Are my old employers allowed to give this flaky reference?

[recipw]

It seems a bit unfair.

My potential new employer has requested a reference from my old workplace.I left there in June.

They have come back with 'x was employed here from this date to this date, however, can't comment on performance much as off on maternity related sick and maternity leave for a long duration'

Is there anything I can do about this?

Thank you

Yes I know employers ask for more. Every single employer who asked me for a reference wanted more information. And I didn’t give it to them as the company I worked for wanted to protect themselves legally. They weren’t doing it to be kind! We had some truly awful employees at my previous employment and I’d still give the most basic reference imaginable, they weren’t doing so to be nice, it was because providing anything that can be interpreted as a bad reference could have cost them money.

With all due respect you sound like you really don’t know what you’re talking about. Saying “my employer wouldn’t accept a basic reference” yes every single employer who tried to get reference from us wanted to know details but it didn’t matter what they wanted, we would only give the bare minimum. This is the policy of most intelligent employers as there is absolutely nothing to gain to them by giving any details. I can tell from your post you’ve never done any job remotely close to HR.

OP please go to citizens advice, a lot of people on this thread have no experience with this and you need proper advice.

Maternity leave isn’t a gap in your employment history, many women remain continuously employed.

The point is that if someone says they have 3 years experience in X role then you find out they were off for quite a lot of that, then that is a lie and they do not have the 3 years experience they say they have.

I'm an employment lawyer.

I'd be exploring claims of sex discrimination against your current employer and the potential new employer. I'm on mat leave and brain isn't functioning at 100% so would need to consider the "comparator" issue in more depth, but I'd certainly be looking to take this further. Possible GDPR breach and constructive dismissal claims too (assuming more than 2 years of continuous service).

Please speak to an employment lawyer/Pregnant Then Screwed.

I am so so sorry for your loss and for the utter shit your employer is putting you through. No decent employer in their right mind would ever do this, especially given the circumstances.

Who constructively dismissed the OP? Or, in fact, dismissed them at all? Wouldn't an employment lawyer require a dismissal or a resignation before advising someone had been constructively dismissed?

@Quveas obviously I'd be exploring the possibility of a resignation based on a breakdown of trust and confidence following their conduct. I'm not saying it would be easy, but it's worth some thought.

How do argue the point if the new employer wanted 2 years experience of a certain work practice and an employee had been off for over a year due to maternity leave and other maternity related time and so although employed for 2 years only in fact had at the most a year actual work experience @lawandgin

You would recommend that somebody quite their job and makes a claim for constructive dismissal because the manager said on a reference they couldn’t comment on performance due to them not being present due to maternity related leave. And you think that they would win meet the high bar required to win a constructive dismissal case? Seems like you are quite cavalier if this is typical of your employment advice.

@Aprilx you clearly can't read and/or don't understand the meaning of the words "exploring", possibility and "worth some thought". Hence recommending OP gets some formal legal advice. FFS 🙄

I don't think that's relevant to my points TBH.

But is it not relevant to the OP’s position as new employer withdrew offer due to lack of experience due to absence @lawandgin

@lawandgin I'd be exploring the fact that they left their former employer in June and would be out of time for a claim of anything.

I assume that is relevant enough to your points? FFS 🙄?

If I ever need an employment lawyer I hope they are better at it, and considerably politer, than you are. Swearing at people who have actually correctly questioned your bad advice??

But who includes their maternity time on a cv - no one!

No they don't. But it seems the OP isn't able to explain whether they have the required experience or not, and this really is a critical point. "Two years in a role" and "two years experience of a role" are not the same thing, and this point is pretty critical to the ostensible reason for withdrawing the offer. And the NHS doesn't generally accept CV's - they use application forms and person spec's that are usually pretty specific. If the OP has the required experience then the potential employer is definitely on shaky ground, but if they don't it could be risky for the OP to pursue this. Especially if they appear to have misled the potential employer. Hopefully they might answer the questions / issues that people have been raising so that it is clearer.

If you are in a job interview I would assume you would be on shaky ground if you said you had a year’s experience of a role when you had actually been on maternity leave for most of that time even if you don’t have to tell them you have been on maternity leave

As PP said "Two years in a role" and "two years experience of a role" are not the same thing

@Quveas if the OP is or is likely to be pursuing a case she can't post more on this thread about her specific details as it will jeopardise her case.

In fact like other posters who were pursuing discrimination cases she would be well advised to get MN to get this thread removed.

I appreciate that but it isn't exactly a "give away" to say whether the potential employer is correct in respect of her experience - and nor is it one to suggest that may be the case if she is reading it. No matter what happens with this particular instance, if she has mistakenly claimed experience that she doesn't have - and I mean that seriously, because I can totally see how that might have happened - she needs to know not to do it again, or to handle the situation differently.

@Quveas so I missed the point in the OP about resigning in June - I apologise. I'm on mat leave, with a poorly baby, I've had no sleep and I wasn't giving legal advice. I'm perfectly polite in my professional capacity, which this is not. So you know what? 🖕

Very hard to qualify experience though - see post been in a job 6 months and only do 30mins work a day

Still an abhorrent person then? You didn't swear at me. But you owe the person you did SWEAR at an apology. They were correct and you weren't (perhaps you are tired with a baby, but you claimed authority by saying you are an employment law solicitor, so you should make sure you are correct - people might believe you ). If you say got are a lawyer then people are not being unreasonable in assuming that your legal advice is correct. So you know what? Back at you and don't claim legal knowledge that you clearly don't have. If you can't say your advice is correct, don't claim to be a lawyer. 🖕

@Quveas abhorrent? Okay 😂

I'll say it louder as you must be at the back: "I WASN'T GIVING ADVICE AND CLEARLY SAID THE OP SHOULD TAKE ADVICE".

Also, swearing and swearing AT someone are two very different things. Please don't think I'm going to apologise to anyone because you think I ought to.

God, this place really is the pits sometimes.

OP, I don't want to risk any further derailment. I'm sorry this has happened to you and I hope you're able to get some kind of resolution, whatever that looks like.

@lawandgin God, this place really is the pits sometimes.

You should know. People give all sorts of rubbish advice and then claim they're a professional who knows what they're taking about.

You prefaced your incorrect advice by saying that you were an employment lawyer - meant to underline how excellent the advice would be and lend it authority- got it wrong, and then swore at someone who corrected you. Deflect all you like. The truth is on record.

Perhaps if you aren't in a position to provide accurate employment law advice, you shouldn't be claiming to be one. Whether you are one or not.

This isn't the case for every industry though.

In financial services, for example, it is THE LAW that full references are given, including details of performance and misconduct. Not absence though. That's in the FCA Regulations, for regulated roles (known as SMCR), where the referee is also regulated, and covers six full years history.

Also, education has different rules. If you were given the standard reference for a teaching job, you would not get the job. References are also given early in the process, so you have to tell your employer you are applying for roles, they go to the prospective employer before the interview and are several pages long.

And I'm fairly sure there is a similar rule in clinical NHS roles.

So, you might be in HR, but your experience should not be extrapolated to cover all situations.

You can’t start a post stating that you are an employment lawyer and not expect whatever follows to be taken as professional legal advice!

If a lawyer who you have not engaged tells you something then it is not professional legal advice.

It is just information.

It may be correct but it's more likely to be incorrect as they have limited knowledge of your particular issue.

I mean no-one here has seen exactly what the reference said except the OP.