Do I have any rights? Potentially screwed over since back from maternity leave.

[WorriedWorriedWorried]

Without giving too much info that could give me away in RL here are the details.

When I left for maternity leave my then manager also left at the same time for a new role.

Role on 12 months, the company has restructured and I return to find I am now managed by a colleague who was previously on the same level as me and that all my old peers are slotted into new roles.

My first day back coincides with a company event where my new manager gets drunk and tells me to forget about my old job as it's gone and that i'll be doing something completely different for him in not a particularly nice way. Fair enough, I took the full year off and can't expect to come back to exactly the same position.

However, it quickly becomes clear that my new job is effectively a demotion and that I am on a similar level to someone who reporting into me before I left on mat leave.

I stick it out for a while but when I find myself in the same room as someone from the HR team I tell her the situation. She is very supportive and offers to speak to my manager's boss which I ask her not to do for the moment as they have a close relationship and I wanted to think about it further.

It is then announced that the company is going through another restructure and senior roles are recruited. I assume the next tier of roles are going to become available further down the line but this doesn't happen.

With nothing to lose, I go to the group head with my CV and job description from my previous role and let her know the sort of role I would like and where my skills lie. A couple of weeks pass then I get a call from her asking me to go full time (I work 4 days a week typically) to oversee a couple of projects. I agree and complete the work. I'm on holiday for a couple of weeks and return to an email saying that I will now report into her going forward. I have been doing this for a few months now and have informed HR that I am much happier in this new role.

It's worth mentioning that I have not had a new job description since I've been back either in this role or the one I came back to, or appraisal.

It looks like the company is reducing head count and that I am very much at risk as I don't actually have a recognised job within the company and haven't since my maternity leave.

Do I have any recourse should I be made redundant?

Apologies that this is so long!

I'm not an expert, but I think that if you look at it written down (taking your emotions out of it, and try to see it from the company's perspective) its not directly to do with your maternity leave. You could have taken it up with them when you spoke to a member of the HR team, but chose not to. You are now effectively in a new role which you could have got even if you hadn't been on maternity leave as you applied to the group head and was given this new role.

Personally I would ask the group head now if you are seconded to working under her or if it is a permanent move (if this isn't already clear) and request a new job title etc.

Thanks for your reply.

My point is (which I don't think I've explained very well) that I haven't been placed in an actual job since returning from maternity leave in that I haven't had an appraisal, job description etc and this leaves me exposed in any further changes in the company. I, perhaps wrongly, thought that a company had to give you a role on a similar level etc on return.

I have asked my new 'boss' (who I do not officially report into) about all this and have been put off though not in a nasty way.

I thought there were some mandatory HR processes that take place when you return to work (ie new job description if your old job is no longer there, appraisal...) that haven't happened resulting in me being in a vulnerable position now.

It's worth mentioning that if I hadn't been on maternity leave I wouldn't be in this position as my old role would have been part of the new structure.

They do have to give you a job on an equivalent salary and responsibility on your return to maternity leave. Has this not happened, or have others simply been promoted around you? I know that with some employment issues a tribunal claim has to be drawn within 3 months of the incident, I unsure with this if that would be from your return to work or from the time of the (potential) redundancy.

I actually still feel its two separate issues here, I would suggest you contact either ACAS or that you check your home insurance to see if you have legal protection and speak to an expert (I have some knowledge of these things but not an expert). Good luck.

www.direct.gov.uk/en/Parents/Moneyandworkentitlements/WorkAndFamilies/Pregnancyandmaternityrights/DG_065153

Thanks Rockchick and Vodka

I wasn't really given a job when I returned (as I said no job description) and the tasks I were doing were certainly not of the same level as before. It wasn't so much that others were promoted rather that the structure of the company changed and I missed out (largely because my boss left the same time as I went on maternity leave.