Hired a disabled woman in lockdown who I now have to fire

[Whatnextteletext]

During the first lockdown I hired a physically disabled woman into an entry level role on my team. She’s in her mid 30’s but it’s her first job because pre-pandemic, she couldn’t work out of the home due to her disability and work from home opportunities were few and far between. She is a wheelchair user who lives with a full time carer who takes care of he personal needs (this is relevant to why she couldn’t work out of home) and prior to lockdown, she lived on her disability payments alone which from the sound of it was very hard going.

I hired her into an entry level web development role with on the job training and it turns out she’s wicked smart and a phenomenally fast learner. I’ve put her through some web development training and within 18 months she’s now a pretty decent developer and by far the most competent of the cohort I hired along side her. She’s also lovely and we get on really well.

Anyway, when I hired her, my company were committed to WFH and hybrid working long term. Now however, they’ve backtracked and everyone is back in the office 3 days a week mandated.

Today I had an email from the senior team asking why this employee hadn’t been back to the office so I explained that she’ll be working from home forever given the circumstances (that they’re very aware of!) and the reply I got was that she’s no longer suitable for the role now that the expectation is work from the office and I needed to let her go.

I hit the roof and went straight to HR who are looking into this now, but I’d like to know from here what is likely to happen??

If they come back and say she’s got to go and I have to fire her I’m handing my notice in on the spot, that’s a given. How likely is that though? Surely it’s discrimination?

It’s also really stupid. It costs a fortune to train new developers properly and I’ve invested a huge amount of my time into her. It’s a complete candidates market at the moment too - developer roles are everywhere, it’s really hard to find ones with the right training and she’s good enough that with a bit of off the record support she could freelance fairly easily.

Her contract doesn’t specify a place of work or working model and there is no reason on earth she couldn’t perform the role perfectly adequately from home. We all did for 2 years.

Does anyone know where we stand legally on this one? She’ll have 2 years service in June.

@Qwill

Your company sound awful! Not just this, but the overwhelming majority don’t want to come back to the office and the company are making them!! Talk about not valuing their staff, this is a role that is perfect for working from home. They will just lose out on great staff if they continue to be this backward. It’s so depressing, working from home on a grand scale has given a great lifeline for disabled workers, those with mental health issues that prevent them from going to an office, those with caring responsibilities, etc. I’ve found in my company similar, the workers want more wfh and flexibility, the directors (all male, 60+) have a ‘bums on seats’ attitude where presenteeism is rife. It’s like we’ve all taken 10 steps backwards. It’s laughable as these last two years have been our most productive, share prices are the highest they’ve been, we exceeded our targets of projects won, and staff feedback surveys were positive (for a change!).

So company wide the feedback was a hybrid model as preferred option but my department specifically (all developers) wanted ft WFH. My department are an acquisition brought in to do a specific project.

It’s not this, but imagine I work for an old school company who want to build an app. To do this they have bought a small app building company because it was cheaper than outsourcing the work and it’s a very long and big project. I’m now the head of the app building company that got bought that now sits inside the bigger company. We don’t do the same work as everyone else, we’re totally different but we’re treated the same.

I’ll update on my HR chat in a bit, they’re calling me back. I had to ask for the chat to be recorded in the end unfortunately as the immediate response wasn’t ‘disregard everything and we’re very sorry’ which is disappointing.

@Whatnextteletext

I think they’re worried because there was a huge amount of resistance from the work force to come back to the office. Developers are often natural introverts and certainly our workforce really enjoyed WFH. Our return to work survey has less than 10% of respondents saying they wanted to return to the office at all yet the company pushed for it. I think their worry is if they agree my colleague can WFH, then they lose the argument as to why no one else can.

One person with a disability being accommodated with reasonable adjustments shouldn't affect others too much.

Your company's inabiity to listen and take onboard feedback from employees is what will lose them good people. Unless there is a real reason showing lower productivity over the past two years, this sounds more like 'collaboration innit' without clear reasoning or data

@NutellaEllaElla

Yes surely they will see sense at your meeting. Otherwise they are too stupid for words.

This. How could anybody so senior have not thought through and realised the possible consequences, financially and in terms of reputational damage, of firing someone because of their disability and being found at a tribunal to have been discriminatory?

Don't whatever you do hand your own notice in on the spot. If they do sack her u need to stay and be her eyes and ears and support for when the tribuneral starts. Because this is where it's leading to. Don't leave. State from the beginning your reasons for supporting her now and in the future with any legalities. Get her paperwork she needs copied asap before they make
Any changes to it. Management lie and change things as soon as they are challenged, get contracts, hr policies protocols, anything that states the way she is wfh now is fine, especially if there is something to say she does not need to be in the office. Get the disabilities at the act and start going over that to show where they are not complying. The min they are challenged May all it needs for they to
See their error.
Then get ur own stuff up to date and look for something else but don't do it right now based on your colleagues. Stay quiet on that note and then hit them when
They need u the most. What century to do they think they are in. Bar stewards.

I’ll update on my HR chat in a bit, they’re calling me back. I had to ask for the chat to be recorded in the end unfortunately as the immediate response wasn’t ‘disregard everything and we’re very sorry’ which is disappointing

unbelievable. Well actually it isn't. HR is, in my experience, usually pretty useless. But they usually want to protect the company, so you'd think they'd be all over avoiding a disability discrimination claim which they'd be 99% likely to lose.

I think their worry is if they agree my colleague can WFH, then they lose the argument as to why no one else can

they're a bit stupid if they can't tell the difference between someone with protected characteristics and someone without

I have a friend who could be this person (it’s not), I’m so glad your in her corner. Life is hard enough as it is, without this sort of shit panicking them.

BTW I’m another in the team that hopes you two set off into the sunset starting your own company taking all their clients with you.

In terms of how they can be this stupid - you have no idea. The senior team haven’t been senior very long, have no management training or HR awareness at all and are very much in their roles through pure luck and over confidence in their own abilities.

They had a good idea straight from Uni, funded the concept with family money then somehow got investment from overseas, went on a mad buying/ hiring spree and now find themselves in charge of a fairly sizeable company. There’s also another overseas company who bought this one which is much older and bigger and that’s where the push to go back to the office is coming from. So although they paint themselves as this young, happening start up - the culture comes from the overseas company and they’re a bit hamstrung by that I think. I think fear of annoying that companies bosses is why this guy from the leadership team got a bit over enthusiastic.

@SenselessUbiquity The OP and her colleague appear to be coders/software developers. Where OP refers to languages she is meaning the different languages you can code in, E.g. python, Java, SQL, PHP, etc.

You can do a 12 week coding bootcamp with a company like North Coders, there’s even some government funded places for people in the north and midlands. Essentially you should be employable as a junior developer after these 12 week courses and they help you arrange interviews with potential employers. Lots of software developers are self taught, you don’t need a degree in computer sciences, and many developers teach themselves the new languages as and when needed on the job.

You can do some beginners exercises on freecodecamp to get a taste for it, the basic JavaScript course is a good start to see if you like it and your brain is suited to it.

@RagamuffinCat

Could working from home permanently be considered a reasonable adjustment, given that she is currently doing this competently?

This would be my thought too. Why are they so adamant to get rid of her. She sounds like a diamond.

Hope it goes well today. I think they really need some training on this as it seems they haven't got a clue. I worked in this area for 25 years and this scenario really is textbook.

The overseas parent company need to be reminded that you are bound by UK employment and disability legislation.

There’s also another overseas company who bought this one which is much older and bigger and that’s where the push to go back to the office is coming from
US by any chance?

that is shocking OP, I've seen this before and post lockdown some company's are insisting on an office presence....despite evidence that it is not needed. You are working for idiots! end of the day the company can dictate what the terms are as they are the employer/pay the wages...whether that is right in this case it's not but not sure much you can do...I wouldn't resign if I was you

I hope your colleague sues their arses off and goes and gets a much better and higher paid job with her hard won skills.

You don't have to be an experienced manager or know much about employment law to know that they are on very shaky ground

Hope it goes well op

This is absolutely astonishing. Fingers crossed for the right outcome!

only plus for your colleague is the job market is booming so she will be snapped up...

This is a shitty thing to happen and a crappy position for you to be put in. What does the contract say? If the company were committed at the time then should say it was a remote role. (I’ve been caught this way as I was hired and able to wfh but the contract said in office. If the contract does say remote then firing would also be a breach of contract. ACAS will be all over this one. Best of luck to you and to her.

It’s unlikely you’ll be able to fire her on this basis, unless you’re ready for repercussions. If she can carry out her role competently working from home and has been for 18 months, management don’t have a leg to stand on. Be very careful.

You're fantastic OP

She could easily motor on out of there and get a job in 5 minutes. I've loads of developer friends on £100-200k (or £2k a week freelance). Total employees market out there.

If I've understood the dynamics of this company right, it's a typical example of a small group of people who started up a company and think they can do as they like with it. There are rules and laws to follow. Plus of course they've been emasculated by the larger company telling them what to do. They're trying to prove they're still in charge.

I know you must be very busy today, with the ongoing ridiculousness. But as soon as you can contact ACAS for definitive advice. Save every message back and forth and keep notes along the way (well done for getting the meeting recorded). Encourage your colleague to also contact ACAS, so she can put in her claim right away. Be wary of the advice not to leave, as Constructive Dismissal requires almost-instant leaving (but, obviously, check details first).

And finally, I wonder how big your whole team is? Might it be possible to follow the advice of a poster to "move on" and find work as a team? If these idiots aren't going to settle down and make a sensible decision soon, then they deserve to have the hassle of needing to employ a whole new team (or buy up a new company?) for "your" part of the work.

@Livelovebehappy

Was there always going to be a chance that people were going to be pulled back into the office though? Most people in lockdown were aware that wfh was temporary. And in that case I think it was a disservice employing her at all, as it sounds like you were well aware that working out of the home was was a no go for her, yet still employed her anyway, knowing there was every chance wfh was not permanent.

Thank you for this post, Livelovebehappy.

It's useful for folk to be reminded what we as disabled people are up against, and why we need legislation to protect us from people like you.

It's also an excellent demonstration for those who sweetly but naively believe that the mere existence of the legislation is a magic wand which has removed all barriers.

If it hadn't been for Covid, this developer would have been turned down at application on some spurious grounds and never been given the opportunity to prove she could do the work and successfully wfh. She then wouldn't have the track record that makes the employment tribunal such a likely win.

You've highlighted perfectly that employment involves two parties. It's all very well designating disabled people Fit To Work; doesn't buy squat unless employers actually make the reasonable adjustments and employ us.

The Livelovebehappy's of this world are thick on the ground.

I think the last three words of your post are superflouous, @perkingfaintly

@Whatnextteletext. That’s very interesting OP- when I mentioned I left an HR role because of managements attitude to sticking to the law as regards HR— it was exactly same scenario as you are talking about— highly intelligent Oxbridge guys with a great ‘idea’ but bugger all idea of what you can/can’t do when you get to a certain size. Imagine having a bunch of Boris Johnson’s in charge going ‘oh bugger that- just do it’ — yep it was like that