To think I have at least some sort of case against my employer? Or am I being deluded?

[Galllp]

Length of service is 9 years. New manager arrived while I was on maternity leave. I came back from maternity leave a year ago in Feb and it’s been pretty awful ever since. I’m in a mid senior role.

Since returning I’ve utilised the flexible working policy as I am alone with my DD in the week (husband works abroad) and I do all nursery runs and so on. Manager is aware of this and there is no company policy that dictates number of days in the office. I tend to go in fortnightly. I feel my choice in doing this is relevant.

Since returning I have been given absolutely minimal work. I’ve been given trainee tasks and tasks that relate more to administration like amending a spreadsheet for example. I have had some decent work from seniors who aren’t my manager and had good feedback. But from my manager it has been fragmented and very inconsistent. We had a six monthly meeting in September where he said overall he was happy but we’d look to promote me next year (this year) and some waffle about pay when I said it felt unfair I was the only one not included in a proper pay review process when returning from maternity leave.

Fast forward to this February and the next six monthly meeting takes place. I’m told he wants me on an informal PIP. I was quite shocked by this but went along with it and he put in weekly meetings to discuss my ‘progress.’ Since this has been in place he’s given me a total of 9 hours work. Two tasks he hasn’t fed back on at all and one task (a draft of a document) he changed everything possible in it on a stylistic basis. He even changed certain wording that he himself has previously used.

The weekly meetings have been a total waste of time. He’s spent perhaps 6 minutes talking each time and essentially saying there’s no improvement as far as he’s concerned. I don’t know what to do from here as I am utterly confused by it all and looking back he’s made comments like I work from home too much so I’m not getting the work (this is utter bollocks as one other woman in the team works from home almost exclusively and he’s extremely (too!) close to her). She is given plenty of work.

He’s said i am too focused on home life which is ridiculous. Clearly i have responsibilities as a mother but i am dedicated to work, always available and will happily work well beyond 5:30 into the evening where needed. He knows this.

I feel like he very much wants me to leave and is picking at any small thing to make life hard for me. I know when you’re in the middle of something like this it’s hard to know if you’re not seeing both sides. Am I feeling victimised unnecessarily? I’ve never had any issues at work before.

@TheOtherSide21 thanks. In this industry mid senior is not management. It means supervising some junior staff but not managing a team.

A colleague of mine was put on an informal PIP, turns out there’s no such thing- in my company at least. I’d involve HR and join a union, and document every mortal thing.

This. Start documenting everything . But accept this is just a defensive position to buy time and start looking for another job NOW. It sounds like you have plenty time for a very intensive job search.

Yes you can put in complaints / grievances but these things never work out well, even if you win. That’s time and energy better spent on finding a new job.

I'm sorry you are in this position.

It sounds like there are certainly issues with the way your boss has treated you.

However, I think it’s only natural that only going in to the office fortnightly will limit your ability to build relationships and get involved in projects.

Your colleagues going in more often will get those informal moments that you don’t and that will often lead to them being closer to projects than you.

Your employer has a legal responsibility to ensure a fair process during a PIP. They should clearly set out what the issues are, how you can improve, and what that improvement looks like.

There's no such thing as an informal PIP. He's possibly trying to bullshit his way around doing things properly.

You need legal advice, via a Union if you have one, or a solicitor who understands employment rights. Document everything you can via email too, politely but firmly, stating the facts. For example, "you mentioned an informal PIP at our last conversation. I'm unclear what you mean by this. Can you clarify the process that we should both be following etc"

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of a situation, a legal process should be followed. Doesn't sound good though, and you may end up leaving because of it, but don't go with out challenging shit behaviour.

You need legal advice - contact pregnant then screwed. Do you have a HR department? You need copies black and white of policy and processes of PIP. I don’t know a single woman who this has not happened to following maternity - I literally don’t know of one woman who has gone back to work and not faced being managed out / discrimination or lack of support from management or company in general. It’s rife imo. Any way you can change department or manager?? Definitely speak to HR and get crystal clear written copies of their policies and what is expected of your manager and you and do not back down; he’s a bully. I’d be looking for a reputable employment legal specialist to help guide you. As pp have said - pregnant then screwed is a good first step. Best of luck x

If you want to keep your job or find another more suitable role within the company, I would be looking at strengthening your networks / alliances. It would probably help to be more visible in the office, especially on days when the SLT are in. Can you not volunteer for additional work, projects if you are underutilised? What about running training sessions for junior staff on your field of expertise. You too could strengthen your skills by taking appropriate training. Are you in a trade union, professional body, member of a career network?

What does your manager say when you ask for work? Does he say that he doesn’t have anything to give you!

@Growlybear83 he says ‘not at the moment.’

How often do the junior staff go in and do you co-ordinate days in the office with them? If not, your peers and/or your manager may be the first port of call for the juniors when they need support or direction and this could all be contributing to the feeling you are underperforming

Would you be getting more work if you were in the office? You might be missing out on informal conversations and main streams of work, which is why you’re only getting scraps. You could go back to working predominantly from home once you’ve re-established relationships.

Have you contacted HR?

There isn’t necessarily a union, and the biggest misconception people have is that HR are there to help you. Sadly they aren’t; they’re there to protect the company so unfortunately in these types of situations would do very little to help.

Agreed on the pregnancy discrimination but her manager has blown the door off its hunges for sex based discrimination by commenting on her home life and has a pattern of sidelining her for over a year. And she is allowed flex-working but he is not ok with her working at home.

I would not conclude that there is not enough work if her manager is expecting her to be available after hours. Its possible that he is pushing out work assignments in the pattern from before she came back so that the other staff with the higher level tasks are being expected to work overtime.

But overall she needs proper legal advice on constructive dismissal as that is what is happening.

Like a few others, the ‘waiting for work’ bit raises some questions. My manager for example very rarely actually gives me work to do and I’d be quite annoyed with my junior staff if they waited for me to tell them what to do all the time. I appreciate there will be different expectations in different sectors but you might need to be a little bit careful with raising an issue on that basis.

That doesn’t mean to say that something is off with the manager- he doesn’t seem great at all but there are always two sides to every story like this.

If you're a mid-senior role, and with 9 years experience, I'd expect you to be coming up with most of the tasks yourself. Surely there are things you can see that could be improved, made more efficient? By all means discuss it with him, but make it a two-way discussion and be proactive about it, show which of your personal and departmental goals you're targeting, how it will save time or money or whatever.

Oh yes. My bad. But people’s idea of a mid-senior role may vary. Nothing in the OP’s description of her job indicates mid-senior.

I don’t think you’ve fully answered what @TheOtherSide21 was asking though. Understood that you don’t lead a team but a number of people here have raised that’s unusual to ‘ask for work / tasks’ to be given to you and that normally you would just go and get stuck in, have you’re own job description and day to day deliverables. That’s the thing that’s confusing most of why you need to wait for that to happen? Was that how it worked pre maternity?
Might be just a very different system for a sector I haven’t worked in but it seems unusual.

There is always a union. There may not be a recognised union (involved with group pay negotiations etc,) but you can still be a member of a union, and they can give advice on individual disputes, gelp with grievances and disciplinaries, and in the sort of formal meeting where you can bring someone with you, they can provide a rep to attend with you - my union rep was external to my company, but because he did it full time, was very good at it (which not all voluntary reps in company are.)

The TUC has a union finder tool; if there's not one which covers your sector, there will be a general union.

It’s pretty clear that they need you to be present in the office more so if you are concerned that you are being managed out maybe start going in to the office every other day or so? I think they are looking for some commitment from you and they are probably worried that all of the childcare is on you whilst your child's other parent gets to fully focus on their job all week. To them it probably sends the signal that your job is the least important one in your family which isn’t great for any employer.

There are two ways of interpreting this though. The manager is OK with people working from home and another woman on the OP’s team makes this work very well.

What he could be telling the OP is that he has concerns about her output and quality of the work she is producing from home. What we know about the OP is:

• she does not have enough work to fill her working hours. So what is she doing at home during her downtime? If she was in the office it would be very obvious she had no work and something is more likely to be found in the moment.
• when asked to produce a document for her manager she copied language from a similar document of his - Cut and pasted?
• The work she did produce needed very substantial revision by him to meet his expectations
• she would have no qualms about taking sick leave when not sick - what is her attendance like? Her husband works abroad so what happens when the 2 year old is sick and can’t go to nursery?
• he says she is too focused on home life. What does that mean and why did he say it? Does it mean for example that she takes time out of her working day to attend events at nursery without booking annual leave for this? Or doing other home related activities during working hours more frequently than he would
• like?

there could be a lot of very valid concerns which are not discriminatory and the fact that when she first retuened back from maternity leave he was discussing pathways to promotion with her does suggest that her current fall from grace is due to her performance not meeting her new managers requirements rather than discrimination against her because she has a child.

Small point but Style changes are branding.
One company I worked for had a whole department working on individual brand elements and they changed depending on the product line. "Simple" brand styling items included the font and font size for emails.
If the document is going into a wider project a single style makes it flow. Tbh I have gotten irritated when I have handed a person a project with layout examples and they produced their own version.

If you are not aware of how the output is being used you should agree on a style / format.
This should be part of the discussion of what output your manager is expecting.
I agree with others that you need SMART objectives
Specific,
Measurable,
Achievable,
Relevant, and
Time-bound
to make any PIP work.

Usually companies with a strong brand will have official templates for Word, PPT, etc. My last 3 employers have, and I've had training on it.

But "style" can also refer to style of writing, which can be more individual. I think there are apps which can help. I'm more than happy to argue with a manager around clarity, formality, register, intended audience and so on, but I have usually had better literacy skills than my immediate colleagues (techy field.)

Can you ask to be managed by someone different or move to a different role so you don't have to leave the firm?

If you work full time (37hrs?), but only complete 9 hours work per week, what are you actually doing for the rest of the time?
Is this the reason for the PIP, do they feel you are too slow to complete the tasks, taking a whole week to complete something which should take one day?