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?

Surely, they are doing her a favour.
She can't do the job it induces stress. It's not like it came from something personal, it was directly linked to her role.
Awful, I know but true, if you can't stand the heat.....
What if other employees wanted to pick and choose and not have to deal with difficult people.

The firm are being reasonable in helping her back into the workplace

If the people causing her stress are there m as are the projects then why exactly should those elements be removed and dumped elsewhere as she can’t cope? Harsh as it sounds she is either ready to return to her role, or not

She has stated she is not really but in order to get her into the workplace they have offered her another role. Has she discussed if this would be temporary, say for 3 months and then she reverts back to her proper role? That is of course if she is capable.

The role consists of x,y z. She can’t pick and choose she only does x and z because she doesn’t like y. They are helping her back, it’s now up to her to decide if she wants the managerial role or the other one

If she can't cope with the high pressure role then she needs to take on a less pressured role. And let somebody who can cope take the job. Honestly some folk.

TBH she should take it. 5 months is a long time to be off on stress leave which suggests she had a very serious problem. To ask to come back, but without the stressful bits is unreasonable. Why? because someone else will get those bits, while she gets to swan back into half a role. Other members of the team, or her manager, will be put under extra stress which is not fair on them. The company is trying to help and is not reducing her salary. Of course, it's going to feel a bit humiliating, but so is coming back and doing half a role. Not to mention the resentment likely from her team.

It’s not really possible to say. If the stressors of the role are inherent to the role and not likely to change it is hard to imagine what else she expects them to do. If there can be adjustments made so she can do her job then they might be being unreasonable. Some jobs are inherently just stressful by their nature and some people just aren’t cut out for them.

Has she been referred to occupational health?

@Notavegan

I think she should jump at it and bite their hand off.

Totally agree

She would go from leading a large team, with people management responsibilities and working on a lot of high-profile strategic stuff, to a project manager role working on optimizing processes within the same team she used to lead.

I don't see what else they could do, given that people management is an intrinsic part of her current job, and dealing with "well known difficult people" caused her stress. They cannot pick and choose which team members she manages, it's either all of them or none of them. They are offering her the option of 'none of them'.

Sometimes you have to prioritise your health over your career.

I wouldnt be happy if I was also doing the 'less stress' job, but getting less money too!

She wants to keep her role and status, yet by her own admission can't cope with elements of this role and wants the company to pay someone else to handle the tough, stressful bits?

How utterly ridiculous.

Legally no, but they all fine a loophole for this sort of thing. It's utterly depressing

@Shelby2010

As her friend, I think you should support her in accepting the new role. Suggest she gives herself a year say, in that position and then reassess what direction she wants to go in. If she is hard working & good at her job then I’m sure this set back won’t stop her long term.

I do think you should be careful about possibly increasing her anxiety with talk about lawyers & how unfair work are being. It sounds like she may still be quite fragile.

I think this is very good advice. Your friend may be ambitious and capable of far greater things. But she needs to also factor in the levels of stress she can handle at the moment and longer term. I think she should take the role to ease her back into work and from there evaluate what direction she wants to go to obtain a good work / life balance.

She won't be damaging her career because she can't cope with the stressful aspects of the job whether with current or future company. I think she's won the jackpot.

Sounds like they are offering her just what she’s asked for

If he's unable to do the same job without substantial permanent adjustments then she's no longer fit to do the job. Of course they can move her.

So she wants to keep her job,title and wage but pick and mix which bits of the job she's actually willing to do.

Not just that, but someone else(less paid/ in a lesser role) should pick up her work on top of their own work?

I think your friend has very unrealistic expectations of the company. She should be very grateful.

Her employer is being very reasonable. As a friend you are in a position to strongly advise her to bite their hand off and take the new job. She will feel very anxious about going back to work after 5 months, so the best thing you can do is to try to build her confidence to return to the workplace. Has she been offered a phased return?

How is it a demotion if she's on the same salary and pay grade?

You can't offload the managerial and tricky parts of the job and keep the same managerial/technical title.

Presumably someone else is going to have to pick up the bits she doesn't do?

I think the company are being very reasonable tbh.

* Her proposal was to continue leading the team but with those modifications I mentioned, and hands-on support from someone else in the team for the bits she couldn't do.*

^Your friend is being unreasonable. She can’t cherry pick what bits of the job she would like to do. She cannot do her job.

I think they have made a fair offer. I think she has been incredibly unrealistic to think she can go back to leading the team but cherry picking projects or not dealing with certain people - that's the job of a senior manager

Same salary, less stress and responsibility?
Holy shit, I'd be biting their hand off.

I agree with PP, the company are being reasonable, for an example if your friend was a firefighter, but they refused to deal with housefires, but they were ok with forest fires, would you still be saying the company was unreasonable that they couldn't be a firefighter anymore?

@YukoandHiro

Legally no, but they all fine a loophole for this sort of thing. It's utterly depressing

What’s your evidence for this assertion?

If the adjustments she requested didn't meet business need - because they are part of that role, this seems reasonable enough.
If they allowed her to return to the same role, and she was stressed again, or couldn't perform the role to the standard required and had another breakdown, she'd be suing them for compensation for putting her back in a stressful role?
Sounds like a responsible employer - they are prepared to accommodate her in a more junior role, paying above market rate, because she has said she is not able to perform all of her original role.

Not everyone is cut out for leadership. I really don't believe I am, and I think it's a shame when only management positions are seen as successful. It might benefit her to reframe her idea of success in terms of being highly skilled with valuable expertise, rather than being a manager of people.