[LONG POST ALERT]
I have been working for my employer since 2013, and for personal reasons I had to move to a part-time working pattern in 2017. For most of that time, I was working as a Technical trainer for clients, fully utilised, receiving great client feedback and gaining a reputation within the industry for delivering excellence. The work that I did directly resulted in many instances of repeat business for my employer, and continues to do so.
At the end of 2019, the company decided to close the training dept. and absorb it within a new OCM practice within the business. Myself and another colleague in the training team transferred across. It was acknowledged at the time that there would be a period of upskilling required to fully move us into our new roles and we were assured that this knowledge transfer would be done during the 'ramp up' period of the new practice.
Initially, the transfer went well. My new Manager seemed pleased with my work, and regularly referred to me as an 'overachiever'. I signed a contract for the new role in February 2020 based on my part time hours and my Manager even waived his right to a 'trial period' on the basis that the work I had already been doing for him rendered it unnecessary.
Then the COVID pandemic struck. This drastically reduced the opportunities for the new practice and the business in general to win new work. As a result, a decision was taken to make some redundancies and I was one of the people whose role was at risk. It was cited at the time that I had been selected because my part-time hours were not appropriate for the business. I challenged the redundancy on grounds of Unfair Dismissal and Gender Discrimination and my employer eventually rescinded the redundancy. Although I never pursued tribunal action nor even threatened it, I had plenty of evidence to support the claims and the company were aware of this.
That was a year ago, and since my return to work I have been consistently treated unfairly. Client facing work that I am capable of fulfilling is routinely given to other members of the team, whereas I am relegated to 'internal projects' and low profile work. I have been set developmental targets that I cannot meet without doing the development in my own time, whereas other (full time) team members with the same targets have been allocated time within working hours to develop their skills. My workload is impossible to deliver within my part-time hours, and I have found myself regularly working outside normal hours in order to meet deadlines. This is noticed, but not appreciated. We have regular team meetings where every member of the team is praised for their contribution, except me. I recently delivered a small training project for a client that received incredible feedback. I forwarded this feedback to my Manager who has not even responded to the email, much less acknowledged that I did a great job!
This is starting to take it's toll on my mental health and wellbeing, as well as my confidence. It's also starting to impact on my personal life, as of course with the pandemic, my home is now my workplace. Yet conversely, I am also dreading a return to post-COVID normality, as it will probably mean that I have to deal with my manager and employer face-to-face on occasion, and the thought of that literally makes me feel nauseous. I already have an anxiety response when I see that I've received an email from my manager.
I feel trapped in this situation and don't know how to turn it around. I need to work as we are still paying off our mortgage, but my options for alternative employment are somewhat limited. I am a woman 'of a certain age' who needs to work part time hours, and those two factors alone limit my options for alternative employment. When you factor in the pandemic as well, then my options look very limited indeed.
Any advice you can give would be very gratefully received.