What reasonable adjustments do people find they get?

I should mention that your employer might benefit from ASD/Equalities training too. Access to Work or NAS could assist.

Craig39089 said:

While time and resources have been mentioned it feels like it's masking the real emotional ones rather than the underlying issue.

Access to work will also recommend adjustments with no financial aspect to them.  A lot of the adjustments do not require any finance at all, it is just the extra 'push' your employer wants to get them done.  And  recommendations of Access to Work if refused could set a whole range of actions going which your employer is unlikely to win.

It took a long time to get it (about eighteen months) but I moved into a different and very much quieter office about two months ago - something which was reccommended.  Also I got my own personal scanner to enable me to scan work documents without having to constantly get up and move to the office scanner.

I had my duties adjusted, so I do not have to have much contact with the public, I got a support worker (two sessions a month of two hours each whereby I can explain any problems I have at work and this will be put to the management by my support worker rather than me so there is no question of 'performance' in this, I have permission to 'have a rest' if work gets overwhelming.  It is now understood that I may say 'inappropriate things' at times and I may be blunt.  Training was given to the rest of the workforce (I had to think about 'coming out' before this but I was glad I did).  It is also now understood I may not be very sociable with others, that I may make odd noises and 'stim', that I talk a lot to myself (even telling myelf off out loud, that I may get frustrated, and that I shouldn't be interrupted more than absolutely, and if I am interrupted it may take time to get back in my stride.  It is also understood that if I don't acknowledge others it is not me being rude.

I am now left a lot to my own devices in the workplace which is how I like things to be, I am no longer being micromanaged and I am sitting in my own space, not one where I am surrounded by others.  Previously I was in a noisy office with strong kitchen smells, bright fluorescent lights and little natural light. 

You say you have some adjustments recommended from your diagnosis, but contact your local autism adult support service (if there is one where you live) and explain to them the diffculties you face at work. They may be able to help with your application for Access to Work, whose purpose is to keep you in work.

Be under no illusions that unless you can either explain yourself or get someone to explain for you, your employer will possibly not give you any adjustments. Adjustments are only  enforceable under the Equality Act if your condition causes substantial problems in everyday life, and if you cannot evidence this it may become difficult for you to get the adjustments you need. 

It may be an idea to write to your manager (email) to explain your condition and how it affects you, and say you want adjustments to help negate the difficulties you face in the workplace.  Do this politely, but also say you require a reply within a fortnight as to what adjustments they will provide or with reasons why they do not consider these adjustments are not necessary.  This is where a union representative if you have one would come in handy, they should support you in asking for your rights.

A diagnosis of autism does not, in the eyes of some employers, necessarily mean you need adjustments, and this is exacerbated by autism being an 'invisible' disability.  My employer sent me to Occupational Health following diagnosis, who more or less said that I was autistic and should be given the recommended adjustments including not answering telephones and not answering queries from the public.

You should also remember that other adjustments may become necessary in the future as job roles alter, and new things may affect you at work.  So you should also say (or get a support worker to say for you) that problems will be prevented if any changes are discussed with you beforehand and that this is meaningful discussion (not of the nature from the employer 'this is what we have decided you should do'.)   The one person though who knows most about your conditon and how you are affected is you, and this is why you need an advocate of some sort who you can discuss things with and put them to your management.  That will prevent much anxiety in the future.

Be careful you can make your employer make responsible ajusments but they can treat you bad for doing it, or you can make a claim agents them but you will end up losing your job.

Handi-andis said:

Well let's see, I got accepted for a Civil Service job, had a job offer from them, got refused reasonable adjustments. And yet the government wants disabled people to work as far as possible. Work that one out! LOL

Get the job.  Ask for an occupational health referral.  They will have a department that does that somewhere.  Then let that department deal with your boss and remind of his obligations under the disability act.

Well let's see, I got accepted for a Civil Service job, had a job offer from them, got refused reasonable adjustments. And yet the government wants disabled people to work as far as possible. Work that one out! LOL

I think attentional as well as, or maybe even more than, memory - you can't make a memory of something if you don't perceive it in the first place.

When people just tell me things, especially if there's no warning I'm going to be spoken to, their words just don't always sink in. I can even come back with a stock response sometimes without even realising that I'm doing it; like there's a reflex I have that just says "OK, whatever" to make people go away, without me ever taking my attention off whatever I'm doing. I'd often find myself thinking, "hang on a minute, was someone at my desk a moment ago? Or was that yesterday? Or last week? Who might it have been?"

Even, when someone does give me fair warning, the problem becomes that the conversation usually goes way too fast for me. My processing of speech can lag so far behind that I hear "it"s and "who"s and "that"s in the conversation with no idea what they're referring to; I'm very often just winging it with stock phrases, hoping that I will catch up before I have to say anything meaningful.  So writing works much better for me generally, I can focus on it at my own pace, and re-read to make sure I'm properly comprehending everything. Likewise for writing; if I take my time and can edit, I can put my thoughts into words quite well, but in real-time conversation, I find it much harder and am more likely to be misinterpreted.

My guess has been that my work has been the exception to a lot of the usual rules because of it being what I understand to be a special interest.  When it gets to things like making tea and coffee for the office, then I have to write things down to remember people's preferences until I got it memorised. 

So sounds like the receiving communication issues are more of a memory issue than understanding issue? 

Pretty much anything other than chit-chat; arrangements for meetings, giving me a new task, reminders about deadlines. Anything I've actually got to remember, basically. Of course, it depends what kind of work you do; I've mostly had office-based jobs at a computer, with lots of arrangements to be made between team members. It might be less relevant in other kinds of work where you always get given jobs that you do straight away.

What do you mean by work related communication being in writing? I would think day to day communication in writing would be unrealistic so interested in what kind of communication this covers  

The place I worked were 'sort of' supportive. They didn't address any staff or management issues but, as I was mostly working on my own, I was allowed to shift my hours to whatever crazy time I was up in the morning, I could start my working day, work straight through without wasting an hour for lunch and leave when I'd clocked up my hours.

This minimised my interactions with the lazy, incompetent assholes in the department and maximised my energy levels by not sitting at home for hours in the morning, getting stressed by rush-hour traffic both ways and not being available all day to be 'used' to solve everyone else's problems.

I could start at 04:30, the others arrived around 8:00, sat in the tea room gassing until alnost 9:00, checked their e-mails and farted around until 10:00, tea break until 11:00 - and then - I didn't care because I was gone.

Stealth Mode.

If I was very lucky, I didn't see them for weeks.

I hope it goes well. I appreciate that it’s a difficult time and there are significant challenges but there is external help should you need it.

Thanks, that definitely helps.  I'm aware of my rights but how to use them in a constructive way keeps proving challenging.  Often feel like they're much more theoretical based on experience!

Awareness of communication issues is still building for me, which makes things difficult.  I definitely have a direct communication style that some people tend to take offence to and then use as an excuse for being aggressive, for reasons that baffle me. 

The more ongoing things like communication style changes are definitely the thing I can see helping the most, but are difficult to get. 

How obvious do people find their communication issues are when it comes to you receiving communication? After a few months nothing clearly stands out for me and am wondering if I'm just not seeing it yet or that particular part doesn't apply to me. 

Thanks.  While time and resources have been mentioned it feels like it's masking the real emotional ones rather than the underlying issue.  It's good to think about though.

These links may also be of help:
http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1859
https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/multipage-guide/employment-workplace-adjustments
https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/multipage-guide/reasonable-adjustments-practice
https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/Autism.pdf

Craig39089 said:

My employer has pretty much point blank refused things on this list or just ignored them entirely.

Then they have broken the law! I'm not suggesting that you immediately jump into legal action, but you should at least assert this to your employers; reasonable accommodations are your legal right according to disability laws. You are in a more fortunate position here than many disabled people, because your desired accommodations have been determined by professionals; so what is "reasonable" is relatively easy to establish, and your employers have no grounds to claim that you are attempting to obtain unfair privileges.

I didn't have an official diagnosis yet when I was last working, but my employer was very sympathetic to staff with disabilities and mental health issues. Among the things they allowed me were:

• Greater flexibility in working hours. Just being able to avoid rush-hour commuting made a big difference to me. I was lucky that I could scrape by on less money, so I also reduced my hours, allowing some mid-week "me time" and to go shopping at quiet times.
• Dividers/screens around three sides of my desk to avoid getting distracted by other people's movements around me.
• Always communicating work-related information in writing/email.
• Relaxation of dress codes. We arranged that smart-casual was acceptable usually, but that I would dress more formally if advised in advance that customers would be in the office.
• Use of a locker so that I could change into work clothes at work. This was after having problems with my BO because I got very sweaty on my commute (over 2 miles walking each way - and that was just so that I could catch the bus!)

Craig39089 said:

others like adjusting communication styles don't seem to be to me

Yes, and for autistic people, possibly one of the most important of all; so often, it is only vocational aspects of work which get looked at, but for many of us, it is the social experience of being at work which is most exhausting and most likely to lead to problems. There are two main difficulties with this one, I think.

• Employers fear implementing it because it isn't just a simple, single action that they just take once and then write off in the accounts. It's an investment in finding new best practices for everyone who comes into contact with you, and maintaining those practices long term. I've seen this myself. Even when there were good intentions to communicate with me more directly and in writing, it usually only took a few weeks before everything just reverted back to how it was before. People slip back into the old habits easily because that's still how they treat all the non-autistic people in the workplace. It's an open-ended commitment requiring monitoring and maintenance, and employers don't like that.
• To work well, what it really requires is autism awareness; again, for everyone who comes into contact with you. The variety of communication that goes on in a workplace is huge. Simply giving everyone a bullet list of examples of what they should or shouldn't do isn't likely to be very effective. People really need to know how to appreciate your perspective so that they can work out how to communicate in any situation. This means treating you as an individual person rather than a generic unit of "human resources". You always have to consider too, that any attempt at raising awareness can mean drawing attention to yourself that you might not want, or having to disclose your diagnosis to people who you'd rather didn't know.

What I suggest you do is to try to find some concrete examples of things that will help. Over the course of your working week, keep a note of times where you have struggled with communication, or have misunderstood what you've been told. You might be able to see certain patterns in it which can tell you what to focus on the most. From my own analysis, I realised quite quickly that my main problem was being told something when I'd been interrupted without warning. I can't switch into "conversation mode" quickly enough and what I'm told doesn't sink in. So, I arranged that my line manager would always call me into his office rather than him come to my desk. Some concrete examples like that are easier for your employer to understand and implement than an abstract concept like "communication style".

This link should work:

www.gov.uk/.../access-to-work-factsheet-for-customers

There are a number of reasonable adjustments that can help ASD. You’ve mentioned some really good ones but I’d add some which I hope is useful:

1. Time Out when overwhelmed;

2. Working from home one day a week;

3. Workplace Coaching (via Access to Work);

4. Noise Cancelling Headphones (Bose models are good);

5. Attending medical appointments;

6. Regular management catch-ups:

There is some really good stuff on the NAS website on the types of adjustments for ASD and I’d certainly recommend speaking to Access to Work to see if they can help. They are able to provide financial assistance to smaller employers where barriers may be harder to remove (please see 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/access-to-work-factsheet/access-to-work-factsheet-for-customers)