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Promotion advertised during sickness absence and I was not informed

53 replies

Frustratedworker · 20/04/2026 13:09

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?

OP posts:
zurigo · 20/04/2026 19:35

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.

Passaggressfedup · 20/04/2026 20:02

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.

BillieWiper · Yesterday 10:55

Frustratedworker · 20/04/2026 17:00

It does if I was prepared to explain it fully and work are 100% informed of it all but I am not going into it any further on here so I appreciate it sounds odd and hard to believe and that's totally your right not to believe me

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

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