Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi,
Essentially I have been working from home for about 3 years now, I was working in the office before Covid but was having meltdowns basically every week / other week so was starting to request working from home already, and working from home has entirely stopped the meltdowns in work and thus proven a far better way of working for me. My company has constantly been asking about me going back in though, and recently a change of upper management occurred and they are determined to have everybody back in regardless of reasons. I had an assessment via work with an independent company where they wrote a report basically saying I can work from home perfectly well so its better for me to stay working from home, but if I absolutely had to go back in they should make some adjustments.
My employer however has taken this as I should definitely return to work and they'll make a couple of the adjustments, with the reasoning being essentially "better collaboration" and to be there in person to help new employees using my years of experience. Now as the bits of adjustment they would be willing to partially cover are noise cancelling headphones and being in a quiet corner of the office, this is entirely contradictory anyway. Not to mention it doesn't help other reasons I find the office stressful, and wearing noise cancelling headphones all day sounds like it be very physically irritating in and of itself.
I'm also not happy as during the discussion, and many times previously it has been suggested that if I want to apply to higher grades I'll need to come into the office, even though the one I'm aiming to apply for that is coming up soon is a job that was done from home for 2 years, and is currently still gone 2 days a week from home so is entirely possible to be done not in the office. They also said "I have kids and would like to work from home", I can't remember their exact wording after that, but essentially boiled down to, we can't always get what we want, as well as comparing having kids to having a disability, as if I could pay somebody to be autistic for me while I'm at work.
At this point I'm trying to get more expert, or at least experienced official opinions to take to them to try and sort it out, as even the thought of being forced to go back into that environment made me have a meltdown, and based on the discussion it honestly seems like they don't really count Autism as a disability at all and just think maybe in the last few years suddenly I'll be fine with it now.
Any other help from people who have had similar experiences would also be appreciated. At this point I'm not even sure if legally I can make them allow me to work from home, but I do know if they are intent on forcing me and I can't stop them I will instead be looking for another job that does as I really don't want to go back to weekly meltdowns with people who have no clue about how to handle it, such as when I'm not verbal taking me into a room and asking lots of questions.
If you don't have an anti-competition clause in your contract, can you consider applying to better places to work that would have you do a similar thing and work from home? Employers are much more willing to put adjustments in place for new employees (probably comes from a different budget) to get you in. I guess it boils down to, is this a good enough organisation for you to devote the next part of your working life to?
Adjustments for existing employees, particularly ones who have worked for the organisation for a long time without them, they can question the need. You coped (all be it not the best for you, but it worked fine for them) before covid with no adjustments, so they could claim that you don't need adjustments. It is tricky, because you don't want to have your coping pushed to the limit again, and for that to be used as evidence to put you on any kind of performance improvement thing.
I don't think you can legally make them let you work from home. They can listen to your needs, and decide if they can accommodate them. Ultimately it usually ends up a financial judgement - is it financially worth the organisation to make the change. If the change costs them nothing, e.g. they just have to buy a different type of office chair for you, or let you use a different font on emails, then that would be reasonable. Building you your own sound-proofed office, is likely a deal-breaker. And yes, organisations can argue that they need you in the office for a certain number of days per week, unless your original contract states otherwise - and even then, they would argue it comes under the 'business/service needs' i.e. they need you to be flexible.
Try to negotiate 2 or 3 days a week from home, and space them out during the week so you're not overloaded. Before the 2010 act I was turned down for flexible working because I wasn't a parent or a carer - that I was disabled and needed extra time to look after myself was not enough. They argued they needed someone doing my role 37.5h full time in the office. In the end I found somewhere else to work.