Discrimination grievance?

[codenameduchess]

I'll try to keep this short and relevant, I'm undecided on whether or not to go down the route of raising a grievance or not and would appreciate any advice or experience.

Recently applied for a promotion within my existing team, timing meant that I had to inform my manager of my pregnancy a week before the interviews.

When I told my manager of the pregnancy she said 'you've applied for that position? Do you want to withdraw your application because it's a waste of time?'. I declined to withdraw.

I was interviewed and didn't get the job. Manager called me from her personal phone to mine despite both having work mobile phones that calls are recorded on. Her tone was bordering on aggressive to me.

I requested interview feedback, she sent me her notes from the interview which were mostly illegible but what I could read was just a transcript of what I said and a score that was not connected to anything.

The interview questions were vague and mostly unrelated to the role/job description. It was unclear what they were looking for.

I requested actual feedback, a week later manager said 'oh I can't remember that now'. I pushed again and a week later her manager (director who also interviewed) sent me an email with feedback that consists of the vague questions, a couple of points they were looking for and one line on my answers. I have doubts these points were actually discussed prior to this email but can't prove it and still no indication as to how the scores were reached.

My manager has made me feel genuinely uncomfortable since and has been passive aggressive, having petty digs at me, undermining my work.

I believe the questions were kept vague deliberately to make sure she got the outcome she wanted. The successful candidate is also an existing team member, similar experience to me (but is personal friends with our manager and babysits her kid often).

Manager has also changed our job titles and descriptions without consultation and claims to have completely changed what we do but will not share any info with us on what we should be doing so technically could say any of us are not performing.

She is also known to be fraudulently claiming time (TOIL) and expenses- unconnected but annoying she is getting away with it

I have spoken to ACAS and am aware of the process and steps I need to take, what I'm hoping for is some advice or experiences for those of you who have been here or seen this situation. Is what I have enough to raise a discrimination grievance?

I am due to start maternity leave in around 7 weeks, at this moment I don't want to return but don't want to risk loosing the small amount enhanced pay and/or not getting another job soon enough after mat pay as I'm the higher earner and it would impact us hugely.

I would get your cv together and do some job hunting while you're on maternity leave. Put away the enhanced part of your maternity pay so that it will be available for you to pay back if you get a better job. Yes, they should have behaved better than they are but it's going to be stressful if not impossible to force them to change and you don't need to be dealing with that while you're on leave.

As you are due to start your maternity leave, it isn't good timing for you.

Here are a few headline facts for you to decide whether you could bring a Claim for sex discrimination on the basis of pregnancy which is a protected char under Equality Act:

1. You have 3 months in which to lodge your Tribunal Claim, taken from your stated date when the last act of discrimination took place (you could state that all their post-interview shenanigans still equates to ongoing discrimination, thereby extending your timescale in your favour).

1. You need to document the events around the interview process, including their unacceptable post interview behaviour and lack of documented feedback, which you maintain amounts to discrimination. Submit these facts as a Grievance according to their policy, before you go on mat leave to give maximum time for them to review. State in the Grievance that you are on mat leave from x date, as this could be a useful marker in time - you are at a further disadvantage being on mat leave, Tribunal will consider this in the context of your discrimination claim as it's another barrier for you to overcome.

1. Contact ACAS and get a solicitor to give you advice about the strength of your claim.

You have a lot on your plate, but if you feel strongly that they have discriminated against you because you informed them of being pg, and you believe that is the reason they deliberately skewed the interview to prevent you being successful in the promotion, the above steps are what you need to do.

Good advice above, another thing to consider is whether your enhanced pay is dependent on you returning to your post for any length of time. My company has this as part of their terms.

If you can get your job description agreed before you go on maternity leave. There was a big restructure where I worked before I went on M/L and I was pretty certain my job would have either disappeared or be vastly different in a year.
I insisted (and was a bit of a PITA about insisting) on get my current JD agreed before I left as I had gained lots of additional responsibilities since being recruited (budget, accountability etc). I'd had commensurate payrises, but my title/JD didn't necessarily reflect it. Finally got JD to match what I did.

Sure enough, on return, my job had gone, they tried to offer me a "job of a similar level". But it wasn't. Had none of the responsibility/accountability levels. "But we'll pay you the same"... I refused, said it was not of a similar level (regardless of pay) and that clearly as my role had become redundant they needed to pay me the redundancy money I was entitled to.

I hope you get it sorted. This is the last kind of shit you need when pregnant. Good luck

She is also known to be fraudulently claiming time (TOIL) and expenses- unconnected but annoying she is getting away with it

Advice: avoid any mud-slinging no matter how accurate you are. Stick 100% to your own verifiable facts, steer clear of anyone else's behaviour.

No. Because apart from the TOIL issue (which pp has advised not to raise) you can prove nothing. Calls to your personal phone; conversations; illegible notes - what you believe will not be enough without specific proof.