Risk of redundancy while on Maternity

Hi,

Two days before I was due to go on Maternity leave (I worked as Business Development Administrator for 3 days a week), I was advised I was at risk of redundancy due to my role no longer existing following a restructure. This was fair enough and they advised me that as I was due to go on Maternity leave and given my excellent service, they would like to propose making an exception in my case and agreeing to an extended period of notice with me the duration of my maternity leave. During this period, they would continue to seek out any suitable alternative vacancies that might become available and offer them to me with a view of me returning to work to the new role at the end of my maternity leave period.
My SML finishes at the end of this week and by the 21st April, I had not had any contact at all from employers during my maternity leave so I rang them to ask what the situation was as I needed to know if I was going to be made redundant so that I could use the time of my AML to find a new job.
During this conversation I advised them that I wasn't happy that I knew of 3 jobs through hearsay (HR Co-ordinator, Client Support Executive and Special Projects Administrator) that had become available while I was on maternity leave but had not been informed of any of them and she said she had thought of that herself. I was called into a meeting and they apologised for the lack of contact during my leave but explained there had been a gap in HR support between the sudden departure of our previous HR Manager and Rachel (HR co-ordinator) starting her role. While I understand this, it does not help me in my situation and they now told me they hadn't felt that the roles were suitable due to my current skills set and because they were full time. I really wanted the HR Role and would have considered going full-time had I been offered it. At this meeting, all they offered me were two separate jobs working 2 days a week for minimum wage which would have meant a drop in a days wages and a drop from 7.17 an hour.
I went home to think about my options and decided my only option would be to accept redundancy. I rang and confirmed this but after I received the minutes from the meeting and the form to confirm I would be accepting redundancy and read everything back I was really quite angry about how the situation had been handled and me not being offered the other positions to at least give me a choice. I e-mailed Rachel and advised her I wouldn't be signing the form until they could please give me some answers on why they felt I wasn't suitable for the jobs as I now feel this was said as a cover up for not offering me them in the first place.
I have now put in a grievance letter and have been called to a meeting tomorrow. They have now sent me the job spec for the one of roles I mentioned earlier and asking if I feel it is suitable (even though this role had already been filled). I don't feel its suitable as it is not a role I think I will enjoy enough to return full time but will I forfeit my redundancy payment if I turn down this role? The only one I would have considered going back to work full time for is the HR role but I still feel I should have been given the option!

I know this is a long one but I would really appreciate any advice on this before my meeting tomorrow.

Thanks in advance.

Hmm - this is a difficult one because despite the errors here, they have gone above and beyond what the law required them to do, which puts them in a good light and gives some credency to this being an error. And it probably hasn't helped either that you specifically mentioned this role in the context of being a suitable alternative, and now you don't want it. I think I would have to advise that you will have to play this one out - see what they say. They may be more than happy to resolve this by way of making you redundant and not care too much about the finer niceties of whether they can or can't refuse the payment.See what they say to the grievance, don't commit to anything straight away (ask for time to think about anything they suggest) then come back if you need more advice. Does that work for you?

Firstly, thank you very much for getting back to me.

Could you please explain for me how they have gone above and beyond what the law required them to do though? I thought they were in the wrong because they hadn't offered me any of the positions initially? I just need to be clear on what is right and wrong before I enter the meeting.
I feel that the meeting tomorrow was about them explaining to me why they hadn't offered me any of the positions and followed correct procedures and not to now backtrack and possibly offer me a position. I never specifically said I wanted this position, I just stated that I knew there were 3 positions become available that I wasn't advised of and I think they only stated my current skills set wasn't suitable because they know they were in the wrong to not offer me them.

Thank you.

They did so because they gave you an extended period of notice - something which they were not required to do. Whilst it is hard to make someone redundant on maternity leave, it isn't impossible, and they didn't have the extend the period of notice at all.

Technically, on at least one of the posts, they are correct. They were only required to find a suitable alternative position - not one that was better than what you currently had, or even different than what you had. So if you already worked part-time they were not required to consider a full-time job as a suitable alternative, assuming that the skill set was a suitable match. It isn't about finding you another job - it is about a suitable alternative vacancy, and in law what that means is braodly the same job that you already have, on broadly the same set of conditions.

A grievance is about resolving a problem - not explaining it. By sumitting a grievance - which I fully accept that you were in the right to do - you have asked them to solve the problem. That is why they have asked about this position - you obviously raised it, and they have assumed in your mind that you deem it a suitable alternative to being made redundant. If you think this through logically, it's a pretty obvious assumption to make. After all, they may also have had a vacancy for the MD during this period, but you wouldn't have expected them to offer you that vacancy. So whether you stipulated that you consdiered these to be suitable alternative psoitions or not, the raising of these vacancies in this context indicates to them that you thought they were, whether or not they were - from your point of view or theirs!

It feels to me that there is some level of misunderstanding going on here on both sides - perhaps through human error and perhaps through lack of clarity combined. But you need to answer the question - what do you want from this? Is the grievance about feeling better because you were annoyed (which grievances are not really designed to be about and it rarely works) or is it to find a solution? Ad what is the solution that you want? And how realistic is it? I don't know where you work or hwat exactly you do, but my first impression is that a Business Development Administrator and an HR Co-ordinator sound like very different types of roles with different responsibilities. Obviously I don't know the details, so I have to guess at it. But if they are, then they are not, and never were, required to simply find you a job - any job. Only a suitable alternative to the job you already had. If they do not have one, what is the solution then? From your point of view.