Vicky's blog: A problem shared is a problem halved

"Listening to the radio this morning there was a story that “last year 14,000 people rang the service for help – an increase of nearly 10% compared with the previous year”. What service and how do I quantify that number I thought? Listening further the story was about people calling Acas for help and advice regarding problems at work whilst pregnant or on maternity leave.
 
When I got to the office I started reading through some women’s stories on a news website to be horrified at the extent of the problem: over 1000 women had shared their stories, but still women don’t like to talk publicly about their experience. It seems there is a stigma associated with talking publicly about issues like this, possibly for fear of being branded a troublemaker - and I realised I am no different. I was treated badly by my firm during my first maternity leave, and worse on my second, but I haven’t spoken about it publicly. I still work for the same organisation and have been here 4 years now, and bizarrely I am glad to be here, I'm finally happy in a role I enjoy with a supportive manager. So part of me thinks, what good would it do to tell anyone what happened to me whilst I was off and how it made me feel? Then I realised that by not speaking out, or at least trying to change the problem, I was probably adding to issue.
 
So here’s what I can tell you of my situation, how it made me feel and what I've tried to do to stop it happening to others. Whilst off on second maternity leave my role was made redundant and I was put at risk, all completely legally. At the time my baby was 3 months old and I had just come into the office for a KIT (keeping in touch) day for my yearend review, to be invited to a new meeting where I was told I had a new manager and was immediately out of a job. Obviously, this was all quite a shock but the worse part of it was I was given two weeks to find a new job or be out of contract! I would be paid out of remaining maternity leave and notice period but unemployed and not receiving any benefits for the rest of my maternity leave.

My firm “allowed” me to defer my redundancy to the end of my maternity leave after I challenged my ability to find a role whilst out of the office with a 3 month old baby, and quite frankly I didn’t know which way was up at the point due to sleep deprivation. Then I had the uphill task of finding a new role to come back to, which again I had to do singlehandedly, with no support from HR. It turns out I was “covered” under the Disability Act 2010, but no one bothered to explain that or help me out in any way. 

Through hard work and determination, I found a good job to come back to and started in the summer several months after I had planned to come back. Throughout the whole episode, my entire world seemed unstable and I was constantly on the edge of falling into a depressive state, my husband tried to be supportive but as the major household earner, I felt so useless. What should have been a magical time off with my second child turned into a nightmare of insomnia, physical sickness and worry. I complained about my treatment to HR, to be told that whilst the way my “case” (not me, my case!) was handled was acknowledged as poor, that they would try to do better next time. Little comfort to me that one!
 
So I'm back at work, mentally more stable and happy in my new role. I've joined the family network committee and am working to ensure that mothers are treated better generally, but specifically, we are trying to change internal policies so that any redundancy whilst a mother is on maternity leave (or a father on paternity leave) is automatically deferred until they return. We are looking at rolling out a buddy system for all those who want it, to help pair people up with someone who can help them return to work more smoothly, and generally be a helping hand or just a friendly ear.
 
Acas has issued new advice to help tackle the problem of pregnancy and maternity discrimination, the new guidance includes making sure women know about promotion opportunities whilst they are on maternity leave.
 
My pledge going forward is to be a champion for women and men taking parental leave within my firm to ensure they are treated fairly. Hopefully, I can stop what happened to me, happening to anyone else."

Vicky is a full time city mum of two with 20+ years experience.