"Stealing" colleague's job after her maternity leave

[JollieJullie]

I am a Comms Director in a big multinational company. My closest colleague and friend is also a Comms Director, but we have different areas of focus.

Her role was created a year ago mainly to manage a key, complex project between Dec to June. When she got the role she was 3 months pregnant and went on mat leave in November right before the big project was kicked off.

As a result, I took over her key project with my team (on top of our usual area of focus) and we are delivering it in late June. She will be back in July.

I just spoke to our manager who has decided that I should continue managing her previous area of focus (on top of mine) in an expanded role with more seniority and more compensation, while my colleague will come back to a different role looking after something totally unrelated. Her seniority and pay will be unaffected, but I think she will be really pissed off with the company and with me.

I am concerned she will feel like I stole her job which she loved so much and I feel really conflicted about this situation my manager has created. When I raised my concerns I was told by our manager and HR that my colleague knew that the key project in her role happened in Dec-June and she decided to take 8 months of leave in spite of that, so she should be ready to be flexible about what she comes back to. I was told that I can't really refuse the additional responsibilities.

What are your thoughts on this? How can I best handle the situation with my colleague when she is back?

Many thanks for your comments!

As long as you know you haven’t behaved badly then I don’t see the issue, what were you supposed to do? Refuse to take on the project? If you apologise or act as if you’ve done something wrong it will make it worse
I am assuming you are female - ask yourself if a man would be getting all angsty about it

You don’t yet know that she’s going to be annoyed with you.

This happened to me. I certainly was not annoyed with the person who took over my job, it’s not their fault! I would just carry on as normal and certainly don’t make a big deal about it or mention it.

Do you want this extra work?

I would be annoyed. The company are foolish to do this - give you her role and pay you more whilst moving her sideways and not paying her more for the same role she was previously doing. Opening themselves up to a grievance complain if she's pissed off enough. Shitty thing to do to someone while their back is turned.

How come you can’t refuse the extra responsibilities? Of course you can if it was only supposed to be temporary? That’s bollocks they are talking.

Tbh I'm with your employer on this - she took a job knowing that she couldn't do it. I wonder if she told her boss she was 3 months pg when that project was assigned.
I know women are entitled to mat leave but in all honesty the employer just wants someone who is there to do the job and that person hasn't been your colleague.
She's coming back to her same level and pay so can't really launch a grievance imo. She chose to take a big chunk of time out and the world doesn't stand still while she's gone.

I agree with your manager. She really couldn't expect to come back to the same job when the main project it was created for has come to an end.

I would tell friend that they are planning to remove her from her role and into an alternative. Be clear that you've raised objections which have been dismissed by management and HR. Signpost her towards union/acas/employment lawyer as appropriate to seek independent advice.

What does your mat leave policy say about returning to work? Do you come back to your existing role (ie the one you left) or one one the same grade/pay point?

If the former I’d be very careful of getting caught up in something that could escalate into a formal grievance or more, and of losing a friend. If the latter then presumably she’s aware of that and knows that she’ll be required to be flexible - but without speaking to her it’s impossible to know how she’ll feel.

Great way to sabotage your own career
no need to Chuck anyone under the bus or be a Dick about it but this would be a really really bad idea

This is terrible advice.

It is two separate issues which are connected.

How you manage the relationships between you and your friend will depend on how she takes the news and another external factor.

First congratulations you put the work in and proved that you can do produce a quality product. So take that as a win you deserve the promotion.

Now the bad bit.

Firstly you worked 2 jobs for 8 months at no extra pay.
Partly because you undervalued yourself.

In most businesses mat. leave is either covered by temporary staff or people who don't sit down with their manager and ask to be fairly compensated and to be allocated extra people to fill the staffing gap. There will be people in both teams who helped you manage the extended scope of your job. Have you identified who they were and how they contributed and how they should be rewarded?

Your multi-national company's HR dep and your manager decided not to hire a mat. contractor for a key role.

And this is your feed back on why they made the decision:

When I raised my concerns I was told by our manager and HR that my colleague knew that the key project in her role happened in Dec-June and she decided to take 8 months of leave in spite of that, so she should be ready to be flexible about what she comes back to.

She was not off finding herself on a beach, she had a baby. Your manager is pissed about that and
•had decided not to hire temporary cover,
•to transfer the responsibilty for the project to you for no extra pay or role recognition
•engineer the removal of the pregnant womans job.
Your manager, when given a choice, will actively discriminate against a woman with a legally protected characteristic.

So how well your friendship will survive will depend in part on how your manager treats your friend. I suspect that if the manager thinks that your friend should have chosen to have an abortion or to rank the needs of her child below the project or just not take a promotion because she was pregnant, that the culture of your job is not great for women generally.
How good a friend do you want to be? If you are not willing to testify against your employer at a future date for pregnancy discrimination you need to decide how much of the conversations and meeting content you ever disclose to your friend.

Don’t speak to your friend as this is terrible advice.

As I work in HR I am assuming they haven’t gone into detail about what they plan to offer her (I would hope they haven’t anyway as it breaches confidentiality). Let them have the conversation with her. The offer made to you is the only thing you should concern yourself with and you should not conflate the two.

I don't think she has considered this possibility at all, based on previous conversations with her. She 100% assumes she will get her old job back upon her return.

in These circumstances I don’t think you or the company have done anything wrong. The role she was carrying out was largely based on a project that will have ended when she returns. Presumably the load will be reduced and can be managed by your team. They are giving additional reward for additional responsibility but it is not viable to pay a person. It sounds like her role will no longer exist so they are finding her another role with same seniority and same pay. She may be disappointed but this is a reorganisation to keep the company profitable and she isn’t losing out. This is a risk when away from your role for a while. I hope they address it with her in a positive way - that will impact how she feels.

Again, not your problem

Dont escalate it. It is not your problem. If you take a leave of absence, for whatever reason, life moves on. I might directly talk to her along the lines of 'I feel a little awkward about this situation' but I would not do more than that. And may not even do that to be honest. This is for the manager to manage, not you.

I might be annoyed that I now had to do two jobs. But in the circumstances you have described I would do what was best for myself. Presumably your company would not do anything which contravenes your colleague's maternity rights.

Read the writing on the wall.

The OP's friend took a role which she could not do because she was pregnant the company her manager is not at all happy about that. In fact they decided to remove the role. The OP has been told that her promotion is not optional yet she still has her current her contract of employment, so (in theory) she has a choice.

So why is her manager so invested in removing the existing role? The only way a sideways move is possible for her friend, is if the company reorganise and remove her current role. Once the friends role no longer exists her new continued employment role can be changed to anything the company want.

In a lot of cases with crappy employers managers that want is to engineer the woman out of role and then the company, because the manager is upset that her pregnancy did not fit in to the manager's work schedule.

It's terrible that the company has told OP what they are planning to do without telling her colleague first but here we are. The earlier the colleague affected seeks advice the better and if it was me I'd appreciate the heads up.

I think your colleague is day dreaming if she thinks she's coming back that role. It was created to run a specific project which will have ended once she's back!

You are a comms director of a large multinational

surely op, surely, this should be an issue who we confident to address as you see fit without seeking advice of random completely anonymous posters on mumsnet?

Her project is finished. Sounds like the company are going to put her on a new project, and you're getting a promotion. You're not stealing her job.