Colleague went on maternity leave, and the next day her entire team was made redundant

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A senior colleague in my company recently went on her maternity leave, and the next day everyone in her team was made redundant (a team of 6). From what I know and understand, there were no signs of this happening and it was a shock to all of us, especially the timing of it. We haven't been told much information. Do you think the timing of it is a coincidence, or was it done deliberately as soon as she was on her maternity leave?

Are you saying she has better protection as she is on maternity leave?

Do you mean her team as in she is the manager?

Was she made redundant too? Or just everyone else on her team?

Yes, she is the manager. I'm not sure if she has been made redundant or not, they haven't said much.

With the timing I didn't mean they waited because she would have more protections, but rather whether they waited for her to be on leave so she would be 'out of the way' so to speak, and not able to contest it. It sounds dumb now I've written it out, so it probably was just a coincidence.

Maybe she did know and is keeping her job but didn’t want to break the bad news or be around for any fallout.

It could have been intentional to keep her out of the loop.

It could have been intentional to spare her the ordeal of having to be involved if it's the level she manages.

It could have been intentional to give her some extra protection.

It could have been a coincidence.

All may become clear but you probably won't find out.

I dont think it was a coincidence.

Whether it was her making sure she wasnt the one telling them or whether more senior management waited until she was out of the way.....who knows.

However, it could be that they had said her whole team is redundant now, offer her an equivalant role in a totally different team in the hope that she takes VR to get rid of her too knowing that her pregnancy gives her extra protection.

I would be looking for another job either way, if they can do it to them, they can do it to anyone.

Redundancies happen, if 6 people on your colleague's team can be removed from the business so easily with no impact, that shows they probably weren't doing value add priority work. No one's fault, they may have needed to cut their Opex if the business can't afford them.

they may have waited until the colleague went on Mat Leave to mitigate the complexity and risk of discrimination - being pg is one of the EqA (2010) protected characteristics, so without her there, management possibly thought it was an opportunity to reorganise.

I would be looking for another job either way, if they can do it to them, they can do it to anyone.

redundancies happen in every organisation. This organisation is no different. It's pointless reading anything into it, decisions get made that most employees have no visibility of, and certainly aren't paid to worry about,

It’s possible she didn’t want to tell people they’d been made redundant (especially as she was pregnant). So it might not have been a coincidence from that perspective. But more likely her maternity leave date was set before the lay offs were announced to her level of management. If they were laying other people in the organization, they wouldn’t have been able to bring one team forward by a few days to accommodate it. And it’s doubtful they would have wanted to delay the announcement if there were many other people in many other offices/departments involved. I suppose that depends on how big a company and lay off it was.

I can’t see the advantage to the organization of waiting for her to be gone to do redundancies. There isn’t much fuss she can kick up if they want to let her team go.

Edited as realised I’d been writing as though only part of her team had been let go.

Sneaky move from the employer....

They took the opportunity to make the team redundant while she is on leave to avoid her questioning why they are doing this.

They probably will either have made her redundant too or they are planning to force her to quit by offering her a totally different job when she comes back hoping she will leave...

You probably have a dinosaur employer who does not like senior staff going on maternity leave or asking for flexible hours when they come back.