who is being unreasonable? disabled person 'over sensitive'

[amazeandastonish]

Person A has multiple disabilities and asks if everyone in a group can do something as a reasonable adjustment.
Person B refuses to do so. Person A asks again and explains why adjustment is needed. Person B tells person A they are 'woke', 'over sensitive' and that they (person B) will not be 'dictated to' by someone who doesn't even work here.
Person A complains to me (D&I advisor) and head of HR (my manager).
Neither me, nor manager were present.
Person A is an external disability awareness trainer and the group are a group of staff we had asked them to train on disabilitiy awareness as we had identified a need for it (as you can see!).
We struggled to get sign ups - expecting 30 but only 10 signed up. All other 9 people were positive about the session content.
Head of HR thinks Person A should 'let it go' because we are paying them, they are meant to be teaching us right from wrong, so should have expected that reaction and just dealt with it.
Head of HR thinks Person A was rude to 'single someone out' although neither of us were there to witness it (cause we had 'other things to do' - I did protest!)
I think we should action this but as you can see, my job isn't an easy one!

YABU - the trainer should have expected this / dealt with it themselves
YANBU - the trainer was right to complain and we should do something

Person B needs to be disciplined. I walk with a stick and occasionally use a wheel chair, I wouldn't expect anyone to play with my mobility aids and the same is true of a guide dog.

Not describing appearance is odd, name, age, what you are wearing - just things so the VI person can identify you.

The training could well be tailored to a group differently depending if it is middle aged women or a group of teens.

Found a website that supplies a list of reasonable adjustments for visually impaired people. They are all much more practical and reasonable and impact less on others than “describe yourself”.

”Describe yourself” sounds like a request to improve the visually impaired person’s feeling of inclusion. It doesn’t sound like a reasonable adjustment. The employer would have to assess the impact on other employees and this thread demonstrates well that a good number of other employees might reasonably object. A can do their job perfectly well without having a description, it’s something they want, not something they need so they can do their job.

I think there’s a misunderstanding here of what “reasonable adjustments” are.

www.adcet.edu.au/students-with-disability/reasonable-adjustments-disability-specific/blind-and-vision-impaired

That's an Australian site advising educators.

I'm assuming the OP is in the UK and probably in England so English law applies, and this is a VI trainer not a student.

I think there are plenty of people who feel discriminated against because of the way they look who might want to keep that information away from others when they can. The fact that most people are able to judge you without your engagement doesn’t mean you wouldn’t reasonably want to avoid that when you have the opportunity.

Then Don't use the information you are unhappy to share.

It's really not hard to describe yourself by just saying hair or eye colour. Or height. Or colour of jumper. Or if you're wearing trousers of shorts.

That's an Australian site advising educators

I'm assuming the OP is in the UK and probably in England so English law applies, and this is a VI trainer not a student.

Yes, but I still think it’s arguable that forcing other employees to describe themselves is not something A needs to do their job, which is what I would assume reasonable adjustments are for.

I think it’s possible the UK has become so bogged down in inclusivity that it has been forgotten that other people’s needs have to be taken into account and balanced.

Big difference between “I can’t read my mail and therefore work need to find a means by which I can, in order to do my job” and “it’d make me feel happier if I knew what everyone looked like”.

So if “everyone else must describe themselves, even if it makes them uncomfortable” is now indeed considered a valid “reasonable adjustment” then the UK is going to experience a huge backlash from other employees who (quite reasonably, in my opinion) don’t feel the request is reasonable. The trainer can explain it might help, and why, but it should be a request, not a demand. Perhaps “woke” is a reasonable description, if there were other similar examples which were said to be “reasonable adjustments” when “inclusivity” isn’t really what reasonable adjustments were introduced for..

Being allowed to have a guide dog in the work place, and that the guide dog should be allowed to do its work unimpeded is a reasonable request/adjustment. The other isn’t.

From ACAS

What is reasonable
What's 'reasonable' will depend on each situation. The employer needs to consider carefully if the adjustment:

• will remove or reduce the disadvantage for the person with the disability
• is practical to make
• is affordable by the employer or business
• could harm the health and safety of others

As a sighted person I can see who I'm training, I think it is reasonable for the trainer to know roughly who they are training, as I said previously, training might change depending on the demographic being trained, the trainer can't do that if the are VI.

The employer could have provided a list of employees, possibly with photographs that someone could have described. As a supply teacher it is normal to be given a list of students with their pictures.

How the heck does knowing the colour of your hair or what you are wearing help a blind person train people? I would have been like person B. Said nothing. Wouldn't have patted the dog though as that is not helpful for the dog .
If the trainer had asked them to speak about where they were sitting, their name and their experience . That would be reasonable.

Person A (trainer) said they wanted to know appearance to know who they are talking to and get an equal experience, as sighted people woudl know what we all look like.

I wouldn’t have wanted to do this either. I work in HR/recruitment and I don’t think this is standard, reasonable adjustment; this is a personal preference of Person A. What someone looks like has no bearing on their ability to do their job, so there is no requirement for Person A to know this in a work-related capacity. Actually can foresee how forcing people to describe themselves would lead to more HR issues in itself.

Obviously no one should be patting a guide dog.

This, I cannot imagine a workplace policy where the patting the dog behaviour is not in breach of the employee code of conduct. Which applies to employee behaviours. The analogy upthread where the tesco worker would probably be fired is fair. Other analogies- if B carefully moved obstacles into As path, or someone came in on crutches and b took a crutch. B should be given a warning, your head of hr should be fired, and my sympathies to A. This can’t be a magic circle firm can it?? If I knew which one and we used it id try and stop using them, the culture sounds like a place we wouldn’t want to be associated with.

To be honest, I think they are both in the wrong.

1. A trainer on anything diversity related being bought in to train people who clearly need it, needs to know that you can't go round asking insensitive questions such as 'describe yourself' and questioning.gender.

1. The employee should not have patted the dog when asked not to.

Both have a right to complain about the other.

The company may also be partly to blame if they didn't explain to the trainer that some.of the team are not very diversity aware and can be offensive which is why they need the training.

But that’s the point I was trying to make, no one would have to refer to their size other than height.

There’s no reason to know someone’s height in a job, unless you’re measuring them for uniforms etc.

Person B is being an idiot. Surely they realise these are easy adjustments?

Then don't give them that info. Tell them your wearing a red jumper. Surely I'd give chosen that you aren't bothered by it?

Seriously, can you really not see why?

I am completely gobsmacked by the behaviour at the company (both by B and your manager) and some comments on this thread.

I imagine the VI trainer has a visual memory (yes this doesn’t magically change when you lose your sight) and probably one of the tiny percent of blind people who see nothing or virtually nothing at all. Imagine being a group trainer in this situation? He probably wanted to build a ou tire in his head of where each participant was so he could properly facilitate the group. So he remembers them in a circle, first. Lady with red dress, blond hair. Next tall chap with glasses. A good trainer will be encouraging the group to speak and referring back to earlier comments. Imagine how hard this is when you can’t rennet who said what etc.

and think how relevant it is that you might have a large birthmark or wear a hijab when discussing inclusion? And if he could see, he’d know this.

I work in this field, I often tell my vi clients I have an invisible disability as it’s relevant to my u derstanding of issues we’re discussing or there’re facing, sometimes it’s not and I don’t. . Similarly colleagues who have a visible disability or are blind themselves may need to tell blind client. Of course many blind clients would see this, but some have absolutely no sight at all. Any every sighted person would see. And it is important, imagine my vi client explaining about the grief, depression etc of losing their sight and the person talking to them saying yes I completely understand how you feel - see how important it is that the blind person has the same understanding of what the person looks like as a sighted person would? Ie ok they’re blind/ in a wheelchair, I can see they do know exactly what I’m talking about.

why a problem with describing yourself when every other fucking person in the room can see you!!

so much more I could say. Seriously, your boss needs a good read of the equality act!

Important to add that they chose to go on the course.

They didn't have to go if they thought it was all woke bollocks.

I’ve slept on it and I remain a bit stunned by this thread, by the sheer volume of posters who can’t conceive of why it’s helpful to a VI person to have a description of the people they’re talking to, why it was reasonable in a D&I training workshop and who apparently can’t think of any way to describe themselves that doesn’t trigger a mental health issue for themselves.

It’s remarkable to me.

Person B sounds like a nightmare. I could almost understand the unwillingness to describe appearance but the guide dog thing is astonishingly ignorant, as is the woke comment. Why an earth would anyone pet a guide dog when asked not to- it’s not a toy, it’s an essential aid/ lifeline. Your HR manager needs to grow a pair- and the fact that you’re paying the trainer is completely irrelevant.

Agree.

The telling thing is definitely that people seem to think as a person with sight they know better what will help a blind person than the blind person.

The dickface who patted the guide dog should be fired. You brought that trainer in only for her to abused by your staff. I'd be bringing a grievance against the whole crappy lot of you.

People can see I'm fat, short, greying frizzy hair, wrinkles, massive thighs and calves, saggy boobs and am usually the ugliest person in the room. Should I say that? Clearly it's a question which needs answering in a specific and sensitive way because anxiety issues also deserve reasonable adjustments.-

You should say what you're comfortable with.

Your hair colour or length or your eye colour. Your choice of red jumper.

If you want to make the above comments that's anxiously entirely you're choice but it wasn't what was specifically asked for!

Because by focussing in information no one is ever likely to give in this situation allows them to self justify why they wouldn't respect the disabled person.

So many in this thread are finding every reason possible as to why being rude to someone with a disability is perfectly acceptable.

It's embarrassing.

Especially because all my working life of being on training courses most start with an ice breaker which involves some sort of introduction of describing one's self. And that's when the trainer has sight!

Not sure if you meant to address this to me? I completely agree with you, but it sounds as if you think I don't.

Do other posters think the disability trainer was right to complain or that they should have just shrugged it off?

I am disabled myself and always feel guilty challenging people who say insensitive things in case I get into trouble with HR at my own work for doing so, I have in previous jobs been told off for being oversensitive!

So can I ask.

If peoples appearance is not important why do so many employers ask for photos of applicants for job positions?