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Advice needed: Work saying come in 3 days a week or find another job

NAS64138

Hi,

For bit of backstory, before Covid I was having meltdowns, well shutting down but never sure exact term to use and always easier with non autistic people to say meltdown I've found, at work probably once every week or other week, mainly due to lots of little things constantly annoying me until I couldn't take it anymore, like people not washing hands, interrupting with pointless announcements, people spending ages talking instead of working, come back late from things, making a mess in kitchen area, things being broken, and so on. 

When Covid hit we could work from home full time and I've been fine while working since then, when it came to going back to work I asked for an occupational health assessment as I was still 1 of the best on the team in terms of speed and accuracy while working from home, but without the breakdowns. I'll need to try and find the report, but from what I remember my takeaway was that if it was essential to go in for some reason, which I can't see why it would be anyway, I would, but they are claiming they see it as theres no reason I can't go back.

Recently they declared they want everybody to go back 3 days a week, and those who refuse need to find other jobs, the manager of our section informed me today that this includes me, and if I wasn't willing to return 3 days a week I would need to find a new job. They don't seem to care about the fact that I was attempting to get work from home days before Covid due to the breakdowns, and while I've managed to convince them to arrange another occupational health meeting, I was told that they want me to "try 3 days a week for a few weeks" and then if that doesn't work try lowering it for a few weeks. However I know that not enough is going to have changed to prevent my breakdowns, and honestly I don't want to go back to having to sit frozen at my desk till a manager notices me, pull me away to ask questions I can't answer in that state for a while, before finally being able to get out and make my way home.

Has anybody else experienced this? If they hire a 3rd party company to do their occupational health assessments and they just deem you "fine to go in" do you have any recourse other than suffer more breakdowns until they accept it isn't good for you? This all just feels wildly unfair when at my end of year review I was told I am doing incredibly well on productivity and accuracy, so there is no work reason. I inquired in that meeting about promotions and was basically told  "well you won't be able to probably without coming in 3 days a week", which stupidly as I don't want to give up on promotions I said I would be willing to try for a better job, and they are now using that say "well you said you'd do it for money so do it now". They've also tried to say as I mentioned we were thinking of going to Barcelona that "if you can go out and go on holiday then you should be fine", as if they are the same thing.

I know I could just suck it up and do the few months of breakdowns to prove it, but I honestly thought getting a diagnosis would help with things like this and mean I don't need to suffer for months to prove that yes, I have the kind of Autism that makes work from home preferable, but they really don't seem to care.

Thanks in advance.

  • If they make your life hard, I would say tribunal them.  Make it as public as possible.  When a company has a good reputation and get tribunaled for discriminating against someone with disabilities, they will worry.

    At the same time I would also put the feelers out to other banks and see if you can find something better and more flexible.  I suspect if you really are a good worker and you put your notice in, they will maybe try and accomodate your needs.  Losing a good employee will hurt the profit margin.

    I've only used ACAS once and it never made it to tribunal.  They backed down when they realised the absolute storm they were about to go through.  I only asked for a reasonable adjustment due to health issues.  I ended up leaving a couple of months later because I realised they were a bad employer to work for.

  • I agree with everyone mentioning ACAS. I contacted them repeatedly during my last job. I also had a serious problem with a boss making my job more difficult rather than helping me with reasonable adaptations in the office (he took the computer off my desk to put it on a communal desk, expecting me to carry huge stacks of questionnaires back and forth between my desk and the communal desk to type my research reports).

    As I had a physical disability it made his idea even worse, so ACAS told me to tell him that what he was doing violated the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. I did threaten (I mean, tell) him that he was violating this act. As this was a charity, it made it even worse (if that were possible).

    I did a quick Google regarding the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and the Equality Act 2010 to assist in making reasonable adjustments to accommodate the needs of employees. It looks like Autism is covered by these, but of course a formal, on-record diagnosis would be helpful to ensure coverage by these Acts. Please look up the specifics if you think the Acts could help. At least you'd know your rights.

    Good Luck.

  • in reply to NAS64138

    I'm a big advocate of unions. Many years ago mine helped me move from a fixed-term to a permanent contract. Even now that I'm retired, I remain a member of my union.

  • in reply to Martin

    Yes I have a diagnosis, during the assessment for continuing to work from home I said I would be willing to come in on the odd day if required, but this appears to just have been taken as "oh he can come in, better get them in all the time then".

    I'll look into joining a Union as they are terrible, didn't improve salary for 3 years and due to a screw up in HR somehow I ended up making 2k less than a new starter for about a year when I'd been there 2 years. 

  • I am presuming that you have an autism diagnosis.

    If so, you are a disabled person and your employers are legally required to offer you 'reasonable accommodations'. The accommodations are supposed to level the playing field, relative to your non-disabled colleagues, so your autism does not impede your ability to work effectively. If you can show that working from home is entirely compatible with being as productive as others might be in the office, then your request to work from home would seem to be reasonable. You might offer to go in occasionally to 'touch base' with your colleagues and manager. As has been said, get professional advice and join a union. As soon as you sign up to a trades union you will have access to a 'case officer', who will support you and sit in on any meetings with management, and the union's legal advisors.

  • in reply to Agnesi

    Aye that is the problem, I would class reasonable to be letting me work from home full time they would be allowing 2 days anyway and I'm not going to be interacting with anybody any differently anyway as I always used teams even when sat next to people as I prefer it. But they could just put 1 empty space next to me and call it good enough based on how undefined "reasonable" is.

  • Hi, I just told my boss I'd received a diagnosis 2 weeks ago and he was the opposite of helpful. ACAS as 91091 says had some very useful information and my trade union have been the most help. Just done a quick Google to try to find anything resembling a definition of what constitutes reasonable adjustments. I don't know if this is useful or not 

    https://www.employmentautism.org.uk/pages/faqs/category/reasonable-adjustments-and-employer-duties

    The word 'reasonable' never seems to be defined but it seems reasonable to me to be able to work from home more and/or have a quiet desk in the office if possible. My employer is now letting me work from home more for the time being at least anyway. Good luck!