To ask for help for my friend

[NaiceToMeetYou]

Sorry, I'm here for traffic.

My best friend's ds is 17 and has autism. Just under 3 months ago he got his first job, working in a shop belonging to a small chain. He'd been working hard (in his opinion) and enjoying it until last week when it got very busy with xmas stock arriving.
He struggled slightly with the workload and a misunderstanding with his manager resulted in her calling him a liar. He was upset and told bf who called me for advice (I'm a retail manager).
I suggested she speak to his manager, just to make sure she is aware of his autism. He disclosed his condition in his application btw.

Bf had the meeting today and was told by the manager that she hadn't been told about ds's autism but it made a lot of things make sense. She then said that she didn't think he is suited to the job and he would be let go after his probation.

My questions are can they do this? Is it discrimination? And shouldn't HR have told the manager about his condition?

If he's not suited to the position, then he's not suited to the position. They can let him go with no reason at all before he is out of probation.

Was permission given to talk to his mum about him?!

But Tazerface it sounds like he has being doing well in his job but due to to recent increase workload, he had a misunderstanding with his manager. A good manager would work on someone's strengths not get rid after slight mishap.

She's only decided to get rid of him after she was told about his disability, this puts her on shaky ground.

Maybe.

But we have no idea what the misunderstanding was, or the consequences. We don't even have any idea of how he's been getting on.

But the fact remains is that a probation period is to find out if the job is a good fit for employee and employer - plenty of people without any sort of disability are let go without explanation.

No HR shouldn't have disclosed private medical information about an employee to their manager unless the employee wanted them to. That'd be a breach of confidentiality.

If someone is incapable of doing a job then they can be let go even if the reason behind it is a health issue. If it's a disability the workplace have to show they've made attempts to make reasonable accommodations to enable them to do the job with their disability. But if there are no appropriate accommodations, or they don't help the employee perform up to scratch, they can let the employee go.

That's how it should go but in a lot of places especially small ones without a proper HR, people are let go a lot more easily and have little recourse unless they have the funds to fight it in a tribunal. It's hard to prove why you've been let go.

Having a health problem doesn't mean you're entitled to a job any more then if you didn't have one unfortunately, a lot of people get that mixed up. You can still be sacked. And if he's in probation he can be let go for any reason.

Sorry it's worked out this way. I would be wary of taking just one side though about this 'misunderstanding' at work that led to an accusation of lying. Once things have gotten that bad it's difficult to get back to a positive working relationship. At the end of the day the employer has a job that needs doing to a high standard to continue making profit. If the son is struggling to keep up it's naive to think they'd spend ages coaching and supporting someone up to the required standard, for a min wage job anyone can do. They'll just get someone else. They prob don't want the drama of family involvement either, it was a bad move for his mum to get involved in his workplace business.

I understand it's a business and he was on probation. I'm just sad for him, he really put everything into it and it's knocked his confidence. He was there for the meeting btw, it wasn't behind his back.
I didn't realise HR couldn't tell his manager, I thought maybe with the knowledge she could have dealt with him slightly differently. The misunderstanding was just that though, friends ds is very literal in his thinking and was asked to look for a product in the back room. He couldn't find it and she asked if he's seen one (meaning on the shop floor so he knew what to look for) he said no thinking she meant had he seen one in the back.