Promotion advertised during sickness absence and I was not informed

[Frustratedworker]

Name changed as this may be outing

More of a WWYD I suppose but I'd really appreciate help/advice
I've been with my company (admin work) for a long time now, always get good appraisals, the go to person for most questions etc. I have been working towards a promotion fir several years now and my manager was supportive of this but the position itself was not in the budget yet (other similar teams had this role but ours didn't). I've always been a very hard worker but at the start of the year, I became mentally very unwell and had to take some time off. I'm getting help for this and believe it is due to a medical condition which I should be getting sorted soon.

Anyway, whilst off sick, the position was made available and was posted internally. The deadline for applying was whilst I was away and no one informed me of this. I have come back to another, not so senior colleague, having been given the role. Im really upset. Just spoke to ACAS who advised me to raise a formal grievance but I am not sure what the point would be as the role had been given to someone else now. I assume I would have to give a preferred outcome but what would I say, there cannot be 2 people in this role and they wont compensate me financially if I am not doing the extra work? But at the same time, I don't think they should be able yo get away with it. What would you do please?

I hoped they would have been decent enough to have postponed it for 2 months so I could at least apply.

OP your work will have had no guarantee that you would be back at your desk and ready to work after two months. You were signed off work for a serious mental health issue - it would've been perfectly possible for you to be off for months! You can look back now and say 'But I was only off for two months. They were unreasonable to not wait!', but they had no guarantee that you would ever go back. You could have been off for the maximum amount of time allowed and then handed in your notice. So should they have just waited and waited to see if you would go back? If they needed someone in the role asap would that have been a reasonable course of action? No, of course it wouldn't.

Having said that, you say that you've been doing that job for years without pay - well that might be grounds for complaint; particularly as when you went off on sick leave they suddenly found the budget to pay someone to do that job when they'd never managed to do that before, while you were working away for free.

It is very possible that they didn't want you to have the job for whichever reason. Ultimately, if your boss had been very supportive and waiting you to get it, they would have got in touch with you or indeed waited.

It's not really about me not believing you. But to work it would look odd that you are too unwell for your current role but are suddenly well enough when a higher paid one becomes available.

I can understand why it feels unfair on you though. And I'm sorry you've been going through health issues. X

Honestly op. I can are Why your disappointed . I don't think you'd be successful in raising any kind of a grievance though for all sorts of reasons. The very harsh reality it that time off for mh reasons tends to terrify lots of employers and it might be what's happened here which is why maybe they ploughed on when you weren't around so you couldn't apply.. Almost impossible to proove unfortunately:

I think you're right to look at a fresh page somewhere else.

OP please do note the opinion part, though - this is not actual HR guidance?

”HR person here” means nothing because this poster might just be the admin person at an HR company or that they do the typing for the HR department, and if they’re not going to provide any actual legal detail then it’s not much use to anyone when it’s full of “I don’t think x” and “just my opinion heehee!”

We probably need some participation limits on these sorts of posts!

This is not actual HR guidance? From a senior HR professional I can say, no a company is not normally going to ask you to apply for a role and should invite applications and no if you’re signed off sick they really shouldn’t be contacting you.

But Yes a company will probably be in the wrong if they remove access to internal systems that would normally alert employees to promotion opportunities if they were off on long term sick which could be deemed a disability or even maternity as this would put them at a detriment because of their illness or maternity which is technically discrimination because of your illness or maternity.

they could have delayed the roll out of it by a few months surely?

Well yes, but that wouldn't have been fair to all potential candidates either, so it's good they didn't.

You could have checked your emails and replied. You switched off for your own good and missed it. It's not on them.