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.

You seem to be making up facts to fit your advice.

OP, as others have said, keep good records of everything, ask for clarity on what is expected of you and benchmarks you're expected to hit, don't take legal advice from non-lawyers (or non-employment lawyers). And it should go without saying but apparently doesn't, don't defraud your company with fake sick absence.

It's all a bit too slippery to grasp anything definite in this - the procedure is vague and even the performance improvement process is informal. The boss may well be trying to make it difficult for you and you are under pressure but there is so much we don't know on your side about your actual working pattern, what you do at home, the quality of work and general performance and your management of and response to concerns expressed by the manager about home or work.

Also missing is any context or sense of other resources in the company that you could avail of - you have a good record of nine years. Is there a senior manager you could speak to or anyone who knows and values you or maybe a mentor or wise person that you could talk to about your situation?

It would be better that you read the ACAS website to inform yourself about unfair dismissal, pregnancy and maternity discrimination and performance and grievance practice and procedures, and ring their advice line, rather than heeding people's possibly mistaken opinions on here. After that, you could speak to the Pregnancy advice organisation mentioned above and enquire about finding an employment solicitor. Being active in your own cause can only be a good thing. I do hope you can move forward with that and make sure you don't just leave without a job to go to and without having had good legal advice.

No i am simply pointing out that is possible for the OP to go sick.

And you were /are legally trained you would not be describing stress leave as a fake sick absence.

Honestly don't know where you're getting this from.

Re-read OP's posts please. She does not say she's stressed/unwell/mentally ill/unable to work through sickness. The most she says is she was "quite shocked" and "feel[s] sad".

What you're suggesting is the equivalent of telling a shelf stacker who's been asked to lift overly heavy boxes to go off sick with a broken arm because it's potentially possible to break your arm doing that job.

OP didn't take the silly "advice" and appears to be too sensible to shoot herself in the foot by faking sickness which would undermine her credibility as well as undermining her ability to say "I am ready and able to work and boss is unreasonably/unfairly failing to give me work".

Won't be responding any more because I think she has had plenty of good advice (apart from the advice to commit fraud which was...questionable)

The OP has been sidelined since she came back of her Mat leave.
Even after she raised the issue she had no proper pay or promotion meeting.
Her manager has been failing to provide her with much work
Her manager has been choosing to sent the low value work to her and high value work to others.
Her manager has failed to manage her for 6 months
Her manager then out of the blue decided to put her on an "informal" PIP and failure of the process can lead to an employee being let go.
Her manager fails to provide a structured process or any frame of reference for the PIP.
Her manager continues to fail to provide work
Her managers feedback is unprofessional

He’s spent perhaps 6 minutes talking each time and essentially saying there’s no improvement as far as he’s concerned.

She said :

Am I feeling victimised unnecessarily? I’ve never had any issues at work before.

And its clear the OP no longer has any trust in the manager.

You appear to want to insist that she could not be stressed and the advice had to be about faking a sickness.

I am pointing out is looks as if the manager may have decided fairly or unfairly that he did not want the OP on his team and had decided from day 1. If that is her managers decision she will never be able to work with him as he is the type of person who opts to force someone out of a job.

As @Gwenhwyfar pointed out :
Not really. Very few people's mental health isn't affected by being bullied/pushed out.

What are you doing when you’ve no work to do? Are you asking for more? Sending emails round to say you’ve capacity? Have you told him in these meetings that you don’t have any work?

@Cabbagefamily

from the OP

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.

Yes, I acknowledged that a long time back.

I agree. I didn't say it would be.

Yes the OP says she's asked him numerous times, and he keeps replying "none at the moment". Not all places of work are happy if you tout yourselves out to other section/departments without going via your line manager either, it may well be frowned upon if she offers herself to other teams directly.

I don't know how you can work in a senior role and only go in once a fortnight, unless you mostly work in isolation. Does the rest of the team also WFH as much as you, if not I can see why there is an issue

Thanks everyone. I’m mostly concerned that IF he has genuine concerns, there’s no way he would have approached things as he has. It’s like he’s made it destined for me to fail and has no real interest in improvement as he’s made up his mind.

A remarkable number of managers are just really bad at this stuff.

If he was determined to get rid of you he’d jump onto a formal PIP, with well written objectives that were water tight as that is the slam dunk fastest in at to get rid of someone.

If you’ve got a good relationship with another manager, it may well be worth seeking some advice from them. You can frame it as your manager has raised concerns to you about your performance, but you’re struggling to understand the issues and what you need to do to address them. You’ve done work with them (the other manager) and the communication has always felt open and clear cut, could they please give you some feedback or suggestions on how could improve.

(Also, check the flexi policy carefully, have a.chat with someone in HR about it - there may have been additional separate guidance added while you were off that you weren’t aware of. Eg. Teams can have core hours or days and staff are expected to participate in those. If there’s a disconnect there it’ll be making you look poor without you knowing it).

It seems he has told you that he wants you to be more visible in the office and he's concerned that you prioritise your home life when you should be working, is that something that you would be willing to work on? Ie, spend more days in the office and less days at home? I think if this job is valuable to you, you need to show them that you are willing to work with them and you probably need to get to know your manager too which is hard to do if you only go in two days a month.

@RoachFish i agree with your points but I don’t think my choice to utilise flexible working should mean he is trying to purposely find fault and alongside that completely ignoring the good work I’ve done.

I agree but if you want to avoid being managed out you might have to show your manager that you are committed to the role and are willing to be more of a visible participant within your team. It might not be fair but sometimes, if something is important, it's worth looking beyond what is fair and just make more of an effort to show that you are a valuable part of the team. If you have adequate childcare arranged it shouldn't be a problem to go into the office a few days a week, especally when they have told you that the issue is that they don't see you enough.

You do realise that PIPs are about the things which you aren’t doing to the correct standard don’t you? It’s not really relevant that there are some other things which you do do to an OK standard if the overall perception of your performance is that it’s not good enough.

As for the flexible working point, unless you are on 💯 home working contract, the expectation is that you will be in the office sufficiently to perform your job adequately- it seems you are not.

Your argument is like saying - there is no uniform or formal dress code at work so my employer cannot prevent me from wearing a FCUK emblazoned T shirt when teaching primary school age children. Or everyone is entitled to a lunch break so it’s OK for me to eat a smelly kebab and drink an alcohol free beer at work. Employees are expected to use common sense and not take the piss with privileges like flexible working and it sounds like you absolutely have been taking the piss by not coming into work more often even after your line manager has made clear to you that not doing so is having an adverse impact on the rest of your team and on your own work performance.

Except that a) her boss has failed to tell here in what way she's not performing or what the standard is and b) surely unless told otherwise, the OP can assume that the amount of home working done by others who are not being castigated in the same manner is acceptable. "(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."

That’s not what she’s said @Allergictoironing

She said he put her on an informal PIP which included a reference to her not coming into work and has had regular meetings with her about this but she says he hasn’t assigned her enough work to enable her to demonstrate improvement. Though she also said that of the limited work she was assigned one piece was returned heavily marked up.

Thats not at all the same as her not having been told what the expectations are and how she isn’t meeting them.

My (obviously very unpopular) take on this is I am afraid that's what happens when you take a long maternity leave.
OP, I don't know how long you took, but while months at home is all very lovely for mother and baby, the reality is a lot can change in those months at work.
To your employer, you are an employee, there to do a job, not a mother, wanting everything to fit your needs. If the majority of your team are in the office, that's where you should be. Your home responsibilities are yours to manage, not your employer's to accommodate. It should not affect your job in any way that your dh is away during the week.
Some of us drop lucky with wfh and flexible contracts, others don't and that's just the way it is I'm afraid
My first job was a 6am start, 50 mins commute away, with maternity pay finishing at six weeks. This was in 1993 and I am in no way advocating we should go back to that.
However, today's 9 months to a year off then an expectation of returning to your old role on different terms (wfh/flexible working etc) has gone too far imo.
The purpose of any job is to perform a task that needs doing and be paid for doing it. It's not something to provide an income for the employee alone.

Almost. She does say he told her she's not being given work because she works from home too much, which I can't really understand the logic of. This despite him giving plenty of work to someone else who works from home more than the OP does. So tell me how that works.

And that he has returned one (out of 3) pieces of work changed heavily stylistically despite the OP trying to use his style and wording where appropriate. If she'd been given guidance on a "house" style which she'd ignored that's one thing, but without being told to use a particular style she's tried to emulate his but apparently that's wrong as well. Plus "marking up" without explaining why changes were made is rather pointless e.g. "a little more (or less) formality", or "address this to a higher (or lower) audience" like the changes I've made.

It's not easy to show "improvement" if only given 3 pieces of work, 2 of which we must assume are OK as he hasn't come back to her with feedback and if they weren't OK why hasn't she had feedback. She is presumably doing the work in the way she has for the previous few years and not been told of any changes that may have been decided on in her absence.

He told her she's "too focussed on home life", but 9 hours of work offered in a month means she hasn't got a chance to be focussed on work as he won't give her any in the first place. It would be different if she'd not done work assigned to her due to home things interfering, but it's clear this isn't the case.

You not understanding the logic is not the same as the manager not having told the OP what she needs to do differently however!

Well that might wash if OP hadn't said another colleague who WFH is given loads of work and getting on great...

Have you emailed daily and stated you have only been given x work?

Maybe the other person working from home goes out of her way to be visible in a way which OP doesn’t? She could for example have regular virtual meetings set up, or be in email contact with key stakeholders at a very different cadence to OP.

All we can know from what OP has posted is that the way in which OP works from home is a factor in how little work gets assigned to her. If she were to work in a different way, that might not be the case.