I am pregnant and have a formal review- help

[ray81]

Long story short........... I work for a firm where it is Sales through service have been working there for 8 months.
Any way i am 25 weeks Pg and up until now i have been doing exceptionaly well in all sreas of preformance other then one, this is sales for a particular product, i get others sales just not this one.
Anyway i always had a feeling that they would try and fire me right from the moment i found out i was Pg but have still done very well at my job. Yesterday my manager calls me and tells me i have a formal review on Fri for my Poor performance in this area and that they may terminate my contract, they want to know why i am not getting these sales. They have monitored me and have said they can hear i am trying but want to know what i am going to do about it to get more? i will say i will try harder of course but i just feel they are trying to get rid of me asap before i go on ML so they dont have to pay me SMP etc which i would get.

The thing is we just wont cope if i lose my job and i am so scared i am going to be out of work come fri, i cant sleep, dont feel hungry and i need to look after myself.
Can anyone give me some advise please i dont know what to do

Firstly, i would find out how genreal sales for this product is? if it is low overall and not just you that finds it hard to sell?

Are you in a Union? if not them maybe ring ACAS and ask for some advice? and find out if you can take a representative to the meeting with you

Am in a hurry, but just as a first point, if you're 25 weeks now you'd get SMP even if you were dismissed. You get it provided you work to 15 weeks prior to due date.

As Ribena said, if they are planning to dismiss you to avoid paying SMP they are too late, as you will get it for 39 weeks anyway, even if your employment ends for any reason.

You don't normally have the right to claim unfair dismissal during the first year of employment, which means essentially that your employer can get rid of you very easily if they want to, without any proper procedure, as there's nothing you can do about it.

However, if you have been dismissed as a result of your pregnancy, you can claim unfair dismissal, as dismissing someone because they are pregnant is discrimination and automatically unfair.

Do you have any reason other than a 'feeling' to think you are being singled out because you are pregnant? What are sales like generally of this product?

Ray81 can I ask what support you have been given in achieving this specific product. You said they can hear you offer it, what is it they are saying you are not doing or doing worng? Have they put you on any sort of performance plan?

Lovebeingamum - i have not been offered any real support at all tbh i asked to sit with someone who seems to be able to get the sales and have been asking for a while and i was sat with someone last week for an hr and it wasnt very productive at all. I havent been given any real feedback other then i am trying but they havent told me where i am going wrong. I wasnt told that if i didnt get them then i would have a formal review so it came as a shock, if they told me what to do then perhaps it would be something i could achieve.

i havent been given any support at all.

Its realy helpful to know that i will get SMP anyway even if they do fire me that puts my mind at rest alittle. some money coming in is better then nothing at least.

unfortunatley i dont have any other reason then feeling this is what they would do, other then that there have been others that have had worse performance then me for quite a while and not been fired. Hopefully it is just a formality and i will still have a job come fri.

If the others not performing in this area have been there longer than a year, they may not have been dismissed because doing so would be much more difficult.

It's interesting that you are achieving elsewhere - in other words you don't seem to find selling difficult generally if you are only struggling with this particular product.

What support do you think you could/should be given that you are not? You asked to sit with someone, which you have done. Why did you feel that wasn't productive?

What support do you think would help? Why do you think you are struggling with this particular product? Working out why you think it isn't happening will be a good step.

You say you haven't been told where you are going wrong, but if you are sales person and you are not selling enough of a certain product, then that's where you are going wrong isn't it? It's more a question of why. Has someone from management sat with you to see your sales technique with this particular product so they can identify what you could be doing differently?