ACAS early conciliation

[malloryknox123]

I’m looking for some impartial opinions because I’m struggling to know whether I’m overreacting.
I recently started a new job and disclosed that I have ADHD. The role involved a training period before accreditation. I found the training quite inconsistent, with different guidance from different people and changing processes, but I genuinely felt I was capable of doing the job if I’d been given a bit more time and support.
Two colleagues who started at the same time as me progressed to live cases while I remained on practice cases. I honestly didn’t believe they were significantly further ahead than I was, so this really knocked my confidence.
I also felt one colleague was quite dismissive towards me, and I increasingly felt scrutinised rather than supported. By the time I met with my People Leader, I already felt I was failing. The meeting was presented as supportive, but I came away feeling that resignation was the direction I was being steered towards. I wasn’t offered the chance to attempt accreditation first or given confidence that there was another way forward. I resigned because I genuinely felt I had no realistic alternative.
I’ve now started ACAS Early Conciliation because I believe my employer failed to properly support me as someone with ADHD and effectively managed me out of the business instead of giving me a fair opportunity to succeed.
Has anyone been through something similar? Did ACAS help? If you took a disability discrimination or constructive dismissal claim forward, what happened? I’m particularly interested in hearing from people who have actually been through the process rather than speculation.

I’m not asking whether I’ll definitely win—I know nobody can answer that—but I’d really appreciate hearing other people’s experiences of settling through ACAS or going to tribunal.

Gently, you might have slightly jumped the gun in resigning before exploring how your performance had differed from those progressing to live cases and what steps were needed from you to progress and exploring any reasonable adjustments that might have helped you get there. Apologies if you had tried to do all that.

ADHD or not, do you feel you wanted to work there? Did you like the work? You say the training was inconsistent which would irritate me and might make me wonder if it was the right place for me, a lack of effort at an early stage is never a good sign.

Sorry but grow up. You resigned and you resigned without following the internal processes. You can't bring an unfair/constructive dismissal claim because you don't have two years' service. To succeed in a disability discrimination claim you will firstly have to show that your ADHD meets the legal definition of disability (which it may well not do) and then show that you were discriminated against because of your ADHD. Your employer had a supportive meeting with you and didn't put you on a PIP/dismiss you. You have absolutely no way of knowing the colleagues were not better than you. If the employer thinks they were then the likelihood is they were since it is not in the employers interests to have an employee who cant progress to doing the job unsupervised.

Is this a training contract for law, management consultancy or similar? I’ve a feeling you posted previously and were given advice to move on. That you are unable to see that others may be worthy of progressing while you are not, then resign rather than listen to why and how you could also do so, does not reflect well adhd or not. How long ago was this as ACAS process is time constrained.

Wrong. I felt I had no choice because I was being steered towards resignation

No, ACAS wont be able to help. Your former employer will show that you were in a training period and you resigned.

I'm leaning towards agreeing with previous posters from what you've posted.

Unless you've left a lot out. And if someone comes back later in the thread to add loads of things they've forgotten I'm always suspicious anyway.

We've got a (fairly) new starter. SHe hasn't passed her probation period and they've got her an improvement plan. (Although she does have something else as well as ADHD). She's very open with her needs and what she needs, and what she needs from work, and I reckon if she wasn't she might have been gone. Cos they might not have known she'd have been struggling because of x,y and z. She has not been allowed to move onto the next stage yet whereas the others she trained with have.

I'm still not 100 per cent she's going to last but we'll see

I’ve not been put on a PIP. Things changed after I disclosed my neurodiversity to the trainer and my people leader (manager in layman’s terms) I feel I was cajoled into resigning because they don’t want to manage me

But you need to prove your case, and you don't have any evidence. As PP raised, have you posted about this before?, your replies sound familiar??

Look in general terms the chronology you have described is going to make the threshold very high.

saying “I felt steered towards resignation.”

in what way? What facts occurred to make you feel like this?

I went through an employment tribunal for discrimination and I won. I had been employed by the company for 15 years.
The process from start to finish took years.

i would never ever ever do it again. The process caused me so much stress it was just not worth it.

Also the main purpose of an employment tribunal is to put you back in the position you would have been in (financially) if it hadn’t happened. If the court find in your favour.

As you had barely started there, any payout would be minimal if any.

it’s not worth it

chalk it up as a bad experience and move on.

I’ve not posted about this before.

I put my resignation forward today and instantly regretted it.

That was quick then with acas

If you only put it in today, you should contact the manager and say, “sorry that was a mistake- I’ve felt very overwhelmed and like I’m not succeeding, but I really want to make this work.”