To ask whether a job which is currently advertised as “temporarily remote” could be permanently remote for me?

[AlternativePerspective]

slight backstory:

Have been looking for work forever. Am visually impaired, and during my quest I have:

Had a job offer which was withdrawn after It turned out their systems weren’t accessible.

Had an interview withdrawn when a test couldn’t be completed in a certain way and the agent then stated “what if the system wasn’t accessible, it would be unfair on another candidate who didn’t get offered the job because we offered it to you and it then turned out the system wasn’t accessible.

Another interview cancelled with the ambulance service because they essentially wouldn’t make reasonable adjustment for the completion of a typing test. Something which I could do without question but the software is an online one so some kind of provision needed to be made for that.

So understandably I have reached a point where I am somewhat disillusioned and am on the verge of just giving up.

However, I have just been sent a job for a telephone customer adviser. It’s up my alley, good communication skills, previous customer service experience, excellent knowledge of word and excel, I have no doubt that I could do it. However, the job is being advertised as “temporarily remote due to the pandemic.” But, the office is in Peterborough, which isn’t reachable from here.

So 1, is it reasonable to ask whether a “temporarily remote” position could be permanently remote for me? After all, remote working is obviously possible.

And if it’s not unreasonable, at what point does one make this request?

I think it's a reasonable request but I think you should make it ASAP.

There may be a good reason why it can't be permanent so it's best everyone knows where they stand from the start.

That’s fair enough.

TBH I don’t imagine the answer will be yes, after all if they’re making it obvious that it’s temporarily remote then they’re obviously putting out the message that the job is in Peterborough and you will be expected to be there.

If you don't ask, you'll never know. You might just be lucky and have hit upon an employer who is interested in genuine diversity and inclusion.

Good luck!

Yanbu unreasonable to ask. If you don’t ask you don’t get!

I think the only thing you can do is ask, my previous employer basically told people they would offer permanent wfh and were looking at moving to national recruitment on the back of this but when they looked into the legalities of wfh contracts, terms and benefits etc they changed their mind. This isn’t to say that you can unofficially wfh for ever with you occasionally been required to come in for training / a meeting etc. So worth an ask, they may not be bothered how often you come in as long as your not on a wfh contract.

Ywnbu to ask no, and I'm horrified that you had a job offer withdrawn because of your disability....you should have taken that further OP

And the NHS interview....that's also awful of them!!

Ywnbu to ask no, and I'm horrified that you had a job offer withdrawn because of your disability....you should have taken that further OP

unfortunately there’s very little to be gained. The reality is that reasonable adjustments is very subjective, and all a company has to do is say that sorry, the reasonable adjustments necessary cannot be made.

In my case the organisation bought all the access tech themselves despite my insistence that we get access to work involved. I went down to test it, they talked about a start date, I actually helped them install it since IT departments generally don’t have a very good understanding of access tech, and as soon as we entered their system the screenreader didn’t respond at all. They then stated that they would go back to oracle (whose system it was) and ask if there were any workarounds. Oracle came back and said no. Only then did they agree I could get access to work involved, so I went on to submit an application, and the first thing ATW ask for is a start date, at which point they said they weren’t able to give me one, and the offer was withdrawn.

Oh and this organisation is part government funded.

I did write to their corporate HR department and say that they couldn’t claim to be disability confident when they knew they would have to turn away any blind candidate due to accessibility, and for about 3 months the “disability confident” term was actually removed from their website,even though they never replied to me. But when I went back and looked a few months later it was back.

And my situation is by no means unique. I have spoken to dozens of people who have had offers withdrawn because of supposed accessibility, and one who has even lost two jobs after the probation periods because there was a delay in gaining accessible equipment.

And this one was recently on ITV:

www.itv.com/news/granada/2021-12-21/police-force-withdraw-job-offer-after-failing-to-meet-blind-womans-it-needs

Unfortunately there is 0 support out there for VI people seeking jobs, hence why 85% of working age people with a visual impairment are unemployed. Most of the disability employment officers have been got rid of from the job centres, and the charities don’t want to know. Shockingly the RNIB only employ about 6% blind people, and they scrapped their employment programmes.

I applied through the job centre for universal credit, and was sent jobs for things like car park attendants and amazon delivery drivers. So given I wasn’t getting any money from them I knocked that one on the head.

how far are you from the offices?

2 hours each way. So not commutable