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?

@JackieWeaverHandforthCouncil

But if she won’t deal with the difficult people or difficult projects who will? Surely she can’t expect to keep the role and delegate that stress to someone junior on less money?

I agree with this. It sounds like her work are rightly exploring the necessary adjustments etc for their return to work, but emitting a big portion of the role isn't reasonable.

going back would be humiliating for her

It wouldn't be humiliating if she sold it right. "Yes, the time off gave me chance to think about what I really want from life and I realised that it's more than the continual race to the top. I'm very lucky that I can afford to step down a bit and have a better work/life balance."

as well as having a potential long-term damage on career progression

No point being a high flyer if it causes you so much stress you have to have five months off.

They're being eminently reasonable. They need the job doing by someone. Why shouldn't it be done by someone actually capable of doing it - all of it, not just certain bits? Your friend is being offered such a generous opportunity and would be silly to turn it down IMHO.

I've had time off work because of stress. The situation that was causing the stress was intrinsically part of my job (albeit taken to an extreme and there were other factors) and therefore I knew I couldn't return until I felt able to deal with the same/similar situations in future. That's what I used the time off for - medication, therapy etc. If your friend isn't able to cope with the stressful parts of her job, she either isn't ready to go back to work or needs a different role.

So she wants to be able to pass the less appealing parts of the job off onto some other poor fucker, while retaining the title and salary? And then presumably use said title to continue advancing up the food chain. Yeah, no. They've given her a great answer and what she wants isn't sensible or fair on the aforementioned poor fucker.

I think your friend is very fortunate. They could have managed her out and she’d be looking for a new job with an absence of 5 months for stress on her record.

She thinks they are planning on offering her old role to the person who's been doing the job as temporary replacement whilst she is out on leave

She could be right, but the job clearly needs doing and if it (understandably) won't work for the company to allow her to cherry pick, what else can they do?

If they pay someone else her old salary and keep her on the same money they really do seem to be going the extra mile ... maybe she should be grateful they've not gone down the capability route instead

Your friend sounds horribly entitled and totally unreasonable. If this isn’t out of character for her then I’d suggest her mental state isn’t where it needs to be in order to return to work. She will embarrass herself going back in with this attitude. She expects to be given the salary and title of the manager but opting out of the bits of the role that she finds too hard?! Surely that will be more humiliating for her - everyone knowing she’s some kind of puppet manager who has someone else come in and do the tricky bits. The team will not respect her at all if that’s the case.

She thinks they are planning on offering her old role to the person who's been doing the job as temporary replacement whilst she is out on leave.
This is irrelevant. She is unable to do the job, they can offer it to anyone of their choosing who can.
It's frankly baffling that anyone could imagine hiving off the parts of their role they find stressful to be a reasonable adjustment.
The company would actually have a case for getting rid of her completely. Being unable to do the job is perfectly legal grounds for dismissal, she should grab the new role with both hands and thank her lucky stars.

Your friend is clearly still unwell if she thinks she is being reasonable .. she should accept the revised offer and concentrate on her health .

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.

Maybe she should rethink her ambitions? If she's been out for 5 months because of stress and doesn't want the stressful part of her role ongoing, then how would she cope with progressing further?

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.<

I can't see that it's illegal: you have to be able to fulfil the terms of the contract in order to continue in a job. If you can't do that you can ask for reduced hours and or reduced responsibility. Your employer doesn't have to agree to either if it's incompatible with the needs of the organisation, although most will do their utmost to keep existing employees. After all, most have invested in their employee by recruiting & training them, don't want to lose them, and certainly don't want to have to deal with a case of constructive dimissal by the employee being put back into a role that's clearly no longer suitable for them.

It's also not against the law to terminate someone's employment if they're unable to fulfil the job due to long-term sickness.

It sounds as though your friend is getting an extremely good deal - the same salary but less responsibility. I'm fairly sure the HR department will have thought this through very carefully and at the moment I can't see a downside.

Your friend isn't necessarily stuck in this role as in time, when she's built up her reserves again and feels more able to decide on whether she can go back to a role similar to the one she had before she went off with stress, she can discuss this with her manager & the organisation. Perhaps you & she might find it easier to deal with it if you think about it as though she were recovering from a physical injury and going back into a physically demanding job - say, a major operation with several months' recuperation and then going back to being a police officer or fire & rescue worker.

Worrying about career progression when she's unable to perform at her current level seems a bit daft, really 😬

I am not an HR person but this sounds reasonable.

The only thing I would have thought worth trying is to say to HR that her reduced capacity will just be a six month thing while she eases herself back in. I don’t think they will put her back in a role she can’t do, but they might be able to let her have the simpler project manager role for 6 months and keep her job open for her to return till then? Worth trying.

But if she thinks she still wouldn’t be able to take it on, then it isn’t the right role for her.

I think it’s quite hard to accept you have to change the way you work after a real burnout. It’s a kind of grief really, if you do have to let go of the sort of career you thought you would have, but it can lead to a better life path and different kinds of exciting work. It might be worth you - gently - suggesting to your friend she think about different ways to build her career, even see a career coach. She might get back on track of course, but from what you say her heart wants a change, but her mind hasn’t quite caught up with the reality of that.

She gets the same money AND doesn't have to manage any people...the worst part of any job? She's very lucky.

Unfortunately, she hasn't been able to perform her role at the current level, so I think thinking about future promotions (with even more stress, responsibility and ever more difficult people) isn't a good thing for her at the moment. She has people management on her CV so there is a foot in the door for the future that is very valuable.

So she wants the perceived status of the job title, and the salary, but for someone else to do all the bits she doesn't want I.e the bits that get you the status and earns you the salary?

It sounds like her employer has probably done a disk assessment and are offering her the opportunity to reduce her mental load, quite rightly, and are being more than accommodating in giving her her previous salary to boot.
Her employer is probably concerned that she will struggle again, if put straight back into her previous role too soon.
She should accept graciously.

Your friend's work have a duty of care for her and maybe they are worried that if they let her go back to her old role this could exacerbate her issues and cause a worse burnout next time. If she has the same pay, not losing company benefits etc then I genuinely don't see the issue.

In our place it would be the "not willing to handle big stressful projects" but which would be the dealbreaker. And would lead to the person being demoted with the higher pay (if they still wanted a job). The senior role involves those kind of projects. That couldn't be changed here without a significant impact on the business.

The line management stuff less of an issue for us. We would probably be willing to move a lot of line management elsewhere or offer her a senior "buddy" to support her line management work.

But the project work - nope.

I'm afraid she can't just pick and choose what parts of the job she can do.

Oh, and it doesn't sound like a demotion, more of a 'we're trying to help you' offer while she gets back into the swing of things.

@AccidentallyOnPurpose

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?

This.

She can't have it both ways.

Her career progression is going to be affected by her burnout and stress, not a perceived demotion. Which she asked for.

Her employer seems to be doing all they can to give her a less stressful role while keeping her salary the same. I think they've been very fair to be honest.

It sounds like the employer is being unusually reasonable. I'd take the offer.

She isn’t being demoted because of stress leave. She’s asked for changes to be made to her role, they can’t accommodate them so they’ve offered her an alternative. It’s an offer, not an order. To be honest, I think they’re being really accommodating.

If she feels aggrieved then by all means see a lawyer but in my experience, once solicitors are instructed there is rarely a way back.