Discrimination at work

Hi, 

I have been working with the company (a nursery) for over 8 years now and I absolutely love my job. I have high functioning autism, I wasn’t diagnosed until my early 20’s and it effects very little of my day to day life at work as work is a role, I can do that. (It’s hard to explain). Anyways throughout my career I have had to prove myself and work harder than anyone else (partly because I suffered from depression and anxiety early on in my career but I haven’t suffered from this for about 6 years). It took me longer to get a senior position and I was told that they had pushed me harder than anyone else because they needed to see that I would not break and could handle it. I didn’t think this was overly fair but I accepted it. Well I have been working towards a management position for the past two/three years but recently was told that I will never get the position because they do not think that I can handle the tricky situations with team/ parents etc. I do not believe this to be true. They said they have given me opportunities to show this but I deal with staff and parents all the time and have never had a problem. How can they know I cannot do the position if they will not let me try it? I would even be happy to do a trial basis to prove myself. I feel like I am being discriminated against but don’t know what to do? Any help and support would be very much appreciated. 

Parents
  • If you go on the Acas website and look for a pdf document called discrimination in the workplace I believe. It’s about 52 pages.  There’s examples in there of discrimination and I’m sure one is if your employer makes a judgment on your capabilities due to a disability.  In this case it’s their perception of your capability which you believe to be wrong, which is discrimination.  It’s definitely worth phoning Acas.  Some of their advisors are brilliant, and some not so.  They will probably advise you to raise a formal grievance through your company’s internal grievance process.  Which you will need to do before you can go to an employment tribunal.  It sounds like you have a good case though. 

Reply
  • If you go on the Acas website and look for a pdf document called discrimination in the workplace I believe. It’s about 52 pages.  There’s examples in there of discrimination and I’m sure one is if your employer makes a judgment on your capabilities due to a disability.  In this case it’s their perception of your capability which you believe to be wrong, which is discrimination.  It’s definitely worth phoning Acas.  Some of their advisors are brilliant, and some not so.  They will probably advise you to raise a formal grievance through your company’s internal grievance process.  Which you will need to do before you can go to an employment tribunal.  It sounds like you have a good case though. 

Children
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