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.

He’s said i am too focused on home life
What basis does he have gor saying this?

I don't think it would be that clear cut. He has already made a comment that OPs focus isn't on work but on her home life. I'm assuming this is because she is trying to juggle working and childcare since her husband isn't doing his half. It isn't because she is a woman, it's because she doesn't have adequate childcare and because they have made the decision that OP should do all of the childcare duing the week. That's why I think it would be better for OP to actually be in the office so they can see she is dedicated to her job during the hours she in paid to work.

Have you asked why? Ifp there are performance concerns that would explain the restricted task allocation.

The company offers a flexible working policy - this is mentioned in the OP. OP has also said she will happily work beyond 5.30.

I find it so sad that such sexist discrimination still happens. I had a horrible experience of it in a recent interview. It's sad how much people don't like Mums.

OP's manager needs to be frank about the business impact of flexible working or her 'focus' or drop it.

Realistically OP, are there other teams you can move to? A friend in the company who you can go to with this? Or I'd just look to leave. Life is too short to put up with this rubbish. Start documenting as previous posters have advised.

My union also has employment lawyers.

@NiftyGreenEagle I do wish sexism wasn't a thing but unfortunately it is and we are not helping ourselves when we make decisions that means that the father can opt out of childcare Mon-Fri and leave it up to the mother to solve either. As long as men are seen as "having the big important job" that needs to be prioritised over a woman's job then nothing will change.

@Galllpis there any reason why you can’t go in to the office a couple of days a week? I don’t see why doing a nursery run means you have to work from home all week. If I was in your position & my new manager was overlooking me I would make the effort to go in more often.

@RoachFishI agree. If the partner/husband took on a couple of days doing nursery run then OP might have more chance to focus on work. It seems that he has avoided any responsibility! It will only get harder with another baby & then school rather than nursery. So it would help if he contributed.

It’s also possible to up your game and perform in line with what you are told are the current expectations of you and retain your role.

Except the OP isn't being told what the current expectations are, just that she needs to "improve". In what way, her boss hasn't stated. He has only made vague comments about "working from home too much" which is acceptable for other staff so showing bias against the OP, and given an opinion that she is "too focused on home life" with no specifics. He hasn't even bothered to give feedback on some work, so how can she know what is/isn't wrong with it?

I'm sure the OP would love to try to meet the expectations, if only she knew what they were!

Also, men often get praised for parenting (doing school runs etc) in a way women aren't, and organisationslike to show they're being all equal by being flexible to men. (Sexism.)

Presumably it wasn't an employment lawyer you spoke to? Pretending to be sick when you're not is ridiculous advice and very likely to make you look much worse than your employer.

It's in the first paragraph.

Worth checking your home insurance to see if it includes legal insurance for employment proceedings

Silly comment. She doesn't suggest anywhere in the post that she's mentally unwell. No basis on which to assume she is.

1. Lying not a good idea
2. Will be difficult down the line for her to argue "I was willing and able to work but you were giving me no work" while simultaneously having sick notes saying she can't possibly work because of health reasons

Why after 9 years and your level of seniority are you being fed work? That's a major issue potentially.
How often are your peers going in?
Once a fortnight might be problematic if your colleagues are going in 2/3 days a week

Company has a right to flag concerns i don't see any grounds YET for you to think tribunal other than the pay review issue potentially. No senior management or hr for you to talk to? Correspond by email, ask for clear evidence to support his assessment you're failing if an informal process check your policy to see what is next and what right to reply/appeal you have. You could raise a grievance if cant resolve informally

What are the junior staff that you supervise doing whilst you work from home with little to no work to do?
i feel like at the moment you’re trying to exclusively work from home in a job that can’t actually be done remotely.
jobs that can be done entirely remotely tend to be ones where week by week the person knows what the basics of their jobs are and gets on with it, or where they generate their own tasks by EG. Contacting clients.

if you’re constantly relying on others to generate simple tasks like editing then something’s not working.
I’d think you either have to bite the bullet and get back into the office until you have a full job to do or look for something else.

I don’t understand why you are waiting to be fed work. Surely your role has defined tasks and responsibilities that you undertake as part or your remit?

If you are not really working much what are you actually doing? I also think you’re missing out by not going into the office more frequently and actively collaborating with others etc.

This.

I've had a similar situation in the past. I kept getting told a certain weekly report I was doing just wasn't good enough & to redo it, no explanation of what they were looking for. Eventually after being told by my boss that he disbelieved I had ever filled that role before as IO didn't even know how to do this one type of report, he finally gave me an example of what he expected and had been done previously by a consultancy. Whereas in every other job with that role this report had been a short 2 side summary with a couple of tables, tick boxes and some RAG statuses, he was expecting a 10 page glossy production with graphs, diagrams, flowery words either side of every fact or figure etc. So why hadn't he given me a copy of this in the first place, or said he'd been wanting a more detailed and fancy version rather than just saying "not good enough"?

I left that company shortly afterwards - they were the most entitled bunch of pricks I had ever met. They made me work every second of my notice period, but they did end up paying for it. As soon as word about me leaving got around the building the company were renting a few rooms in, they couldn't get anything done in a timely manner or given the priority they'd enjoyed. I was told by the building staff that they'd only helped because it was me asking, and that rather than being polite and friendly the management of my company were so rude and demanding that they were automatically put at the bottom of the list.

There are not always two sides to stories like this and not all industries are the same. In some jobs people do need to wait to be given projects before they can work on them. It sounds as though he doesn't like her and is trying to get her to leave

She can do both willing to work and be made unwell by the manager.

Her manager has a legal obligation to manage stress. At the moment her manager is putting her in an impossible position of having to improve her work to an unknown standard where no work or appropiate feedback is provided.

Stress has been proven to create physical damage. Most people would feel stressed if they were in danger of loosing their job. Stress related illness are long term illnesses. So in health terms it is as if her job had exposed her to asbestos etc. and that creates a financial risk to the organisation.

I feel like you need to stand up for yourself more Op with this manager. If you have nothing to do, I would email him first thing in the morning for a task. If he doesn’t give you anything, then you have an email chain to prove that it’s not just you not doing work. And keep emailing him every day.

Nothing in your comment is relevant to what I was responding to.
OP said she had been advised to "go off sick". OP has not however suggested she is in fact sick or unable to work. Quite the opposite, she wants to work more (with appropriate guidance/delegation/etc).

As such it would be terrible advice to get signed off. Not just potentially fraudulent but also counterproductive to her desire to show she wants to and is able to manage a larger work load.

OP said she was told this by a lawyer. I'm in employment law and could hazard a good guess that whoever advised her that is not.

This is good advice. Keep written records of everything, also keep your own contemporaneous notes of things. And if you talk in person drop him an email after saying "just to note that we just met and agreed X, Y, Z"

But it could be a option if she wishes to force her employer to redeploy her to a new management reporting line.
It will be dependent on the organisations culture and how they react to a HR risk.

I am sure that she is currently stressed as anyone would be in her situation which can be a reason to go off sick. By going off sick she is removing herself from her single source of work stress and the organisation has an obligation to resolve the issue. This may be by getting both parties to agee to a management method including a PIP, it may be to have her move reporting lines, or even that she leaves the organisation.

Constructive dismisal is a method of stressing the employee out of their role so the person who gave advice may (should) have a more detailed picture of what has gone on since the OP returned to work and what the culture is like.