Why are accommodations for autistic people often seen as unfair?

[YourPoisedFinch]

In my last job, I received some accommodations and explained them to colleagues when they asked why I was coming in late. Instead of understanding, they accused me of fraud and faking my condition to get special treatment. This isn’t just my experience—many people with mental health conditions and other invisible disabilities face similar challenges. They’re either not believed and resented for receiving accommodations or believed but then negatively stereotyped.

Got it. Thank you. It seems to me that the vast majority of people are neurodivergent. Many people are falsely assuming their mental struggles are exceptional.

In this case OP states she works the same hours as other colleagues, just different start and finish times. Which is fine. A lot of offices do flexible hours. But I disagree that someone with Autism who is not capable of holding down a fulltime job, should be accommodated with a part time job, but receive a full time wage. Anyone who cannot cope with full time work should look for part time work. Not apply for a full time position, but then demand adjustments to part time but keeping their full time salary.

how do you know the vast majority of people have NDs like dyslexia? done a survey?

There's no requirement for an employer to pay the same amount and I'm not sure where anyone is getting the idea that people working reduced hours get that without salary cuts!

However, as I've previously pointed out, it's very common for people doing the same jobs to be paid different salaries and so there's no reason they couldn't of they wanted to. It's up the employer ultimately.

I’m potentially about to find out if I can work less hours on the same salary, at least temporarily, because of a neurological condition. If someone is genuinely sick and needs additional time off, they are working less than others, but not through any fault of their own.

It’s a complex situation and very difficult to know where the lines should be drawn.

I think a lot of people just like to complain if they think someone is doing less than them. When I was training and on an unpaid placement I did reduced hours (9-5 instead of 8-6 like the paid employees did) I was a single parent with an infant so couldn’t work the childcare any different as the placement was far from my child’s nursery. The amount of people that directly complained about me “working part time hours/ why don’t I work more etc”. I just laughed cos I wasn’t getting paid to be there and also had a paid job as well so was actually doing way more hours than them and it was none of their business.

why did they complain?

Ah well that’s fair enough in that case, I hadn’t seen her reply, only read the first few pages.

I’m not suggesting everyone gets paid the exact same salary, I’m suggesting that if the OPs adjustments are resulting in 5 hours less work a week than everyone else, then her weekly hours are less than her colleagues and her pay should be pro rated to reflect that. So she would get paid for 30 hours instead of 35 like her colleagues. She could still end up taking more home each month if her salary is higher than her colleagues, but her pay is reflective of the hours she works which is fair.

Google “executive dysfunction and sensory overload autism”

Well in some cases it can be as simple as the autistic person cannot cope with peak travel times, too busy, noisy & overstimulating, or it could be they have a sleep disorder, nothing ridiculous about it.

A lot of schools make reasonable adjustments for staggered start and finish time for the reasons above, unfortunately you can't "grow out" of autism.

If part of the job is being in a certain location at certain time and a person cannot be in that location at a certain time, then surely they cannot do that job.
Some jobs have the potential to be flexible others not so much

I’ve been asked to make accommodations twice for ND colleagues in the last few years. One request I was quite happy with and in fact wished I’d asked for myself years ago, which was to be able to wear headphones in the office, as it can get noisy and sometimes I need to concentrate. The other one was to make clear summaries of emails received as an accommodation before allocating them to our new employee. This amounts to me doing a lot of the other person’s work, we all have to read and summarise information and it’s often difficult to do / can be quite technical info. So I wasn’t happy and neither were the rest of the team. It caused bad feeling in what had been a friendly team. So my answer is it depends what the accommodations are, they need to be fair to the team as a whole. And in my role, I wouldn’t be keen on a team member arriving late all the time, even if they worked late, we are really busy first thing and it tails off as the day progresses so if you arrive late you aren’t pulling your weight. A PP up thread said travel difficulties could be a reason for getting to work late, imho, if you can’t get to work on time for the work done in my team, you need a different job. One offs fair enough, but as a regular thing, no. But it all depends on the role and the accommodation and whether it’s fair all round.

Dyslexia is actually a great example of how the line between neurodivergent and neurotypical is indistinguishable. There currently is no observable basis for differentiating between people who supposedly have dyslexia and those who simply have literacy difficulties.

See this very interesting article:
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-battle-over-dyslexia?utm_source=pocket-newtab

The point is that other members of staff end up picking up the bits of the job that are more inconvenient or not wanted for whatever reason. Everyone has a mental health, everyone has struggles, everyone has ups and downs and whilst people are tolerant that tolerance reaches a point where they feel it accommodation has gone to far. There is a point where if people can't do a job due to a disability they just can't do it.

The difference being:
The OP/or anyone diagnosed autistic which is protected under the Equality Act 2010, so employers are required to offer reasonable adjustments (e.g. flexi time).

Parents (who are not diagnosed with autism, a learning disability, or a mental health condition) struggling with childcare are not protected under the Equality Act 2010. They are just in unfortunate circumstances.

So it is not “unfair” at all.

It’s so disappointing that in 2025 there is still such ignorance and hostility around hidden disabilities and mental health conditions.

100% this! We look at adjustments to support people to carry out their role not to do it less.

often the request is less of the workload but the area of work I’m in is heavily target driven and there’s no way of moving the targets.

with a large proportion of our staff neurodiverse, if we reduced the workload, we’d lose the tender as we wouldn’t hit the targets, unless the other staff picked up the reduction.

so we have to look at what we can do to achieve the targets.

someone used an example of not being able to travel at peak time due to ND - we might suggest working 11-7 instead of 9-5 or doing first 2 and last 2 hours at home and the middle 5 in the office but make adjustments for travel time as our field of work means it can’t just be remote.

There are lots of people coming up with scenarios where an adjustment would be unreasonable. But adjustments have to be reasonable. So presumably if an employer has agreed it's reasonable for thier purposes.

Other employees might feel it's unreasonable if it negativity impacts on them, but they need to take it up with the manager not moan at the disabled person.

Lost me at the bit when it said humans can’t learn to read or write on their own, they have to be taught.

Nobody ever taught me to read. I picked it up through my parents reading to me.

Why is everyone focused on "working the same hours"? Surely the question is whether objectives are being met, not how long someone is sat at a desk.

Exactly this!

There are a lot of people on MN who are extremely rigid about what they think should happen in a workplace. I suspect most of them have never worked in a modem office environment.

There are of course jobs which require specific hours and locations.

There are also jobs where you can have some kind of flexibility / choose hours that work for you.

Absolutely.

The “good old days” brigade also always fail to mention that disabled and mentally ill people were often locked away in ‘lunatic asylums” and institutions.

@ladyamy · Today 19:24
how on earth can having autism mean you’re late? this is getting ridiculous now

Another good example of displaying wilful ignorance and jumping straight to gleeful outrage...

It is easier for people who get easily overwhelmed in crowded, noisy environments such as trains /train stations to travel outside rush hours to try to limit the triggers.

Sad how so many people can't grasp that people with autism experience the world and various environments in a way that is different to people who don't have that condition.

If one of my team complained about reasonable adjustments made for another team member, I'd tell them it was a) none of their business, and confidential and b) to grow up and act like a professional adult.

They would of course be welcome to request RAs or exercise their right to apply for flexible working if they so wished. Rather than moaning.

It's so petty and pathetic, this obsession with what other people 'get' or don't.

Disabled people, incidentally, also have stuff going on- children, elderly parents, car trouble. They don't get adjustments for those because they are not disabling.

It's fine with adjustments.
The challenge is if other employees get more work to do or less flexibility from the adjustments.
I've experienced this in a workplace and quit because I think it wasn't fair.
Gradually the few make the conditions for the majority worse and of course people react to it.