Restructure - will mat leavers get roles first?

[CantSleepSweet]

We are going through a big restructure. Ordinarily I wouldn't be too worried as I've been with the company a long time, am well thought of and have a good performance record.

But one of my team (that I currently manage) is on the second half of her mat leave currently. She's excellent and I really like her but I happen to know she's wanted my role for ages. If she's on mat leave and is asked to apply for available positions, would she automatically trump me by virtue simply of being on mat leave despite the fact I've already held this role a long time? Currently I'm her manager and more senior but not by a huge margin so it would not be a huge reach really if she wanted to apply - although she'd certainly know she was ousting me to do so.

This might help:

www.acas.org.uk/redundancy-protection-for-pregnancy-and-new-parents

Thank you. I think I'm probably in real trouble here. What a horrible situation.

Just to be clear by the way, I absolutely don't want to see her redundant at the cost of me especially whilst she's on mat leave! My concern is that she'll use the opportunity to essentially go for promotion rather than staying at the level she is currently and because her protected status gives her priority over me, I end up either demoted or redundant through literally no fault of my own other than not being pregnant which seems really unfair.

Are there going to be any roles y the level she is now? If so I imagine she’ll be offered one of those as a suitable alternative.

She will only have the right to be automatically placed into an objectively suitable alternative role. The law says it must be “suitable and appropriate”.

That takes into account things like seniority, pay, qualifications and experience, but it doesn’t mean an automatic right to promotion.

If it involves significantly more responsibility and a 50% pay rise then it’s doubtful it would be suitable or appropriate. But if it’s a marginal pay increase and she is qualified and capable, then it’s possible.

I’d also add that as you’re managing a team, if those roles are all at risk then the chances are she’ll be offered one of those automatically. If she refuses a substantially similar role then she’d no longer have any protection - she can’t just decide she’d rather have your job!

If your role isn't at risk of redundancy, it makes no difference that your colleague is on mat leave/facing redundancy.

People on mat leave facing redundancy don't get free reign to apply for whatever they want, the role itself must be vacant first - yours isn't.

I think it entirely depends on the new role structure. Have they created new roles in which everyone has to re-apply for? If so then yes she could apply for it but she wouldn’t get first pass just because she’s on mat leave.
The redundancy evaluations are usually quite structured and each person is scored again a set of criteria

Yes they have. I'd really like to say more to get more feedback but don't want to be too outing. I think there is such a grey area between the two roles though that if they decide to only keep one Job Description there's going to be a real risk for me.