Can Your Maternity Leave Temp Replace You Permanently?
Learn your rights as a new parent both while on maternity leave and upon returning to work when it comes to being permanently replaced by a temporary employee.
Returning to work after maternity leave comes with all kind of emotions.
Leaving your baby in the care of someone else might leave you feeling anxious after spending weeks at home with your little one.
But at the same time, getting back in your groove as an actual human and not just an exhausted feeding, changing, burping machine can also feel incredibly freeing.
Regardless of where you land, surviving the transition into becoming an official working mom is a triumph.
But what happens when your triumphant return to work doesn't feel so... triumphant?
It's not uncommon for parents returning to work to feel like they've been left behind while they were on leave. Maybe the office culture has changed, or worse, their temporary replacement is looking less temporary than expected.
One mom took to Reddit to explain her fraught return to work. "Before I left, I had been in my position for a year," explains Redditor SEA612. "It was a new position created for our department & my manager was still trying to figure out exactly how this new position would evolve." She describes how her manager didn't allow her much autonomy in determining how to work within her new position. "My manager didn’t seem to have too much confidence in letting me take initiative or allow me to turn this position into my own.