Maternity leave restructuring

[Lrsrt12]

Hi

I am wondering if anyone has been through this situation and can offer any advice on my position. I have been on maternity leave 2 months. Previously managed a team of c.30. Company put in place maternity leave cover for my leave. I have found out in the last week that my team is being restructured and 3 of my 5 direct reports are moving reporting line. That is over half of the team. No-one has told me officially - I know because one of my direct reports called me very upset. The date of change is 1st August.

What are my rights? Should I have been consulted? Offered redundancy? Told?!

Thanks in advance for any help

Thanks for all of the responses.

To answer the questions,

• I think this fundamentally changes my role. 1 team and a large project will no longer be part of the role, leaving only 1 team left to manage. The overall team size will be halved. I find it very hard to believe that they will keep someone at my level to do this role now - I am sure they won't.
• They know they can contact me. My maternity cover already has twice for help and so has the business head. I wrote on my pre leave form that I was happy to be contacted for important events.

I have not called in because firstly I don't want to deal with this now if I don't have to and secondly I don't know what my rights are. I am hoping to establish what should be done so I know ready for when (if) they call me.

Again, thank you for all of the help. I did not expect to get so many responses.

OP they can make you redundant on mat leave but this doesn't sound like redundancy. However they are changing your job and , you could argue, giving you less responsibility without even notifying you formally what is going on. That's why you MUST CALL Maternity Action. They can give you free legal advice

How long is your maternity leave? Iirc if you return after six months they don't need to hold your role open for you.

a large project will no longer be part of the role

Ouch. That would sting. I've had to hand over not one but two of my babies that quite frankly wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for my knowledge and utter skillz and are saving my employer gazillionsprojects recently. I'm still reeling. Might it be that you were punching well above your weight, and the maternity cover can't cope?

I can't see any benefit in waiting to be told. I think you need to contact your manager and say you are concerned that a restructuring of your team seems to have taken place without involving you or even talking to you about it, you are concerned at how this will affect your own role, and concerned that you had to hear about it from an upset direct report.

Once you have more information from the horse's mouth, you can decide whether to seek external advice and decide what to do.

Could this "restructuring" be down to the fact that your MAT cover is struggling or unable to manage both teams?

I'd give your manager a call and ask what's going on TBH.