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Employement terminated because of my autism

Invisible_me

Hi, 

So i made a post aboit a month ago on this job. In short though,  I reached the end of my probation period and they terminated my employment because of my autism,  the meeting and letter blatantly says "due to your autism it can not be confirmed you can meet tgis target consistently", "while you have made progress due to your autism it cannot be confirmed that you will continue to make progress." " Despite the feedback support and adjustments you have failed to meet the essential criteria of the job. ".

New performance concerns are raised on letter which wasn't even mentioned in the meeting.  

However:

  • I started job december/jan. Probation extended in August till november as a manager discretion what all employees entitled to. 
  • Adjustments put in place in may,  since then its not always been consistent. Occ health was requested in October,  report received in end november (not done a shift since them receiving report.
  • No performance concerns were raised with me, in September supervision I was praised and he said theres no reason not to pass.  No supervision since but all other informal conversations have been positive. I had made significant progress since August.and continued on,  i felt happier and enjoyed the work this was praised, recognised multiple times.  .   
  • Due to a upsetting incident at work,  I had an absence,  service manager phoned me in beg November to say i cannot pass probation because I hadn't completed an external referral (completing this cannot be guaranteed due to unpredictable nature of work, my manager said as long as I understand process its fine. They were goung to ask if I can have longer probation.  HR said depending on occupational health report.  They received this hr said no.
  • Invited to firms meeting this week where I was informed of termination for above given reasons.  

In the meeting i raised the inconsistent in adjustments she said the adjustments are no longer reasonable or practical for the service- no discussion was had with me prior stating this.  In conversation id had expressing me feeling bad for needing these adjustments,  ive always been reassured that if o need it to help its absolutely fine and shouldn't feel bad, that they are therr to supprt me.  

Where do I stand?- I feel theyve discriminated against my autism.  Ivd made lots of progress and thvr just used autism as an excuse to say theres no guarantee ill continue making progress. They've also used me struggling to communicate against me- ive really started building a rapport with my manager and communicating to him even uf it is via email ad well as face to face.  I wanted to stay!  

Parents

  • This sucks - I can offer some advice from someone who has been on the management side of this equation before that may help you put things in context:

    Invisible_me said:
    Adjustments put in place in may,  since then its not always been consistent. Occ health was requested in October,  report received in end november (not done a shift since them receiving report.

    It sounds like they made an attempt to put reasonable adjustments in place - can you explain if these worked, were withdrawn or if they were not enough to make  difference for you. The fact OH were involved shows the management were taking steps to help or at least to make it look this way.

    Invisible_me said:
    No performance concerns were raised with me

    Why did they extend probation? They normally need to detail a reason for this which would qualify as a concern.

    Invisible_me said:
    service manager phoned me in beg November to say i cannot pass probation because I hadn't completed an external referral

    This sounds like the smoking gun they can use to justify letting you go If this is the case then you will get nowhere with a discrimination case. I would ask HR to provide the company policies around this to help you and your legal team to understand if it is really the case.

    With the application of "reasonable adjustments" it can be quite hard to prove if they are "reasonable" or not - for examle if you worked in a call centre and you asked to not to have to answer the phone the this is not reasonable. Most situations can be argued in different ways to establishing the reasonableness of it needs a detailed understanding of the role and what they offered / withdrew.

    I know HR teams have legal experts on retainers to work on these sorts of cases so you need to have your own legal representative to chase it and the above info will need to be reviewed by them. We lack the detail to give a clearer opinion I'm afraid.

    Good luck if you decide to persue a claim.

  • in reply to Iain
    Iain said:
    I know HR teams have legal experts on retainers to work on these sorts of cases so you need to have your own legal representative to chase it and the above info will need to be reviewed by them.

    ...which you may have if you have home/car insurance. Car insurance tends to just cover motoring related legal cover. House insurance might cover employment, presumably because it's in their interests that you are still able to pay a mortgage. 

  • in reply to D

     What do you mean by HR have retainters?

    Who for legal advice.  Im not with union. I dont have anyone. 

    I don't have house insurance in my name. Live with parents.  

  • in reply to Invisible_me
    Invisible_me said:
    what your saying though  it makes me thibk i don't stand a chance even if actually what they have done is wrong.  

    I suspect this is the case - I do not know but I wanted you to understand it so you can be prepared for what is probably an unfair outcome (but probably legal-ish).

    On two occasions when I was a manager I had a new hire who had undisclosed medical conditions that led them to have a lot of absence during probation. On both those occasions I was ordered by my manager (verbally) to performance manage them out of the company using the probation process.

    The first one the girl was bipolar and in spite of supporting her through this as best I could she could not bring herself to want to return.

    The second was a more serious medical condition, a genetic one resulting in chronic pain which would eventually need spinal surgery. I ended up making a stand on this and standing up against my manager as I had hired them because I thought they were a good fit for the team and had all the skills we needed.

    This second case caused a lot of tension between me and my boss as he hated having his authority questioned but my stubborness (and probably some oppositional defiance disorder) meant I was not going to just submit.

    This did a lot of damage to my career potential in that company as my performance evaluations suddenly dropped from exceptional to acceptable and my workload jumped significantly. I can't imagine what casued that...

    Anyway, the point of this ramble is that while your supervisor may be supportive, it is often the middle management who are pulling the strings hard behind the scenes, leaving no paper trail to pin it on them.

    I would make sure you gather all your evidence to keep at home, keep all communication about this process or about performance in writing and make contact with an employment law legal specialist to assess your potential for a case.

    Expect the worst but hope for the best.

    Good luck.

Reply
  • in reply to Invisible_me
    Invisible_me said:
    what your saying though  it makes me thibk i don't stand a chance even if actually what they have done is wrong.  

    I suspect this is the case - I do not know but I wanted you to understand it so you can be prepared for what is probably an unfair outcome (but probably legal-ish).

    On two occasions when I was a manager I had a new hire who had undisclosed medical conditions that led them to have a lot of absence during probation. On both those occasions I was ordered by my manager (verbally) to performance manage them out of the company using the probation process.

    The first one the girl was bipolar and in spite of supporting her through this as best I could she could not bring herself to want to return.

    The second was a more serious medical condition, a genetic one resulting in chronic pain which would eventually need spinal surgery. I ended up making a stand on this and standing up against my manager as I had hired them because I thought they were a good fit for the team and had all the skills we needed.

    This second case caused a lot of tension between me and my boss as he hated having his authority questioned but my stubborness (and probably some oppositional defiance disorder) meant I was not going to just submit.

    This did a lot of damage to my career potential in that company as my performance evaluations suddenly dropped from exceptional to acceptable and my workload jumped significantly. I can't imagine what casued that...

    Anyway, the point of this ramble is that while your supervisor may be supportive, it is often the middle management who are pulling the strings hard behind the scenes, leaving no paper trail to pin it on them.

    I would make sure you gather all your evidence to keep at home, keep all communication about this process or about performance in writing and make contact with an employment law legal specialist to assess your potential for a case.

    Expect the worst but hope for the best.

    Good luck.

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