense of parity to her old role.

Then I'm sure the employer would be happy to accept her resignation! They seem to have been more than fair, but no employee has the right to dictate all of their terms and conditions. If they are trying to manage her out ( and it doesn't seem to me like they are), her refusing to work for someone would definitely be grounds for dismissal.

If I were in a senior role with 5 months off sick with stress I would have developed two sets of strategies once I felt better and up for it: 1) what are the changes I need to make in my work and in my approach to work in order to prevent any further sick leave (and - no - telling your employer you want your old job back just without difficult people and projects isn't a realistic strategy) 2) What damage limitation do I need to engage in for this not to dent my career medium to long term (accepting that a sick leave for stress will dent your career in the short term but that this can be overcome in the slightly longer term with the right strategic approach both to 1) and 2).

I am surprised that your friend in a senior role lacks the insight, self awareness, strategic thinking and a certain broader & also pragmatic perspective I would expect in a senior leader. Maybe that suggests the role wasn't quite right for her after all. Accepting the new job offered while taking her time to figure out where she wants to go from there (realistically and pragmatically) sounds like a sensible thing to do in the absence of a more sophisticated plan.

Seen this happen so many times, people promoted beyond their capabilities, suffered stress and then demoted. Probably better for everyone to take the demotion

OP your recent updates are confusing. It now sounds like your friend is upset that she has kind of accidentally asked for elements of her role to be amended when she didn’t realise it was anything more than informal chat. So would she actually want to go back to her role as it was originally? If so, can’t she just explain to HR that she didn’t realise she was being asked formal requests about changing the role, she thought it was just informal chat about what the role would be in an ideal world? If in fact she stands by those requests and wants the changes to be made then the responses on this thread all stand and she’s entitled and massively unreasonable.

Have I got the time line right?
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.

She's been there 2 years in total. So 24 months.
After7 months they recruited someone to start to help her, so.she was presumably over her head from the start and presumably must have been raising this from early on to get recruitment sorted, checks through etc .
He's there 12 months lightening her load and she goes off sick after 19 months for 5 months?

And still you and her think this senior a role suits her skills set and capabilities?

If so, can’t she just explain to HR that she didn’t realise she was being asked formal requests about changing the role, she thought it was just informal chat about what the role would be in an ideal world?
She's going to look quite spectacularly stupid if she claims she really didn't understand that they were trying to ascertain what she felt capable of, not just shooting the breeze

She says that in her organization Head of is senior to Director. I think it depends on the company and there is no universal rule.

Well in that case, a new employer wouldn’t know if it’s a demotion or not

To be completely frank, it’s clear you (or your “friend”) are not a good fit for the role. What’s the point in pushing the point here when there’s no pay cut? You were always going to be performance managed. Contrary to popular believe, disabled people (if your mental health is considered a disability) can still be let go if they fundamentally can’t perform their role. The employer just has to attempt to make adjustments and follow their policies to the letter so it’s not unfair

Very strange.
Burnout due to an ‘excessive workload’ means that team structure needs reorganising - divest work or hire more staff.
It’s sensible for her to say that she wants ‘less projects’ but to point out specific people/projects she won’t take on is not the behaviour of a senior manager (to put it politely).We all have to do things we don’t like at work - this is very basic.
This person isn’t cut out for senior management with their current attitude.... unless ‘stress people/projects’ is an euphemism for the individuals in question being particularly unprofessional i.e bullies or similar ...

What an absolute nightmare she is, if the 5 months off wasn't enough of an indication.

Then to still not be happy when there is no loss of salary? Fuck!
It is abundantly clear that she is not up to the job. That has to be the bottom line, surely? She can't do it. Someone has to. It's not her.

Doesn't seem to matter. You are just not listening OP. No loss of salary is a pretty good deal and you should just take it.

In my current and previous organisation Director trumps Head of X. So on her LinkedIn profile it wouldn't raise flags to me.

* she now feels very conflicted about going back and working essentially for this person who was previously her right hand*

^Why? He can do the job without needing a right hand man. She couldn’t even do it with a right hand man

@drpet49

* she now feels very conflicted about going back and working essentially for this person who was previously her right hand*

^Why? He can do the job without needing a right hand man. She couldn’t even do it with a right hand man

And he would continue to do the additional work at a higher level for probably similar pay to the OPs friend, can't say that would be a great feeling.

Ok, something similar happened to me. I was MD of a SME that was sold to off to a big LLP who were horrible to work for. I had team members in tears in my office every day, and because the previous owner had been somewhat scant with facts, the new owners were trying to change everything they didn’t like. They also wanted me to manage another office 150 miles away & I was a SP. I cracked when they removed our company credit cards (used for large sums like conference centre deposits) & told us to use our own credit cards & claim back on expenses. I had 5 weeks off sick due to work stress. I was in a bad way, physically shaking & intrusive negative thoughts. When I returned to work, I said I couldn’t manage the other office as well & they removed the MD moniker, kept ‘Director’ & I kept my salary, they tried to reduce my (generous) leave, but I stood firm. They were utter bastards but I thought keeping the job would be easier to eventually get a new job. A few months later, they made me redundant, there was no love lost, but I had the last laugh because I was able to present them with a robust case (with the help of an employment solicitor) that basically proved they’d treated me shoddily & I had an unfair dismissal case. They paid up. My advice, keep detailed records. If anyone is ever in a position where you are asking for help of management & it is denied, or expected to undertake tasks you’ve not been adequately trained to do, or formally agreed to do via your jd, put it in writing to them and keep the record.

Here in the US, what HR has done is both entirely reasonable, and entirely legal. She is telling HR that she cannot handle her job as described, and they are telling her that they will offer her a job she can handle at the same salary. There is absolutely nothing unfair or illegal about that. With high positions come high stress, and if she is unable to tolerate that, she needs to rethink her career path. I know that sounds harsh, but it is raw truth.

@Mamanyt

Here in the US, what HR has done is both entirely reasonable, and entirely legal. She is telling HR that she cannot handle her job as described, and they are telling her that they will offer her a job she can handle at the same salary. There is absolutely nothing unfair or illegal about that. With high positions come high stress, and if she is unable to tolerate that, she needs to rethink her career path. I know that sounds harsh, but it is raw truth.

But fortunately here in the UK you can't just do that. We have some protection with our employment laws.

There is a lot of advice on this thread which is based on opinion not law.

@Mumdiva99mdiva which law do you have in mind?

There is the law and then there are companies who really don't want the costs and possible reputations damage that comes with a full court case.

Asking the returner what adjustments they need, when the requested adjustments are not possible, counter offering a less stressful role on same reward package are the actions of an organisation mindful of possible case against them, who want to be sure they would win any case against them so that no 'no win, no fee' lawyer will touch the case.

Key elements here are also that the deputy recruited to assist appears to be successfully managing the whole role.