Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello all. I’m new here and hoped someone may be able to help me, or whether anyone has experience with this. I have searched the forum but couldn’t find anything quite like the issue I have.
I have been in continuous employment at one company for the last 7 years. I am a female in my 30s.
I am currently going through the autism diagnostic process with the NHS. I have completed Stage 1 and have been invited back for Stage 2, though I don’t have a date for this yet.
I do intend to tell work if a diagnosis is confirmed, however something has come up and I may need to disclose this earlier than anticipated.
Has anyone been in a situation like this before? Is it worth telling them even though I don’t know if it will be confirmed?
Hi everyone.
I just thought I would update this to say that I have now been made redundant.
The reasons included not being ‘warm’ to customers on the phone (or in person to other staff members), not answering the phone enough, needing to work on my reactions to situations and not being proactive in a particular way.
None of these issues had been brought up with me previously and my other two colleagues have been employed within the last two years or thereabouts.
They are apparently much better at these things already.
Not sure what to do from here.
You are only 'redundant' if your post is not being replaced.
If your post is being replaced by someone else, you have been dismissed. And depending on how long you have been working for a firm you have rights. I notice you have been working for seven years with the firm so therefore you have full rights against unfair dismissal.
Were you given 'redundancy pay'. this would not amount to much, it only being one week's pay for every year eallmployme And proper notice? You should be given one weeks notice for every year you have worked, or pay in lieu up to a maximum of twelve weeks
It must be said that your failure to disclose a disabillity would go against you as your employer would not be obliged to give adjustments if they did not know of your disability. This is why disclosure is essential. Your employer had obviously noticed that you are having difficulties, but the last thing they want to admit is that these difficulties are caused by disability. Proving disability retrospectively is very difficult (but not impossible) and would revolve round whether it was obvious at the time that your difficulties were caused by a disability.
For example, if you had only one arm, it would be obvious that your disability was there even if you did not declare it. Autism is a different kettle of fish as it is 'invisible' and what an employer sees is not disability but incapability. And to get adjustments under the Equality Act you do not need a diagnosis of any condition at all, and even with a diagnosis you would still have to 'prove' your disability, in the same way as without a diagnosis, the advantage of a diagnosis is that your condition cannot realistically be disputed, although how it affects your everyday life might be.
However, you should be given the chance to appeal against redundancy, or dismissal. At the appeal you could bring up the fact you now know you are autistic and if reasonable adjustments are given you could perform your job. You could state that you intend to get apply to Access to Work for support (google Access to Work). And even at this late stage you could be successful in keeping your job. State you believe you are covered by the Equality Act and that you hope an agreeable solution can be found to keeping you in work. The chance of success may not be high but at this stage you have nothing to lose except that due to the stress you may not feel as if you are up to the process involved.
Read the following document for some idea of how to 'prove' your disability:
https://www.unison.org.uk/content/uploads/2018/10/Proving-Disability-and-Reasonable-Adjustments-Oct2018.pdf
Hi I have Asperger's and I do give time to my local NHS Health And Social Care Trust by sitting on Interview Panels when recruiting Admin workers or Consultants , I have sat on many panels since 2014 and have had some training for this too. So to be there working 7 years for the employer to suddenly let you go on them grounds seems odd to me , though I am not an expert.
It might be useful maybe if you could give the NAS Helpline a call and discuss all this with an a NAS adviser !
Depending where you are in the Country they may know of some employment support agency who specifically help Autistic people get paid work and offer in work support too.