Published on 12, July, 2020
I was diagnosed 3 weeks ago with autism, something I wasn't surprised at and actually feel relieved at knowing.
I work in the civil service, always been office based, never worked from home but over the last few years I've been really struggling with the work and the environment I was in.
Currently on sick leave and spoken to manager about what I'd like going forward. I've said full time home working due to the issues I faced in the workplace (crowded, noisy, temperature too hot, no routine). I've been told that I'd have to put in a flexible working request first to leave the department then put in a reasonable adjustment request on my new team for home working.
I've explained my issue with this is if I get moved teams on the first request its to operations which is a big open plan floor with hundreds of people, I've sat there briefly last year and had to leave the building as it was too overwhelming (at this point not knowing I was autistic). If this was to happen and then my reasonable adjustment request for home working was rejected I'd be stuck in an environment far worse than the one I'm requesting to leave.
Does anyone have any pointers on what the best course of action is to request full time home working? I've read up on so many pages but again when I mention it to my manager I keep getting told 'the expectation is to be in the office 2-3 days a week as a minimum' which goes against the law which states each reasonable request should be treated on a case by case basis and not compared to other requests.
Apologies if you've already read these resources - but, if not, they may be helpful:https://www.cfcs.org.uk/help-advice/health-and-wellbeing/wellbeing-at-work/workplace-adjustments/
The above page includes:
"To access a full suite of Civil Service Workplace Adjustments Policy guidance and support tools, log-in to the: Civil Service Learning (CSL) website: Civil Service Learning (CSL) website."
Other resources linked on the same page include:
Thanks for this, really appreciate it. Will give it a look over tomorrow as I need to get something sorted as I can't continue like this. Can only try and see what happens.