Threat of redundancy whilst on maternity leave

[thesoo]

I am currently on maternity leave, due to return to work in February 2011.

The company I work for has announced the need to make redundancies, and initially asked for volunteers to come forward for voluntary redundancy. I received notification of this by email and did not volunteer.

I heard nothing else in relation to this until I had a casual conversation with a colleague this week. She informed me that further redundancies are to be made. I currently work in a team of 13, all doing identical jobs. My colleague said that a further three positions are to be cut, and that all of my colleagues have been invited to re apply for their jobs.The roles are exactly the same, just a reduced number. My colleagues have also been invited to apply for new positions which have been created in other teams, and have been given a deadline for doing so. This deadline has passed and interviews have been scheduled. I have not been notified of any of this, and have just found out by chance, not through any formal communication from HR.

What is this likely to mean? Am I protected from this process because I am away from work? Does this mean that i am safe? Or could the organisation have just been incompetent in not informing me? And is it reasonable to expect me to prepare for and attend one or more interviews whilst on leave?

Thank you.

I wouldn't assume you are safe, your organisation may well be incompetent. I think your first step is to contact your manager as a matter of urgency and find out what your position is.

They may have decided to put you in one of the jobs but you need to know what is going on. You are entitled to be involved in and informed about the process like your colleagues.

Get clarification on what is happening and then you can work out what you want to do. It may be reasonable to expect you to prepare for and attend interviews, yes. Find out what's going on first and take it from there.

thesoo - I hope you have receieved more clarification on this by now.
Thought I'd post though as I've been researching the legality of this for myself and basically it would be very difficult for them to make you redunant in the situation you have described. You have additional rights due to being on maternity leave. The main on is that if there is that if you are at risk of redundancy but there is a suitable job you could do you get priority on this over other candidate and do not have to interview. So as a job doing what you did before exist you automatically get it and don't have to interview. I hope this is what the company has done and just not told you else they are in breach of the law and you can claim unfair dismissal. (Even if all jobs doing what you had done before had gone you should have got first refusal on other jobs in the company without need to interview).

Good luck and hope this helps.

i was in a very similar situation a few years ago. in the end someone else took redundancy so interviews weren't held.
it was my understanding that chemeng10 is correct. if the redundancies are happening while you are on mat leave then you should be considered before other candidates for other suitable jobs.
however this was not my employers understanding. they are a bit employer and should have known better but they didn't. i was giving them info i had from a charity about mat leave and redundancy (unfortunately said charity has closed).
so i would check the situation with your manager/hr team. get everything in writing. keep a record of what you heard, from whom and when - just in case things get sticky.

good luck.

Hi,
Cemeng10 That is interesting, the job is exactly the same as the one I am currently doing but I am not automatically entitled to it.
I was eventually called in for interview after everyone else. That was a few weeks ago now. One of the other members of staff has been refusing to come in for an interview (off sick - mental health reasons) on the grounds that he is not up to it. As a result of this, they are unable to conclude the selection process and have changed their methodology.
The new methodology is a points based selection using attendance, performance, qualifications, disciplinary record and length of service as criteria. I had 7 days of pregnancy related sickness last year, I am fairly sure they cannot include pregnancy sickness absence, but can anyone clarify?
Ta

I was made redundant while on maternity leave, it began Jan 07 and I was made redundant in June. Apparanently if procdures are followed failry there is no extra protection whilst on leave.

thesoo no they can't include pg-related sickness, so make sure they don't. Not very good practice to use length of service either, it's potentially discriminatory as well as a silly business reason for keeping someone. If there are members of staff who are younger and have less service and lose out because of that, they could challenge it.

victoriah3 that's not the case, there is some extra protection for woman on maternity leave who are made redundant. If your job is made redundant while you are on maternity leave and there is a suitable vacancy available, you must be offered it and can't be made to compete with other employees.