I have been in a managerial role for the last two years and I’ve worked my way up from temporary staff to the role I have now over the last 4 years. I went onto maternity leave in July of last year and gave birth within the same month. I’m due to return at the end of this month but I’ve recently found out that the girl who was temporarily covering my job role for my 9 month maternity cover has since been made permanent meaning she’s basically got my job - I left for my maternity leave 7th July, she was made permanent 22 July. I went into work a few weeks ago to talk about my return date and if I needed any workplace changes putting into place, the plan was always I was returning to be the manager in the exact same job I was in before my maternity leave & although I was told I still had my job I’m starting to doubt whether I have the job or not. There’s only meant to be one manager and for as long as ive worked at the company there isn’t a way of having two managers doing the same job role.
Nothing has changed other than me needing set days and hours for work (I’m contracted to 40 hours over 5 days) and this is something I can continue to do I just needed it to be that my shifts were the same every week to work around childcare etc which they were 100% happy to deal with.
now that I’m due to return I’m worried that I’m either going to be pushed back and demoted into a job role I don’t want or I’m going to leave the company because I’m going to be fighting for a job that’s mine but someone else is being paid to do. I also get the feeling that they were presuming I wasn’t retuning and they were always planning on giving my job role to someone else. I know I sound dramatic but I’ve worked so hard for the job role and now I’m wondering if me having a baby has just ruined my career, there was no conversation about me stepping down which is why I feel like I’ve been blind-sighted by the whole thing.