Job changes on maternity leave

[DarklyDreaming]

I work for a very small business. When an colleague went on maternity leave this year, her FT role was split between the team and another colleague increased her hours from PT to FT to cover.

The colleague initially said that she would take 12 months mat leave, but has now said that she will come back in December, so only taking 6 months.

However in the last few months we have completed a large overhaul of the IT system, and much of the colleague's role is now redundant (it's an admin post) - there is really only the need for a part-time position of 2.5-3 days a week. Also cash flow is very very tight for the next few months and we will really struggle to pay an additional wage.

We had planned to identify other projects for her to take on when she came back after 12 months, but will not be able to do this within the 6 month timescale. We've kept her posted with the changes in the IT system, and plans to identify other projects.

We are too small to have an HR person in-house - can anyone give me any guidance on what we need to do in this situation?

Is the business owner not able to take proper advice somewhere?

Presumably other colleague who temporarily increased her hours to cover is now reducing them back again?

If colleague on mat leave has been kept posted what has been her reaction, what does she want?

You don't need in-house HR in order to take proper advice and really your boss should be doing this himself/herself in a situation where he/she can give all the details.

I can't give you much help because your boss would be a target client for me - I work for small businesses - but if you can answer those couple of questions I might be able to give you some pointers.

Thanks flowery. You're right, my boss should be taking advice on this, he's out of the country at the moment and has emailed me a couple of times to look into this for him. I'm just going to reply and say that I'll look into HR advisers for him to talk to direct.

Yes, the colleague who increased her hours to FT will be going back to PT - it's mostly the work that she took on that will remain after all the changes in IT, so that would make up the 2.5-3 days worth of work we currently have for my colleague on mat leave.

Colleague on mat leave has been really positive about the changes, as they will mean that her role is less repetitive. However, I don't think my boss ever mentioned to her that her current workload would be reduced by this process, as he'd intended to find other projects for her to do when she came back after 12 months. These would have made her role up to full time again. It's coming back at 6 months that has thrown everything into confusion, but I know that this is her right, so am not sure why he didn't have a contingency plan in place.

She is entitled to come back to her original role after 6 months, and it sounds as though she will be coming back to as much of her original role as is left. The only issue is there is less of it than when she left. As long as the bits that were in it haven't gone to someone else, that's not necessarily a problem. It's likely to be a potential redundancy situation, but as there is a possibility of increasing back up after a while it's not necessarily quite that simple. Key will be to communicate properly and effectively with colleague on mat leave, and follow a reasonable procedure. She may be happy to take a temporary drop in hours, you never know, and may be open to discussions about how else best to manage this situation, but how she is communicated with and what is said will be important.

Thank you, all your help was very much appreciated.

I've told my boss that I've found out as much as I could but that he needs to speak to a HR professional for advice.