Redundancy whilst on maternity leave

[Bollah]

The company went through a round of redundancies in July where she kept her job. This round of redundancies have come due to the company being sold and being renamed to something slightly different and reducing the workforce size.

On Wednesday last week (26/08) my wife got a call from her work saying that she was being made redundant, but she is on maternity leave. She does work in HR but at the lower level so is slightly clued up on these things and studying for CIPD level 3, but wanted to see if there was anything she should be asking etc..? She is due to finish maternity leave and be back to work in Jan 2021, can she claim payment for her unused annual leave up to then, or will the termination be from the middle of Sept which is what they are aiming for. Her consultation process starts tomorrow (04/09)

From various bits of reading, she should be offered a suitable vacancy if they have one, which they don't, instead, they have sent her a job list for all the roles available in the company, from lorry drivers, retail assistants to database administrators and asked her to choose her top 3 jobs. That doesn't seem right? Also, her manager (HR Manager) has been given a new contract, but if she has been offered a new contract, shouldn't the HR manager role been offered to my wife as part of the rights a woman off on maternity leave? Or does TUPE play a role in this?

We're not looking to seek justice against the company, but ensure things are being done correctly.

Thanks

[Smurfsarepeopletoo]

I am no expert on this, but I would imagine that there will have been different pools of people from different departments that relate to wether they are being made redundant or not, it may be that the HR manager position is not being made redundant, and therefore the contract has been amended to refer to the new company.

Sounds like your wife has been put into a pool of people that are up for redundancy, and as they have no suitable position for her, they are offering her other positions that she may wish to apply for rather than be made redundant.

[Sy1441]

Have a read of that back as a third party and tell me if it makes sense?

My wife should have been offered a promotion as she had a baby?

[Countdown]

Sy1441 said:

Have a read of that back as a third party and tell me if it makes sense?

My wife should have been offered a promotion as she had a baby?

I read it as "My wife's boss has been given a new contract. Should my wife not also have been allowed to apply for that role since her post is being made redundant?". i could be wrong though.

This area is one that I'm genuinely curious about i.e. the rights of "somebody on Maternity leave" vs "somebody not on maternity leave" in relation to redunfancy. The logical part of me thinks that they should bpth be treated in exactly the same way and the maternity aspect should be irrelevant to the choice of who gets made redundant. However a HR Director once said to me that Anybody on maternity leave would be the very very last person he would make redundant because of all the hassle it involved including going to Employment Tribunals. He worked for a charity and possibly that may have influenced his approach but I've always wondered where the reality was.

TL:DR Are women on mat leave granted preferential treatment when it comes to redundancy selection?

[Marcellus]

Surely the fact your wife is on maternity leave is irrelevant to the redundancy process provided the employer doesn’t use the fact against considering her for any other roles?

Therefore, during consultation they should investigate all alternative options within the company (who knows it may have been a childhood dream to be a lorry driver) if there aren’t any and she is to be made redundant at the end of the consultation period her notice period starts.

They just can’t make her being on redundancy a reason why she isn’t suitable for any of the role available within the company.