Can work do this?

[SunsetBeauregarde]

I've nc'd for obvious reasons - pom bears, zoflora, penis beaker etc etc.

A few weeks ago I was promoted at work. I have been working there for 5 years, the promotion had been planned since July 2022 and I'd been made aware of the role at that time. I was then actively coached into the role, supported to pick up the skills I needed and then formally promoted during the April review cycle. I had my confirmation letter with my new pay (12.5% raise), confirmation that my start date was 3rd April 23. All fine.

Then, in the second week of March my boss left very suddenly. We were told he would not be coming back and would be retiring. I of course contacted him and said how sorry I was etc and he said he'd been made redundant but not to worry, his was a very specific redundancy and the business was in good health.

A week ago our new line manager was installed and our MD pulled me aside the same day and said 'Sunset I know you'd been having discussions about a promotion but that's off the table now, New Boss will want to restructure the teams'. I was stunned but asked what that meant and he just said 'it means you'll be stepping back down to your old role for now'

I'm devastated, but now I'm over the shock I'm wondering if this is even legal? I have a confirmed start date as 3rd April, and had the above conversation on 18th April. I'm due my first paycheck at my new rate tomorrow, but will that now be at my old wage since they've effectively withdrawn the promotion?

When i asked 'so are you demoting me again?' he said 'No no the offer of the role is being withdrawn' but surely seeing as I'd started, it's too late for that??

I’ve been paid my old wage not my new one

Do you have a HR dept Op? Someone overseeing Hr that's not the boss that called you in?

Outrageous. Don't let this knock you down, you worked the role for at least a week. They cannot arbitrarily take that away without consequence. I'm enraged for you.

Then you need to raise a formal grievance ASAP.

With breach of contract claims, if you delay too long and work under the new terms then you’ll be seen as agreeing to the breach after a period of time. Get your objections on record!

Absolutely raise a formal grievance, but first go ahead with this meeting with your manager, and get a clear understanding of their expectations. You may want to finish the meeting by registering with them that you're not happy with the situation, advising that you're taking further advice on the request by them to step back from the promotion, and that you are absolutely not agreeing to anything at this time regarding changes in your role or salary. Put them on notice that yu're not going to quietly roll over on this one.

Then have a look at your house insurance, sometimes they have a clause covering legal advice for employment purposes, so you might be able to get some help through that. Once you have had some advice, you can formalise what you've said in the meeting into a formal grievance claim. As a PP said though, move quickly, you have a limited time to put in a tribunal claim, I believe it's 3 months plus 1 day from the incident, which in this case might be the day they notified you of the demotion, or it might be the date of your incorrect salary payment. You should check all of that when you get advice.

The other thing you should do now is create a timeline, going back to the point at which you were first told you would be put up for promotion, and document all of the activities around that exactly what you were promised, what you did, and what has happened to now. So for each thing that happened, a date, what happened, a piece of evidence.

for example:
1st March - Boss invited me to apply for training, advised it would ensure I would be promoted. Evidence - email from boss saying this - screen print the email or save it as a pdf
15th March - completed training - evidence - training cert.
31st March - boss confirmed I was to be promoted - evidence - email, offer letter
1 April - started promotion level work - evidence - additional system access granted to senior manager part of database in screen print, invite to senior manager only meeting etc etc
23 April - boss told me I was not going to be promoted - evidence - email/witness statment/voicemail

Write every single thing down that has happened, and gather as much evidence as you can to prove it. If you submit a grievance or an ET claim, this will form part of your evidence.

Incidentally, payroll will have been done a couple of days ago at least, so the decision not to pay you the new rate was taken probably several days ago. They've likely left it until the day before payday to tell you on purpose, because it suited them having you do the work at the higher level. (I'm cynical I know...)

@SunsetBeauregarde This is an unlawful deduction of wages.

From 03/04/2023 to 24/04/2023 you were working in your promoted position and lawfully entitled to the wage as set out in your promotion letter.

Irrespective of what happens based on them withdrawing the promotion, you are entitled to the higher salary for this period.

When you put in a grievance make sure wages for this period are a separate item. You can add a second issue of not being paid the higher salary from 25/04/2023 without notice, separate the two.

How did the meeting go this morn ing OP?

Hope you got some answers op

Morning all - I have (sort of) good news.

I spoke to my manager, I said I needed clarification by which mechanism they were putting me back into my old role - was my new role redundant, had I been demoted? - I said I needed clarification to be able to decide what my next steps would be from here. He asked what I meant by next steps so I said I’d need to talk to ACAS that afternoon because obviously, something in the process somewhere has gone awry from a legal perspective so I was looking to solidify my understanding before seeking further legal advice. I was very matter of fact about it.

He ended the call immediately just saying ‘I’ll need to talk to HR so I’ll call you back this afternoon’. It got to 4pm and I’d not had a call so I called him back and he dialled in a lady from HR to the call. HR lady explained they had planned to withdraw the promotion offer earlier, but there had been a miscommunication and my acceptance letter was sent in error. I said that’s not my problem, there was weeks in which someone could have stood me down from doing my new role, but everyone was quite happy for me to take on the additional workload in full knowledge they weren’t planning to pay me at the end of it. I asked her if from a HR perspective, she felt that was better or worse?

There was a bit of farting about, but essentially they’ve asked me to think about how I would like the situation to be resolved. They tried to suggest that there are ‘big plans’ for me in the new restructure and they have a role lined up for me already, but I just said ‘I’m sure you can appreciate that for me at this moment the trust is gone, and asking me to take on trust that you’re going to see me right at an unspecified point in the future isn’t appropriate. I need a concrete answer from
you so I can properly evaluate my position’.

They came back to me on email at 8:30 last night and have said they are very sorry that this has happened, and they would like to offer me a ‘half way’ between my old wage and my new one to be paid from 1st May onwards as a sign that they value me and want to keep me as I’m ‘integral to the new structure’. I’m going to reject this and counter offer my full new wage to be backdated to 3rd April, whether or not they want me to stop doing my new role or not.

wish me luck and THANK YOU!

Well done OP you sounded very cool and calm - I hope you get the outcome you want

Well done you! Respect! ♥️

That's great, they know they've fucked this up, and they really expected you to just roll over and accept it. Such a good example of why knowing your employment rights is so so important. Well done OP!

I’ve responded to their offer with:

‘thank you for your recognition that the handling of this situation has been less that ideal, I appreciate the transparency and apology however the proposed settlement put forward falls short. I am comfortable accepting that mistakes happen and will do my utmost to help the team ride through any changes coming in the restructure as you have requested from me. My priority is always the stability of my team and clients, so I’m keen to resolve this issue as quickly as possible. However, I’m not in a position where I need to accept an unwarranted change in my terms of employment at this time, and therefore kindly ask for my salary to remain at £XXXXX as laid out in my promotion letter, and to be back dated to my start date of 3rd April. I am happy for my title to return to XXXXX, however ask that I’m able to communicate why honestly with the team, which would involve letting them know a restructure is coming. I will not lie if asked why I have returned to my previous role. I would rather not put the cat amongst the pigeons until you’re ready to officially announce the planned restructure, so I am happy to continue with my role and duties as normal under the terms outlined above and put this behind us if you feel this is the path of least disruption for the business.

please let me know how you plan to resolve the situation promptly, I’m happy to talk in person if you need clarity on any points above.’

So I’ve now got the acceptance letter, an evidenced timeline of events (all relevant emails sent to my private email address just in case), a recording of the phone call where they admitted they’ve messed up, and email apology from them and a proposed settlement (admission they are in the wrong?) plus the leverage that they don’t want to announce the restructure yet and would need me to lie and say I’d been demoted presumably because I couldn’t do the job if someone asked me…… not sure where they can go from here, other than to just leave me in my current role?

im going to start job hunting because there’s no way they’ll keep me when they do finally restructure after I’ve kicked off like this, but bollocks to them quite frankly!

Their offer isn’t an offer OP - it’s a request that you accept their breach of contract and go away quietly, which you don’t have to do.

The key point to get across is that your contract ALREADY CHANGED to the new terms and that they cannot unilaterally go back on that. In contract law there is indeed a defence to a BOC claim called “mistake” but this applies more to drafting errors (like including the wrong salary due to a genuine error).

A clearly drafted letter changing your terms is not a mistake. They are trying to backtrack.

And as to where you go from here - if they don’t come back to you very quickly with backdated pay and an agreement to adhere to the new terms then you go with a formal grievance.

Can't help with the legalities but if you're on Facebook there's a group on there UK employment law & hr advice.

It's mostly adminned by HR professionals that may be able to give you advice on this.

(I hope I've not broken any rules on adding the information)
Hope you get the help that you need on this.

Thank you, I think from the conversations I’ve had, they’re surprised I’ve pushed back so hopefully that will work in my favour and will have shook them a bit. HR will know full well there’s been a cock up here so it’s just how they rectify it now.

Brilliant thank you! Depending what they come back with, I’ll have a look at that.

I think it's important to add at some point that given the start date for the new role has passed and you presumed you were in that role and on that salary, that you have made life decisions based on that income and losing that salary could create hardship.

I think they expected me to go away quietly to be honest, I am very much not the type to stand up for myself like this but I do have a very strong sense of injustice and can’t stand feeling like someone is being treated unfairly, in this case, me!

This is the first time I’ve ever really advocated for myself and I’m shitting myself.

I expect you'll need to conceded on telling your team about the restructure.

My DH is project managing himself out of a job for a large multinational who's going to be winding down their UK arm in 2024. Everyone who knows has had to sign a NDA because it obviously cannot be discussed openly until officially announced to the market. Its something to do with share price, share holders and not spooking investors.

Yeah I regret adding that to be honest - that said, the alternative is lying and saying I’ve been demoted due to performance which my team know isn’t true so I’m not sure how they were planning to square that circle??

Oh OP you're doing so well what an awful situation. Hope you get what you want x

@SunsetBeauregarde you have played this really well.

If HR has a couple of brain cells then they will keep you in the role, pay the £ and see what options they have at the end of the 3 months probation period.