Flexible working request denied… unjustified? (currently on maternity leave)

[Daisywillow17]

Hello all,

I am after a bit of advice. I put a flexible working request in and it’s been denied in the grounds of burden of additional costs & insufficient work.

Before going on maternity leave I worked 5 days a week, I have requested to work 2 days a week.

My managers got me in for a meeting to discuss this and they told me the company is down 30% on this time last year so they will be unable to accept my request going down to two days. This automatically means I have to go back to working full time (as the law states I have to go back on what I was on before maternity). They know I don’t want this, essentially forcing me to hand my notice in.

Additionally, my workplace have not met the statutory time frame of the two month response of my request. They’ve gone over this.

It seems as if the company assumed I wasn’t going to go back, hence the reasoning of burden of additional costs, when, in fact I’ll be costing the company less as I’ll be working for them less (5 days to 2).

As they’ve said that there is no work for me for two days, this essentially means my role is redundant. but they’ve said they are unable to make me redundant because of the 18 month maternity protection.

where do I stand with this? I have appealed on the basis that their justification makes no logical sense and the fact that I’ll actually be costing the business less.

i really want to go back two days a week, I have no idea why they assumed I wasn’t going back….!

Sorry just seen about no more hours to fill🤔

that is their problem really and they have to respect you going back, at least full time

They probably thought they were being helpful
where the reality is they should of refused the request altogether due to pending restructuring and started redundancy consultations with the team

But you've told us that they can't afford to have you back FT so what have you got to lose?

Either you're right, they will have to make you redundant and you will get a redundancy payment. Or you're wrong and they are able to accommodate your return, in which case you'll have to quit, but you're going to have to quit anyway if you can't work full time and they aren't willing to reduce your hours.

if you work at a warehouse, maybe try looking for other warehouse type jobs in another company like supermarkets or amazon? They may be able to offer the hours you are looking for.

Exactly this. So calling their bluff is the right option.

My guess is currently they have a full time role, that they are managing with a slightly overworked 4 day a week worker, and slightly overworking other full time members of the team. If OP wanted to come back one day a week they would use make OP and the 4 day a week-er into a job-shared full time role, and employ another full timer for OPs job. Giving the team full strength again, and meaning overall they were just employing 1 more person, or rather bring her back from mat leave, so their number of employees to admin wouldn't change.

If OP wants to do 3 days though, they can't give her 3 days sharing the 4 day a week role, because 4+3 make 7 and they only want to take that roll up to 5 days max. So they then would end up with her taking on 3 days of a current full time-ers role, and the 4 day a weeker staying as is. Which would mean that potentially they need someone to do 3 more days (1 with the 4 = 5; 2 with the 3 = 5). Depending on whether it's a job where a full time role needs to be done over 5 days, these might have to be 2 people so -
role 1 = 4 days person 1 + 1 day person 2
role 2 = 3 days a week person 1 + 2 days week person 2
Which means they are doing the admin for 4 employees to cover 2 roles which could be covered by 2 full timers.
It also means that they have to find people who want a 1 day a week job and a 2 day a week job which they might not find, potentially on days that work with what other people are currently working.
It also means they are potentially training 2 new members of staff who only actually work 3 days a week between them! This is a lot of effort and expense and it's fair that they can't do it.

Or they actually don't have an overworked 4 day person, but they actually have no work for the OP if she returns, no matter how many days she does.

Plan A was her not coming back from mat leave. This plan failed.

Plan B is respond to the OP's flexible work request by offering her half of the days she wants, knowing that it's very likely that it's not feasible for her to drop to one day (and also knowing that she's already saying she doesn't want FT work, as she's made the FWR to start with, so is unlikely to enforce her statutory right to return on those hours). This means she is likely to resign and they lose the member of the team they no longer need, but without paying redundancy to anybody. A win for them! (The member being any person who resigns, not necessarily OP, but she's handy here, due to the fact she's returning from mat leave and wants reduced hours.)