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?

It really sounds like the company have been very accommodating to your friend by offering her a less stressful role on the same salary.

She will have to adjust her career ambitions anyway if the previous role made her go off sick for so long. She’s clearly not suited to a high pressure job.

She should accept graciously

Indeed - either that or leave graciously, but job hunting in the current climate with a 5 month absence on her CV might not be very easy

Hopefully she'll return with the right attitude if she does choose to go back; otherwise, I'm afraid, that capability procedure could well come into play

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.

If that person has demonstrated that they can carry out all elements of the job - including handling the difficult people - without suffering from stress, then that's what the company will do. And if she accepts another role (the project role) then her old role is free to recruit. If she doesn't accept the other job and continues to be off sick, she will probably be dismissed on the grounds of incapacity. At least this solution sees her employed.

(And yes, I've been there. Actually off work for four months with stress in my old role - returned with some changes - but could see the signs of it happening again. So I opted to find myself a different role in the organisation. Yes it meant giving up on my dreams of team management, but my health was more important.)

I’m NHS and it’s not uncommon for people to step back and drop a Band or more. The higher up you go, the more management responsibilities and stress you get, there is no shame in struggling with that. However you can’t expect to keep a prestigious job title while someone else does the tough bits.

I’m only Band 6 but would happily lose some of the stressful band 6 tasks and drop back to Band 5 if my boss would let me🤣 If they offered to pay me band 6 and take away all the stressful bits I’d bite their hand off!

I think it’s a reasonable offer for your friend and if she isn’t coping, she may have to reassess her career goals.

She's not going to win this. You need to gently advise her that her expectations are unreasonable. I would do it sooner rather than later before she burns bridges with her employer. They could easily manage her out on the basis she is unable to do her job.

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

Yes, I imagine that they do want to offer the job to someone who can actually do it.

Really think you friend needs to rethink her career strategy.

So she wants someone who is being paid less than her to do her job? Er no.

She is meant to be a leader. Her job is to handle the difficult parts. She can't do that. There's no shame in it, she just struggled with it. She has to realise those difficult people now will only get worse the higher she goes. It's not like they will suddenly get nicer. They will expect more and demand more.

She needs to accept this and take the offer. They've been very nice doing that. But no she cannot hand off the hard parts she doesn't like to a member of her team.

It sounds like they are trying to be accommodating. She has had five months off. She has told them she can’t cope with the stresses of the role. They have made adjustments accordingly to accommodate what she has told them that she needs. They have not reduced her pay. No, she can’t dictate the terms of her role. That’s a business decision. The role is what it is and they have tried to accommodate her. She should have tried to return to her role. Then depending on how she felt she got in she could have approached HR for support.

@MichelleScarn

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?

That's what it sounds like.

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

Yeah, those really aren't "tweaks", are they?

So she wants to remain a team leader, without actually leading?

Yabu

From what you’d said OP, the company are being extremely reasonable and more than fair. She’s got no cause for complaint.

Her expectations sound unrealistic.

Why does the employer’s proposal have to be seen as a demotion, and not a sideways move into a technical rather than managerial role? I’d be encouraging her to reframe it like that. It could open up new potential opportunities outside of the traditional management routes.

5 months is a really long absence for stress which suggests it must have been very serious. The employer can’t risk the same thing happening again, both in terms of owing her a duty of care and for their own business continuity.

Advise her to speak to ACAS first. Its free.

The helpline is open Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm.

0300 1231100

It is always difficult to return to work after a burnout. I have done so myself as well managed people who have also returned following longer leaves of absence. Her leadership role requires her to lead. That’s the job. She can’t just opt of parts of that job, things don’t work like that. She is fortunate that they have tried to accommodate it.

It sounds reasonable to me. She can't handle the job she was doing before and she is insisting on modifications which the business can't accommodate. I think she is lucky to have been offered a less stressful position on the same salary - she would be mad to turn it down. If she's not happy she can always find another job! I don't think employees have the right to pick and choose which parts of a job they do - fair enough, it caused her stress, but it's not all about her.

Your friend is being very unreasonable I'm afraid. So she wants to keep the same job title to benefit her career, at the same time as admitting she can't actually do the job?! How is that reasonable? Her employer wound great for offering her an alternative on the same pay. What she wants is to have her cake and eat it. Why should those on less pay have to help her with the tricky bits of her job, when it seems they have other people willing to do the whole job with no problem.

This sounds very reasonable however if she feels that the stress is short term and that she will be able to fulfil her role in the near future perhaps she could ask for an alternative: such as a junior being given a secondment promotion for a period of time whilst she takes of a different role to readjust to work. That will obviously still be difficult but people will already know she has been off work and that will be having an impact.
It’s completely unfair to expect the perks and job title of a high pressure role without any of the stressful duties.

Jesus it's virtually impossible to be an employer these days!

Employee submits demands of what she will or won't do and then moans because she gets the same money but a more relaxed role.

They sound like good employers tbh. Your friend is massively ungrateful and unreasonable.

I do feel for your friend. It’s a highly emotional time. Returning to the place where she got burnt out clearly will be very triggering. I remember this so well. The feelings of shame and humiliation could be part of stress/anxiety she is feeling. Is she ready to return? Has she got professional help to work through some of those fears? Is OH involved at all? I would encourage her to break things down. Step by step. Go back to work, take on the new role. See how it goes. Phased return of possible. No big conversations with hr or line manager. Just easing herself back into work and build up her stamina and resilience again. Then when she is stronger she can take stock again. At first I rolled my eyes and thought she was abit princessy but on reflection I can well imagine that this angst is part of her wider issues with stress and her mental health.

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

I agree with others who say those aren't "tweaks". They'd fundamentally change the role surely? And also giving someone all those things to deal with seems unfair especially if they're more junior. I don't know how you avoid working with certain people.

Your friend is being very silly.
She tries to take this to tribunal she will lose.
The offer is exceptionally generous and she’d never mad not to take it.

Why on earth would it be illegal?

She’s incapable of doing the role she’s in. She can’t progress if she can’t do the work, sorry to be blunt but progression is only going to be more work.

The same salary with less responsibility sounds really, really reasonable on the part of her employer imo. She can’t amend a job role to suit her capabilities. She can’t do the job she’s in so the “demotion” sounds really ideal.

Acas

ACAS advice on returning to work after illness.