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 clearly have a case (in fact many cases). But, cases fall down because they are not documented properly, etc and by your unintentional actions (such as accepting the informal PIP and not complaining at the time).

You need to contact a solicitor with expertise in employment law extremely quickly. Make sure they tell you exactly what evidence you need, what you need to communicate to your manager, etc. Do not delay.

Would agree with this - I was managed out in a very brutal fashion - I took early legal advice and got a very decent payout. Read up on being managed out - it is a tactic used when they want to get rid of someone - I was pipped because I refused to sleep with my line manager!!! A condition of passing the pip was my line manager agreeing that my body language had improved lol. It is nasty, not nice and if ever in that circumstance you need support and a decent employment lawyer. Good luck

I’d speak so either Citizen’s Advice or ACAS. They should be able to advise you further and confirm if you have a case

https://www.acas.org.uk/

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/

If youre feeling bullish about this, you can start the process of taking control of the situation.

1. Send him a meeting invite for when you are next in the office - meeting subject: Performance
2. Prepare well for the meeting with the points (and anything else) that you mentioned in your post.
3. Open the meeting with "I want to speak to you about our recent meetings and the points you have raised about my attendance and performance. If you'll bear with me, I'll summarise what we have discussed and perhaps you can provide me with more information about why these points have been raised."
4. I am accessing the organisations flexible working poilicy as are other employees yet this seems to be an issue?
5. As you know, I am in a senior role but the work I have been given recently does not reflect that
6. Comments you have made about my performance which appear to be unfounded
7. Exclusion from the pay review on my return from maternity leave which leaves me at a disadvantage and could be deemed to be discriminatory
8. A Performance Improvement Plan put in place with little or no justification
9. Comments about my home life and and arrangements which are irrelevant and unwanted

Basically I feel I am being set up to fail and potentially constructively dismissed. Can you please explain to me why the situation has changed since my return from maternity leave? I would like to think we could resolve these issues and move forward more positively but clearly I do not wish to continue with this situation and don't intend to resign. See what he says and try not to react. Remain entirely professional. If he seems conciliatory, then explore what needs to change and agree actions. He may wish to reflect and that's ok; suggest another date and time when you can reconvene. Alternatively, if he's defensive or aggressive, tell him that you are terminating the meeting forthwith and will be taking advice and will be in touch. By taking control of the situation, you will feel much stronger and empowered to move this forward in whatever way suits you best. You could of course raise a grievance against him which would have to be heard by another manager but this wouldn't be my preferred first course of action. Good luck!

"She doesn't suggest anywhere in the post that she's mentally unwell. "

She indicates that she's being bullied and even pushed out of her job. That is likely to cause stress and anxiety, even depression.

What's to stop him just denying everything though? Especially as she would presumably not have a witness for this meeting? I'd also be wary of putting performance as the name of the meeting if colleagues can see both their calendars.

I had a similar thing when we had changes in management for the 4th time in 6 months. I ended up with a manager who wouldn't listen to me and would criticise petty things in reports I wrote.

She even criticised that my way of writing emails to her was too informal. She wanted me to write Dear S, as per your query about doing a task I shall be unable to complete this for the following 10 reasons, yours SmudgeButt. I'd got the email from her about 2 minutes before leaving and having to run to catch the train so I'd just "sorry but I'll look at this in the morning".

She gave me completely new work to do with no training and then said I'd failed to do it properly. I'd write something and ask if that was the type of comments that were required and she'd tell me I'd failed because I hadn't made the margins the right width and used a : when she thought I should use a :, When I questioned why she couldn't just look at the words in a first draft she said that as far as I was concerned everything should be presented as if it was a final draft.

(wow - a decade later this still eats into my soul!!)

Anyhoo - I contacted HR and said that in my opinion she was being a bully and was setting me up to fail. There was a formal meeting with me, the manager, a different manager and someone from HR. I presented my case that she was being a bully and she responded that she was very hurt by the accusation and felt she'd done nothing to deserve me being so nasty!!! I went on and said that because she'd made my situation so difficult and the relationship was so toxic I saw no way forward in trying to continue to work with her and wanted to be transferred to a different team.

In the end there was 3 of us that needed to do the same thing. In my new team they thought I was great and did a wonderful job. It made me so much happier!

I think @Trainingfairy 's suggestion is a good one. He will deny it, but the OP has addressed the situation and created a paper trail. The words "discrimination" and "constructive dismissal" mean that should the meeting be unsatisfactory, she has an email to forward onto HR for escalation. They will take this very seriously.

A settlement agreement after 9 years in the role will be expensive especially if there's an unblemished record and this all happens post maternity leave.

You have been back a year already and if you want to stay at this company you will have to work according to the new boss’ rules.
If I were you , I’d be going in 3-4 days per week and I’d be actively seeking out more tasks. Ask what you can help with, what else can you do?
He clearly doesn’t understand working from home, so you have to go all out to prove your value now.
Otherwise just look for a new job.

Yes, but an email following the meeting would just be her words against his. He could give a totally different account.
I also understand that asking for a colleague/union rep to go with you is usually something you do when you are summoned to a disciplinary and not when you're going on your own, but I wonder if OP could have a witness somehow...

Sounds to me like he is right, everyone else is at work whilst you go in once a fortnight and think everything is hunky dory, like most on here you're deluded!

Consider yourself lucky I'd say.

Nobody here is able to diagnose the OP based on supposition.

It’s also an odd form of mental illness when you can know in advance you will be completely incapacitated if a particular set of events is set in motion!

No, the doctor will do that so the poster's advice to go to see a doctor was valid.

She's at work too. She works from home and they don't have a rule about how many days to be in the office.

Is it chilly on that high pedestal on which you've placed yourself @Icyboy (it's what it says on the tin lol!)
I sometimes wonder if we have advanced the workplace at all in terms of treating people like adults when we have opinions like this.

There are 5 sentences in your post and for every one I would ask the question "Why"?
The workplace has changed and we are (presumably) dealing with adults who take responsibility for their actions and performance. It's also perfectly possible in many jobs to do an equally good job whether in the workplace or elsewhere.
Time to come out from under that rock @EdgarAllenRaven

@Trainingfairy I'm not under any rock.... going in once per fortnight is quite rare these days, most employers except a bit more attendance in the office than that?
But also it's been made very clear to OP that he wants her in the office more, so that is my suggestion to her if she wants to keep her job with this particular employer. Or at least have that conversation outright.
If she wants to work somewhere with more flexibility, she should look for another employer, that was my advice.

You've missed a bit @EdgarAllenRaven ; she stated "Since returning I’ve utilised the flexible working policy" - so they already have a formal flexible working arrangement, in which case if that is something that employees can access and it is suitable for the kind of work that the poster carries out, why is it a problem? Perhaps it's more of a problem for some managers who can't actually handle the fact that employees can be trusted, act like adults and be extremely effective in their job role regardless of whether they are in the office or elsewhere.
Personally, I have always been far more effective when I needed to get things done without being distracted by a noisy office environment; each to their own, but it shouldn't be presumed that employees are only being productive when they are in the workplace - those days are gone.

Sounds like he’s managing you out. I would speak to Acas and make sure you are logging everything you are doing to refer back to.
If they do manage you out/you leave before it comes to that, it could be constructive dismissal.

I would have a conversation with ACAS and your union rep, sounds like he is trying to push you out. Goes without saying you need to keep a chronological record of all of this, what he said, who present, what you asked, how it made you feel etc.

I gather that you have never been bullied or seen the impact that it can have on the individual being bullied or understand what kind of stressers are involved.

Even if the OP was being treated fairly and that she is mistaken in the managers intent /objective she as a result of what is happening she is feeling victimised. Its not necessary to be comletely incapacitated.

A underlying cause of her feeling victimised is that she no longer trusts her line manager.
People would quote insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results if she was sticking her hand in a fire and expecting not to be harmed or if the OP was in regular social contact with a MIL who stresses the OP. Why would that principle differ when its a professional relationship which has broken down

I don't see it like that at all. The way this man is treating the OP must be causing immense stress. There are situations when it's strategic to take sick leave. You could send her to OH all you want. OH only parrot back what the employee tells them.

You can't actively performance manage someone when they're off sick! That's crazy. They're not 'performing' at all ergo that can't be managed. A disciplinary can carry on but this is not a disciplinary.

I'd be looking at the discrimination angle if I were you @Galllp. Your manager clearly isn't very bright.

Could you go over his head to his superior?

it seems very clear to me that this manager is trying to undermine and bully OP out, for whatever reason. I would go to HR and definitely use a lawyer to help negotiate a settlement deal if it comes to that. For all she knows he’s been told from above to cut costs. Not giving her work and then trashing her work - well sad to say I’ve seen it all before.

There are situations when it's strategic to take sick leave

That's fraud.