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Works view of me has changed since assessment referral

Bartholomew

Hi, 

I’m looking to find out if this is something others have experienced. 


I met with an NHS psychologist earlier this year who recommended referring me for an assessment. Whilst I was aware that I related to traits after going through the process for my son, it was still quite a shock to me. Further internet sleuthing and the reaction of friends and family suggests it shouldn’t have been such a big shock. 

I spoke to my immediate manager at work about it, mostly as I was struggling with it mentally. Within a couple of weeks of telling them they began to use the phrase “I’m not sure you’re compatible with this role”. 

I’ve had my mental health struggles for many years and have been signed off work with mental health issues for some periods in the last couple of years which I now can see may have been more like some level of burnout. Never has this sentiment of compatibility been raised even during that period or on my return. I’ve been doing this type of job now for about 16 years. I’m considered good at it and have always received good feedback from managers. 

I can’t help but think that this is all related and the idea that they’ve decided this now simply because I’ve been referred for an assessment is difficult to deal with. If I could go back in time I’d have kept my mouth shut. 

is this similar to anything anyone else has dealt with? If so, how do you let it go and not let it become something that you become obsessed with that brings you down? 

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  • Bartholomew said:
    I spoke to my immediate manager at work about it, mostly as I was struggling with it mentally. Within a couple of weeks of telling them they began to use the phrase “I’m not sure you’re compatible with this role”.

    My interpretation is that your manager has realised that your mental struggles are not transient so you may not be able to endure the ongoing pressures that are inherent with the job.  

    Bartholomew said:
    have been signed off work with mental health issues for some periods in the last couple of years

    The recurring nature of this is probably now become apparent and explains why this, combined with your disclosure to your manager of your struggles has let them to realise that you may not be compatible with the work for the sake of your own health.

    This is me giving the manager the benefit of the doubt when the flip side is my experience where I have known other mangers who had staff disclose their autism only after employment.

    Where staff have had long term mental health issues I have observed HR and managers agree that it is time to manage the staff member out of the role to make way for someone who can perform better, who does not leave the team to cover their recurring long term absences and who is a better social fit within the team.

    One contract I had was where I was given a team of 26 tech support staff of which 11 had been on long term, stress related sick leave (in hindsight there were many neurodiverse staff) and the management had agreed with HR to restructure the team in a very specific way that all the staff with mental health issues were made redundant.

    This was before I was aware of autism or even my own diagnosis but the role stated that there was a large part of the team that they needed to "prune" as they were "dead weight". 

    I suspect this is what could be happening in your situation - but this is just the opinion of some random person on the internet so please don't place too much emphasis on it.

    Were in in your situation I would keep everything around this in writing (probably be email) and keep copies of this at home. I would join a union as soon as possible even though they are often not helpful, but they can sometimes offer access to support in employment disputes. I would also plan for possible scenarios so I can understand what the possible futures look like - but this is just because I like to understand my options.

    My approach when there is any employment dispute is to keep a paper trail that I can access at home (eg forward relevant emails to my personal email address) and make any points of agreement (or disagreement) clear in writing so there is no wriggle room on assessing how successful I have been at my work or at how my manager has failed to provide what "reasonable adjustments" I have asked for.

    By building up enough evidence of my managers failure to follow proper procedure I have been able to secure significant payouts from employers in the past on 2 occasions and leave to another company with non disclosure agreements preventing a bad reference.

    This is my experience and my thoughts on how I approached it - I hope some of it is of help.

  • in reply to Iain

    Appreciate your insight, it’s really helpful to hear the objective perspective. Thanks for replying

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