Help! Meeting with HR Tomorrow

[FifiForgot]

I am currently on maternity leave and I am due back at work in January.

Some time ago (back in the summer) I had a phone call from my line manager who informed me "off the record" that she had been off sick for a significant period of time and while she had been absent, it had been decided that my role really needed to be full time. I have now been called to a meeting with HR tomorrow to be formally told.

To give a bit of background, I returned to work full time after the birth of my first child and requested a reduction in hours. After a year of trying, I was finally allowed to drop to 4 days per week, but only by accepting a demotion by 2 grades and someone was brought in above me.

There is no way that I can work full time, it nearly caused me to have a breakdown last time and that was with just one child! DD is now in school so that makes things all the more complicated.

I know that I am not entitled to return to the same job after a year off, but there has never been any suggestion that I would go anywhere else. I have worked in the same role for 10 years, for the same boss and everyone is just assuming that I'll be back.

My question is by making my role full time, does this mean that they are significantly changing my T&C? Can they make me redundant or will me saying "no I can't/won't work fulltime" mean that I am effectively saying I'm not coming back to work.

I'm getting myself into a bit of a state about the whole returning to work thing anyway and this is just making it worse.

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

personally, I think that what they are saying rings true.

for example, we recently (fully checked to comply with employment law) had to reduce someone's hours, due to lack of business.

We consulted, they weren't happy, so we gave notice of the change of T&C that the job was now three days per week, not five, due to business need.

I realise this is kind of the reverse, but the job... and the need for the work to be done.... is still there, so I would not see it as a redundancy situation.

AFAIK and according to what I've read, redundancy does not exist if that is the case.

Hairyfairylights - I'm not disputing the fact that the role is not redundant, it is quite clearly still there, just full time.

What is really upsetting me is their refusal to consider any alternatives. I've been here before (after the birth of my first child) and it is a very un-family friendly organisation, despite what they preach!

Just a thought: do you have the paperwork from your original flexible working request? I'd be asking them what has changed that it means it now has to be full time, when it was clearly possible to be done part-time when they granted your request under the statutory obligation to consider.

Are they really 'refusing' to consider alternatives though? Are you party to all of their concerns/issues?

Of course, things may well have changed and there may be good reasons that it is not feasible to retain a part-time post. But it may be that there is not a good reason, and exploring that would be a good idea.

Not sure spending money on an employment lawyer is going to get you far though.

Apparently, me going on maternity leave showed up a gap in cover caused by having cover new to the role, with added sickness from another member of staff and refusal to help (in a passive way) by another member of staff. This all came to a head and my boss decreed full time support was needed.

When I went to the consultation meeting, I asked if they would consider a job share (50/50 split or 60/40 split) and I have been told that that is not possible "because of the complex nature of XX's diary". I know that it would be possible to overcome this, but they are not interested. I asked if there was any other way around the situation (working compressed hours, etc), but no, I have to be in the office 5 days a week.

Unfortunately, my original flexible working request never got beyond an initial discussion with my boss. She had the Head of HR ring me at home to convince me to not put it in writing because "it won't be accepted" so I dropped it. I eventually managed to reduce my hours by agreeing to a 2 grade demotion and have someone brought in above me to "manage me". It was humiliating at the time and still smarts now, even though my manager was quite happy to let me get on with the job with minimal oversight.

After 5 years of battling against this and various other issues, I think the time has come to call it a day. I'm just sad that, after 10 years of service, its come to this.

It seems, in their minds at least, that they are justified. I'm not sure you would get anywhere by appeal/tribunal, but that's your call.

You also shot yourself in the foot by not formalising your flexible working request, sorry. The onus is on the employee to formally make the request. And you have a statutory right to do so. I'm sorry you were convinced, immorally, not to put it in writing. That's pretty awful. I'm also surprised that any head of HR would do this - she/he sounds awful! Our HR Manager would tell me 'you absolutely can't do that' even if I wanted to (which I wouldn't!).

Good luck in your quest for a new job that will suit better, and I hope your next employer will be more professional.