Asked to Leave

[Giulia123]

Hi I have effectively been asked to leave my corporate job after 6 years of service. They are trying to put this down to poor performance however the arguments they are using are arbitrary and I am confident I have a good case to rebute this. I have not been back at work long after mat leave (6.5 months) and have been working 4 days a week since I have been back. They didn’t want to agree to the 4 day week but think they knew they had to. Does anyone know what my options are? Am I able to fight this or now that they have asked for me to effectively resign can they force me to leave? My understanding is that I would have to be given a formal warning and put on an improvement plan before they could actually dismiss be legally. Is that right? Has anyone had any experience of this? I think it would be easy for me to pass any test as I am good at my job. I fear that this is personality related and also that they don’t want a working mum on the team (I’ve had to take some time off due to childcare)

I'm not clear if you formally are now working four days or are , for example, using accrued al to reduce each week to four days. If they need a ft position you are entitled to redundancy , which may include a redeployment offer, or they could look at a job-share. Was a reduced week agreed, be it reluctantly, on a short term trial basis and is now due for review?

I don't really understand why this is controversial of course it would be ridiculous to allow the lack of trust to impact your daily interactions

However it's very clear who HR's client is, it's the organisation not the employee and there is usually a massive power imbalance.

So yes, I think it's very prudent to be careful with regards to the extent anyone trusts HR.

I agree totally. In my case it was clearly the HR person who was instigating the plan to manage me out.

I’ve been in HR for most of my adult life. Only because eating babies isn’t a viable career, of course.

(A large proportion of us are there for the business and the individual. Yes, we’re paid to keep the employer out of court but the best way to do that is by treating staff well.)

I left HR because I simply lost the joy in ruining peoples lives of my own volition despite managers begging me to stop sacking people all the time 🙄

Actually that's a lie. I left because I was getting fed up of managers hiding behind me while I did their dirty work that enabled them to be all friendly and "its not me its HR" to the very employees face that they were asking me to manage out.

I'd send an email ... further to the meeting of x at which you requested that I resign my post of x at x. I write to advise that I do not intend to adhere to your request for me to resign. I consider your request to be in breach of the implied term of trust and confidence and possible sex discrimination.
As we are clearly in dispute, should you wish to have a "without prejuduce" discussion regarding appropriate terms which may lead to my voluntary resignation then I am content to have such a conversation.

@JoyousPinkPeer this thread was started in April. I rather think that the OP has made her decision now!