Employment Advice

[KB1979]

Whilst on maternity leave my team has undergone a restructure. I was contacted 3 weeks after giving birth and told I must have an interview. I was told the process needed to be concluded and must attend before a certain date. I had an interview when my baby was 6 weeks old - which I felt totally unprepared for due to lack of sleep and illness of another of my children. Following the interview I was told that I did not get the job. I have now been placed in a transitional team and must apply for new roles as and when they arise. Does anyone know if what they made me go through is legal? I was under the impression that when on maternity leave they aren't able to do anything to your role.

I'm not even sure who to approach for advice???

Any information greatly appreciated!

Thanks

They can't make you redundant if your on mat leave. Well they can, but if there are jobs that exist you must be offered one of them. They can give you an interview but only to work out if your suitable.

Are they making you redundant or will you just exist in the transitional team until a new post comes up?

"They can give you an interview but only to work out if your suitable."

Sorry that should read "only to find out if the job is suitable not to benchmark you against other candidates etc".

I don't want to start a bun fight, but it is possible to be made redundant even if you are on maternity leave. Employers can do it if the right set of circumstances exist, but they are not allowed to treat you to your detriment because you are on maternity leave and you do have enhanced protection in that circumstance. See here.

Thanks for the info - they haven't made me redundant just put me in a transitional team. The restructure meant they cut the number of people doing my job from 25 to 10. I thought they had to slot me into 1 of the jobs automatically. Now when I do go back to work I could end up doing something completely different to the role I left - which somehow doesn't seem right.

"I don't want to start a bun fight, but it is possible to be made redundant even if you are on maternity leave."

That's what I said. In any cases it's not important.

They can make you redundant on mat leave. General consensus if 25 of the same jobs are reduced to 10 then this is one of those cases. If they turned 25 jobs into 10 new jobs (i.e. combined roles etc) asked everyone to apply then they'd had to ring fence a job for you.

But this doesn't apply as you've not been made redundant or put on notice.

So if you're off over 6 months they don't have to give you your original job back just one of the same status etc. If you've off under 6 months they have to give you your original job back.

Both of those are dependant on your job still existing and if its practical to do so.

As they've changed the teams around its not..... so sounds like they're doing every thing ok.