Disclosing potential ASD diagnosis at work

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

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

very informative document; thank you

Thanks for this. 

It is the role that is redundant and there were three of us to choose from. Pay and notice have been sorted.

I think the problem here is I didn’t know there was anything ‘wrong’ with me in the first place.

I didn’t know about reasonable adjustments and thought I should just try harder. Also thought I was a bit of an idiot for not getting things like other people do naturally, or be able to chat in the same way. However I have good attention to detail which the others lack. 

I don’t know if mentioning my potential ASD during the appeal process would help or not but I will have a look at the link. 

The redundancy issues mentioned above have never been mentioned to me before now and perhaps they are comparing me to my ‘normal’ colleagues unfairly. But this just feeds into my overthinking and negativity anyway.