Has anyone been through job evaluation whilst pregnant and ill, and got a terrible result?

[Twinklemegan]

And do you think lack of support from your managers would be grounds for appeal? There are obvious errors in the allocation of scores as well, but I need all the help I can get.

I ended up with no bonus or payrise while I was pregs and I'm sure it was down to some mistakes I made while really ill with morning sickness. The manager didn't make any allowances for it and when I came back from work after being off work with morning sickness, was called into a 2 hour meeting with no notice and grilled about the mistakes and then told AFTER that it was going to HR, so I had no chance to defend myself as I didn't know what was happening until the end of the meeting.

It then went straight to HR recommended at stage 3 level of seriousness - to give you an idea, stage 4 being when people shag the staff and embezzle so you can imagine how upset I was at it going that far, with a previous exemplary record. I then had the worry of a HR hearing and possibly losing my job from around 3months up until 7 mths pregnant. I had the HR hearing at 7mnths preg and they dropped all charges and said it shouldn't have even got that far in the first place...was so relieved and tempted to take it further for the crap they put me through but didn't want any more stress so left it - still rankles to this day though! I think basically when women get pregs, some workplaces get arsey cos they have to replace you etc and so they think of other ways to punish you! I've known lots of people treated badly when pregs. Have you got a union rep you can contact for advice?

Not sure Nikki76 - I think they'll be pretty inundated tbh. The whole organisation's been through the evaluation (ten thousand employees) and almost all my colleagues have lost out too. I think the terrible result is down to a misunderstanding of aspects of my job, but I know I was not in a fit state to make sure I gave the best possible information. My feeling is that my managers had a duty to take this on board and support me. It's interesting that there were other women pregnant/off on maternity leave during job evaluation and we've all come out of it really badly.

Contact the Equal Opportunities Commission and also look up the Dept. of Trade and Industry website - has all the employment law and guidance (assume your managers know you are ill).

Thanks - will do. I'm not ill any more btw, I had DS 7 months ago. And yes they knew I was ill.

Please - has anyone at all been through public sector job evaluation (NJC system) and successfully got the result reviewed, pregnant or not?

Thats a lot of people to evaluate so can see that they would be swamped but you could always contact them and see because that's what the union fees are for so technically, you should get something from them? Worth a try....also, are you able to have a meeting with manager and say you didn't feel able to give the best information taking into account your illness and could you possibly go through the relevant points with them again and have records rectified? Obviously, its difficult to advise as not sure how company works etc, but hopefully my ideas have helped a bit?

For what its worth, I found my company crap when I was pregs....I went through hell over the HR hearing and the more I got stressed, the more worried I got about the stress being passed to the baby etc. It seems to be a really common thing for preg women these days - its as if by getting pregs, you are being disloyal to the company or something! As if I'm paid enough to eat, sleep and breathe the sodding company! lol

I'm not in a union Nikki. IMO the unions have sold their souls to the devil over job evaluation and they don't do anything for those of us in the middle. The senior managers are always OK, as would be expected; the unions protect the interests of the low-paid workers at the bottom. Those of us in the middle, especially those working in technical specialisms, are basically shafted.

FWIW, my line manager, her manager, his manager and his manager (still haven't reached the top of the management structure there) are all shocked by my particular result. I work in a specialist advisory role and have been put on the same grade as the contact centre workers.

That's crap.....really wish I could do more to help...if your managers are shocked at the result, would they be able to give you advice as to how to go about changing it? Wish had more ideas...

You need chocolate!!

Aww thanks Nikki.

I think the basic problem is the job evaluation system they used for our jobs (the specialist ones) is like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. It's also supposed to be cost neutral and I believe they had to work out the pay structure many many times to get the pay bill to fit the budget. The managers, unfortunately, know b*gger all about it.

I was a supervisor when pg, and I can kind of relate to this although it wasn't a highpowered job.

I was discriminated against by a manager, he was very chauvinistic, for example I wouldn't climb up a huge ladder at 7 months pregnant, after other staff had hassled me not to, and he said things like 'oh when x was pregnant she could still manage to do things required of her'

As such, as a not entirely shy person, we had a few tiffs, and my contempt for him was noted by a senior manager, who held it against me during an evaluation.

Thanks lunavix.

I'm getting the impression though that job evaluation isn't perhaps a widespread thing - do they not do it in the private sector? By which I mean, going through everyone's job descriptions (with additional information provided by postholders), comparing "like with like" (ha bl**dy ha), adding up the scores and shoehorning into a stingy new pay structure.

I posted on your other thread. I work in an extremely specialised and very atypical department of a local authority and we are poised to go through the process twinklemegan...having been left until near last because of our anomalous status and the way we argued the toss big time the last time this happened, about 11 years ago.
I wonder if we work in different parts of the same organisation