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?

The broad categories of division that I have seen at work is between technical/design, project management (costs, benefits, timelines, resource allocation ) and line management, with many levels of seniority within each category.

Working out what kind of challenges you respond well to and which overwhelm you is part of your responsibility as an employee. Having not enough stimulation or stress in your life can be unhealthy just as much as too much.

Over the years, I have seen people moved 'sideways' and with the right attitude they can be very successful, even happy to share how much better they enjoy the new role. It's obvious when they are happy, productive members of the organisation. Not all, but many have gone on to be equally successful in their new 'category'. Successful companies tend to have a good mixture of these kinds of skills.

@paralysedbyinertia I find myself in the same situation at the minute and it's incredibly difficult as the returning employee is unable or unwilling to take any responsibility for their own mental health and wants to return under incredibly unreasonable conditions. I am being made out to be the bad person because I simply can't provide the conditions requested I'm dreading her return as I know it will negatively affect the whole team.

@Xiaoxiong because MH provision is ultimately a highly individualised service - it just won’t scale without high cost.
For example you can enable Covid testing on a mass scale - but not for mental health.

Furthermore a lot of issues (e.g stress among school kids) aren’t actually a health defecf they’re a natural reaction to a suboptimal environment. The more pressure we put on kids and the more unstable the home environment, the more MH problems we will have

Really sorry you're having to deal with a similar situation @Fargonauts. It's incredibly stressful, and it can feel very unfair when the blame gets laid at your door, especially when you know that you're bending over backwards to be supportive and accommodating. I think you have to keep reminding yourself that it really isn't personal, even if the other party tries to make it so - you're just doing your job as fairly and conscientiously as you possibly can.

If my employer let me give all the bits of my job I didn't like to someone else but agreed to pay me the same I'd bite their hands off.

@TitsOot4Xmas

15+ years of sh*t like this is why I think my employer should cover the cost of my Botox. Bloody frown lines from spending my days saying WTF?!

What more does your friend want, OP? Moon on a stick?

I hear you sister!

@TheLastLotus completely agree! And that's why schools and workplaces are not equipped to cope with MH care - they don't have the training or the resources. There's only so far an employer or school, even the most understanding and well resourced, can accommodate the needs of an employee or student with MH issues.

I appreciate that she's "worked her socks off" to get to the role she has (had?) but it does appear as if she wasn't prepared for the stress that comes with it. Dealing with everything you've listed is part of that level of management. They hired someone in to help her with the workload, but she can't cherry pick the good stuff and leave the toxic people to someone else. I mean it's a lovely idea of course. But, there's a reason people burn out in upper management roles.

I think her time for consulting a lawyer would have been when she put her requests in writing to HR. Perhaps they would have advised her the correct wording to use, etc.

I think their offer is very reasonable.I realise she's losing her title, but she said herself she's not able to do the role as it stands, so why should she have the title?

"Working her socks off" to get to a position she just couldn't handle, even with assistance, just suggests she was promoted way above her level of competence and there's very little remedy for that.
It sounds as if she's convinced the position was rightly hers by dint of her hard work alone, when she clearly wasn't working either efficiently or effectively if her deputy is now handling it all alone.
And so well that they're about to be offered the role permanently.
Sorry.

I must say, OP, you know a hell a lot of detail about your friend's role and company. I don't even know that much about my own job.

The friend is the op.

I expect it was easier for her to post this way

@9ofpentangles

The friend is the op.

I expect it was easier for her to post this way

Shhhh the thread will be closed as 'OP has some real life concerns' about it being outing ;)

Its funny how the OP never has real life concerns about being outed on threads where everyone agrees with them

I don't know. If it's a very high profile position in a large corporation then it's a valid concern.

You're bound to get differing views on here. I think people expect that

StormTreader

puzzling isn't it

* "Working her socks off" to get to a position she just couldn't handle, even with assistance, just suggests she was promoted way above her level of competence and there's very little remedy for that.*

^This

@9ofpentangles

The friend is the op.

I expect it was easier for her to post this way

I worked that out....

Haven’t read the full thread but this sounds right.

She’s been off on LTS, she’s asked for adjustments and these have been given, with the same salary.

Where I work this is classed as a regrade under attendance.

Only thing she might want to check is that her salary isn’t on a pay protection period and she probably won’t get any annual year on year increase.

I don’t think she needs legal advice as it’s probably detailed under the attendance management policy and pay manual.

Hope this helps.

You/she keep blaming 'HR' but actually it's a business decision with HR advising on the correct/legal way to proceed. The business will talk to HR about what the job entails and what they need etc and HR will consider whether the business is being reasonable and fair.

If the offer has come form HR you can be sure they will have taken legal advice and be doing it all properly. As PPs have said, it sounds as though the company are being more than generous. Senior roles are stressful and involve some difficult scenarios, that's why they are paid huge salaries way above many doctors and teachers! If she can't cope she needs to accept that and work towards a role she can cope with - for the sake of her own health and by using her own common sense. There is no shame in that.

??
She doesn't want the stress and responsibility of the job , key parts of said job, and is surprised that they therefore think she's no longer up to the role. Yeah. I think that too.
I'd snap their hands off to have the reduced role at the same salary.
Being off for 5 months after suffering a burn out. Why would she want to go back to what made her so ill?