I'm so overwhelmed! Advice pls?
I'm very futunate to have been able to arrange quite a long maternity leave with my work. I go back in 6 months.
HR at my workplace are asking me to provide extremely detailed information about my return to office, and I simply don't have these answers yet!!
We're in the middle of working out whether to go with a childminder or a nursery, because the nursery management recently informed us they can't do certain days...
So they want to know exactly what days I will be working in 6 months time and they need the answer NOW. They also want me to provide any changes to my working arrangements ie if I wanted to come back part time whivh is in a YEAR'S time....
And I'm getting overwhelmed by it because.. There's simply no way for me to know what our situation is going to look like in a years time...?
Is this normal? To ask for such detailed decisions so far in advance? how did you arrange things with work?
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Your employer should work on the assumption that everything will stay the same with your employment terms until you say otherwise. They should not be initiating thos flexible work conversation. It's inappropriate
Although, now you're in a tricky situation because if you tell them that you are not ready to have tgos conversation, I'm a few months when you are, they can deny your flexible work request
A flexible working request should be completed in 2 months including a potential appeal. I'd honestly just tell them that you'll let them know when you know your plans and if you decide to submit a flexible working request, you'll do it once you're ready to submit this. I'd also just tell them you find it stressful that they're asking for this much detailed information and you want to focus your time on spending it with your baby. You can absolutely set boundaries on how you wish for them to communicate with you xx
I've already told them that I'll let them know once I know more, 2 months ago when they started to ask. Now they've given me a deadline to respond by, with information detailing the full plan.... STRESSFUL!
Legally you can let them know 8 weeks in advance and as said above, they should assume that you're going back at your previous terms and that you'll return on whatever date has been agreed before you went on mat leave. Just set boundaries and let them know you'll keep them in loop if anything changes and will provide any notice in line with statutory requirements which is 8 weeks prior to your return. It might be that it's slightly different since you're taking leave outside of the statutory rights, but you can still be clear and set boundaries x
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