Forgotten about while on maternity

[Abubu]

Hi guys,

I need a rant. I work in the Uk division of a very large corporation. Fair enough there are a lot of people here and it is all too easy to blend in but I feel I have been totally forgotten about over my maternity.

I asked my boss a few days ago to give me my rating - the rating system here determines whether you are eligible to apply for a promotion and affects your basic salary increases.
The year before I went on maternity I feel like I did a really good job. Not just in my imagination, I was given an award by one of the directors which is only given out to a small proportion of people.

Unfortunately for me my boss also went on maternity 2 months before me and my new boss did not know me at all over my final 2 months (I work in a diverse group and her work was more geared towards the other side of what I work on).

After I went on maternity I then found out the new boss resigned, so who exactly was there to stick up for my rating while I was away? I have now found out that I have been shoved in the default "average" rating group i.e. totally forgotten about, so I could have done the best job in the world or the worst and it would have made no difference. I'm not trying to say that I am convinced I should have been given an excellent rating, I just feel like it has been given no consideration.

Anyone else had a similar experience?

How very frustrating and annoying for you.

I work for a small company, that wouldn't happen here but we don't have such formal structures. However, your company does have an obligation to inform you of any promotions that you would have been eligible for while you are on maternity leave, so you can apply. I'm not sure on the rules on appraisals, I'm sure someone more enlightened will be along soon, but best practice would be to give you a appraisal shortly before you went on maternity leave to ensure this sort of thing doesn't happen. Not much help after the event, obviously. Do you have any record of targets achieved, the award you received, and so on? Then I would take it up with your HR department. The reasons for your rating should be documented somewhere, you need to know if they are justified (in which case not much you can do) or not justified (i.e. they did forget about you), in which case you should be able to ask for a review.

Hi Snickersnack,

Thanks for your response, unfortunately they are very secretive about ratings and there is no discussion or debate about it. You are told your rating and thats the end of the subject.

Hmm. That doesn't seem very fair or transparent to me. Surely it should at the very least be preceded by an appraisal? Even if you aren't given a rating at the end of that, it would at least give you an idea of where you stand. I still think finding a friendly HR person to at least raise the issue with would be a good idea. You don't have to make a big deal of it.