Expectation of experience accrued during maternity leave

[Faithfeather]

I have had a performance review after returning from mat leave for DD2 around 11 months ago. I was told that the company policy was that I would be maintaining/accruing knowledge while off on mat leave. I was judged at the standard of someone who has almost had two extra years experience (time I took off for DD1 and DD2) and on that basis given a poor review. It doesn't seem right to me. As everyone here will know, there is very little time for running around to seminars and conferences and reading relevant literature especially in the first six months, which is what I thought was the point of mat leave. Any advice? Am I wrong about this point.

I'm afriad I don't know, but it would seem totally wrong. what's thecompany policy on maintaining/accruing knowledge whilst on a sabbatical (if your company offers them) and where you offered the training access to seminars you normally would have been whilst on mat leave? If people on sabbatical don't have to accrue knowledge and/or you weren't offered normal access to training then I think its sex discrimination. Check with ACAS? www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1461here

faithfeather v difficult to comment without knowing all about your job really. Maternity leave does 'count' in terms of experience/length of service when it comes to pay rises/promotions etc though.

Are you doing the same job as you were prior to maternity leave? I would expect a performance review to be reviewing your performance - if you are performing well in your job, achieving targets, all that stuff, then you would get a good review.

Do you have some kind of knowledge test or something? Or have you forgotten stuff that means you have not done your job to your usual standard? I'm trying to understand what difference it has made to your performance. Obviously you would be expected to maintain your knowledge while on maternity leave - if you forget stuff you need to know that's really not your employer's fault or problem, but if there is additional training/learning you would have done but didn't because you weren't at work, that's a bit different.

Flowerybeanbag - the expectation is that I would continue to learn new things and keep on top of new developments, maintain client contacts etc while on mat leave - i.e. the expectation is that I would perform at same level after mat leave and exhibit the same skills as someone who was not on mat leave. Not such an issue if it was a couple of months, but for almost two years it is.

Difficult to give a meaningful answer but I'm going to answer the best I can.

To me, how long someone's been in the job is irrelevant and should not be taken into account when assessing their performance. Similarly, if someone was on maternity leave but has now been back almost a year, that shouldn't be taken into account either. The job is what the job is, and either the person's done a good job during that year or they haven't.

If part of your job means you need to have current knowledge of something, then yes, it is reasonable to expect you to ensure you are up to date. If you don't want to do this during your maternity leave, that's obviously fine, but do it when you get back.

I'll use myself as an example. I don't work in one single organisation anymore but when I did a few years back I was an HR Manager. Part of my job was giving advice to managers, and if my legal/best practice knowledge wasn't up to date, I wouldn't be giving good advice, and I wouldn't be doing my job well. Obviously things change in employment law and in HR 'thinking' (as in most things) over a 2 year period, so I would anticipate that there might be things my knowledge would be out of date on. Therefore I would either keep in touch with developments during my leave, or at least make it a priority as soon as I got back to find out exactly what had happened/what law had changed/what impact this had had on my job and on the organisation. I wouldn't expect to be able to do a good job otherwise.

If however your job has changed in your absence, requiring new skills that you don't have, and everyone else had training in those skills while you were on maternity leave, and you have not been given an opportunity to have that training but have been assessed as though you have had it, then obviously that is not fair and you should challenge that.

I do agree it doesn't sound reasonable to ask you to keep in touch with clients during maternity leave - were you asked to do this before you went? I can't see what impact not doing so would have on your performance though? Presumably someone else was looking after your clients while you were away and they have now been passed back to you?

The things you mention don't actually sound like an assessment of poor performance, they sound like possible reasons that either you or they have given for poor performance.

You can see that without knowing how important the things you mention are it's difficult to advise you. I do think you should put your maternity leave to one side for a minute though, and ask yourself did you do a good job or not? Did you successfully achieve all your targets and objectives? If there is anything you haven't done as well this year, is it because you didn't update your knowledge? Did either you or your manager not realise your out of date knowledge was a problem until almost a year down the line?

You think it would be reasonable to expect you to be up to date after a 2 month absence but not 2 years. I would say the other way around. If you are only off for 2 months and something has changed, it's perfectly reasonable that you might come back and anticipate that everything is the same. If you are off 2 years, it's clear that things will have changed and if you want to do a good job, you need to make sure you are aware of the current situation.

Another point, how much could really have changed in 2 years that you couldn't have updated yourself with in a very short time?

Apologies if that's not what you want to hear, and also if I've misunderstood, but I've answered based on my understanding of what you are saying.

Flowerybeanbag

Thank you. That was incredibly helpful. I am in an area that changes very fast and assessments are made based on the number of years experience a person has e.g. a person with X years experience should be able to do A, B and C. Experience is gained mostly through practice but also through reading/seminars etc. While I was able to do the relevant reading when I returned, there was no way to make up the practical experience and so at X years experience I can only do A and B. When it came time for the assessment, while I had done well over the year, I was judged as if I had had the opportunity to gain that practical experience but failed to achieve "C" (which I could have done if not for the maternity leave).

Your point about the job changing and requiring new skills was particularly helpful and when I raised it, there was a backtrack and suddenly the job hadn't changed. However, we are still at odds about the assessment experience issue.