I am due back at work in March and would like to go back 3 days per week. When I broached this subject during a face to face meeting with my manager in October his initial reaction was that he thought this could work, but I think he is now backtracking following an email exchange last week where he was suddenly being non-committal and now a request for me to meet with him, his manager and HR to 'agree something that works for us all'.
I'm not sure if they have reasonable business grounds for not allowing it. My maternity cover has been working 3 days a week since March doing the job, and one other team member works 2 days a week (slightly different role but similar enough). Given this, is there any way they can still find legitimate business grounds for making me work more than 3 days a week?
What complicates it is that there was a huge reorg just before I went on mat leave so this is a completely new job that i have not done before (it started the week after I went on mat leave). So my mat cover is the first person ever to do the job. In effect I feel she has set the precedent for how many days the job can be done in, but I obviously have no personal experience of whether I personally can do the job in 3 days.