Maternity leave and contact with work

[DuelingFanjo]

I am just over 5 months into my maternity leave (going back at 10 months) and a work mate has sent me a text to say there's a meeting tomorrow about redundancies. He says that the company are making up to 30% cuts. This won't be 30% cuts in staff but in total expenditure.

This is the first I have heard about the meeting although I was aware there would be some cuts at some point. My question is, should my boss be keeping me informed of these meetings/changes or is the onus on me to keep checking with work? My work email account was suspended while I am off so I don't get to see any of the work related emails.

Also I know I have some protection while on maternity but is that just for the first 6 months?

This happened to me as well - though without the work friend texting me beforehand. Consequently I found out our office is closing on facebook. I wasn't best pleased, as you might imagine. But I think that there may be a policy that they shouldn't contact you when you are on mat leave. Not sure if that's a company policy specific to here or whether it's a common thing? Perhaps someone with more knowledge than me will be along in a minute :)

Ah thanks. There's no chance of our company closing down (public sector-ish) but they have been making lots of cuts over the last few years so it's inevitable that some will go.

Maybe they can't dontact me. I might get in touch with HR and see if I can get my email up and running again.

I think they are supposed to let you know what's going on, that's for sure. And I think it's terrible they have suspended your e-mail: you are still an employee! I have asked to be kept in the loop on things, and have even contributed to e-mail discussions. My choice, but they know I'm absolutely barking dedicated! I think this does me favours, especially among those who think I'm on a year-long holiday.

Whilst you are still on maternity leave, you will get priority for redeployment and mustn't be selected for redundancy because you are on maternity leave, but I'm afraid that's the only protection.

HR should be keeping you involved in what's going on, but quite often they phone people who are off after the meeting - that way they can tell them everything that happened. If it's a pre-arranged meeting then it would be good practice to invite you, but it's not necessarily mandatory as long as they make sure you get to be involved. I think contacting HR is a good idea. Say you've heard about the meeting and wondered if you could dial in (assuming that would be practical at home)? Or just ask for confirmation that they'll call you afterwards.

If the meeting forms part of the consultation process for redundancies then yes, you should be invited if you are on maternity leave as they are required by law to consult with you about the redundancy process. However, you could decline to attend but you have to be given the same opportunities as everyone else so they should be keeping you informed as if you were there by phone/letter/email.

Did you agree anything with work about communication when you left?

One lovely company I am acquainted with excluded women on maternity leave from the employee opinion survey and gave them no access to information about internal job vacancies which had to be applied for via the internal intranet. I wasn't hugely surprised when one of their store managers found out her store was due to close by her FIL ringing to say it was in the Sunday Telegraph She came to an "amicable settlement" with that organisation