Change of line manager and demotion during maternity leave - my rights?

[Mayandbump23]

I am currently on maternity leave and have just been told that I have a new line manager. Instead of reporting to a member of the executive management team I am now reporting to someone who (prior to my maternity leave) I used to work with, as a colleague at the same level. He is then reporting to my old line manager so they have added a level between me and my old line manager. They haven't changed my role description or salary (yet) but I am not best pleased as I have effectively been demoted. What are my rights? Can they do this?

has your colleague been promoted?

If your job and salary are the same, and the level you will be working at are the same, they have just added a layer of management, not demoted you really. As long as your terms and conditions are the same, you don't get to demand to keep the same line manager I'm afraid.

You haven't been demoted they've just changed your reporting line.

Sorry but as everyone else has said. If your salary, job and responsibilities are all the same it just means they've added another layer which someone has been promoted into so not much you can do.

Did they advertise the role?

No, the role was not advertised (I would have applied for it, if it had) and I wasn't informed until three days after the announcement was made to everyone else in the company (so not very happy about that either).

It is not illegal not to advertise a post in this circumstance (assuming that this is not a redundancy scenario). They can promote who they like without need to advertise.