To think that allowances should be made for mental health conditions and neurodiversity in the workplace?

[FromTheSoul]

I have complex mental health problems and am ND. These things are known about at my place of work but I don't think allowances or considerations are made in the same way they would for a physical illness perhaps. Even though many mental health conditions can also present physically.

I feel like when you say to someone that you suffer with anxiety, SOME people will not take it seriously or will be dismissive. At my workplace I've told a couple of trusted people how bad my mental health can be. For example, recently it's been very bad. I've lost weight, had to increase my meds, seen a private psychiatrist. I have a mix of health anxiety, ocd, ptsd, pnd and a history of panic attacks. As well as that I'm neurodiverse. These things have been clinically assessed which my medical notes will show. So it's not just anxiety at a lower level, mine can be severe.

Up until the last couple of years, post having my children, I've masked these problems at work but it's become harder to do that. I feel that I can do my job, I want to do my job but every so often, I might need allowances to be made. But does this mean I have to let everyone know? I don't really feel comfortable with that. As it is, I have about 5 people at work that know. I also don't want management thinking I'm not up to doing my job because I can do it.

I don't want to say what the type of workplace this is as it could be outing. But the pressure is on in the type of work.

But I just wonder if mental health and ND was better known about (still!... in 2023) and considered in the workplace generally, then things would be different.

Neither do I. I think this is actually ridiculous, you are not this person's babysitter.

Allowances can often be made but you need to request this. Have you spoken to your line manager? To HR? Have you disclosed your medical conditions and asks for a referral to occupational health?

If you haven’t formally disclosed your conditions and requested support around them then how would you expect your workplace to understand and facilitate any adaptations you may need?

I thought about this a lot because I am ND but came to the conclusion allowances can be made only to a certain extent. It becomes especially problematic when two types of ND clash.
I have dyspraxia and often have to find my own way of doing things - usually this doesn’t harm anybody else at all or get in the way of work so I just crack on.
Once I hired a junior who it turned out had Asperger’s. They became very disturbed if things weren’t done in the “right” way and the clash of our different needs started to get in the way of work.
In the end I couldn’t make all of the accommodations for this person’s needs because it clashed with my own. I wanted to try the meet in the middle approach - which is what would usually happen in the NT world. But in this case we did not resign this colleague’s contract.
There wasn’t another suitable role within the company that either of us could have moved to.

I'm sorry - they wouldn't move a plant?!!!!

It's so tricky OP. I work in the kind of job in which certain things need to be done by certain times - deadlines can't be moved. So while I genuinely have a lot of sympathy for any of my colleagues who may be struggling, the reality is that any time they don't complete their work for whatever reason it has to be shared out between the rest of us, who are all already overloaded because we're short staffed at the moment.

Having any kind of formal neurodiverse diagnosis should qualify you for reasonable adjustments in the workplace under U.K. law.

The point is that adjustments have to be 'reasonable'. You can't expect someone employed as a delivery driver to be able to permanently change the terms of their job description to say they won't have to drive. Similarly, the level of resource in the organisation is also factored in. You can't expect a local corner shop to spend the same kind of budget as a global bank.

It’s a challenging area. I do have to say that I dislike the notion that adjustments should only be made if they don’t impact a single other person. Compare that to maternity leave. It can have a huge impact on other people, but there’s no grey area there - the protected rights take precedence.

Just as there are many who use disability legislation to take the piss, there are employers who refuse to make any adjustments whatsoever on the basis of the reasonability test, and the only recourse is an employment tribunal. @jessieminto has articulated that really well (I’m very sorry for what you’ve been through, it’s horrendous).

I don’t know what the answer is as clearly there has to be some sort of margin for the employer - and nobody should ever be put in the position of being a colleague’s carer. Yet disability rights are enshrined in law the way that maternity rights are, but are often seen as an optional goodwill gesture and only to be complied with where there’s absolutely no impact on anyone else. Whereas a person can spend 4 years out of 6 on mat leave at my place and if you so much as raise an eyebrow you can get hauled in front of HR.

The trouble is, so many people have MH issues or are ND, so where does it stop? What if my MH issues are exacerbated by the adjustments made for yours? What about all the people who just get on with it, but end up with increased workloads because of those who feel they are a bit more special, so need more allowances? What happens when we discover that being ND is actually just....a normal part of being human?

Many ND people who are now being diagnosed/diagnosing themselves have just adapted Over time. I have been a clumsy daydreamer my whole life. I have signs of asd and add. No idea if I actually am or not. It would explain why I've always found my job hard. But it's not up to anyone else to accommodate me.

I have bipolar, though haven't disclosed jobs for several years after being directly discriminated against in the past.

More recently, I was also told I had a lot of ADHD traits and given a prescription fir that, which I did disclose one day I felt overwhelmed. I'd been at the job for months at the time and was scoring 100% in all assessments, so felt safer doing it.

I haven't had any reasonable adjustments at any job, though over time I've moved companies and jobs to find the best fit.

Currently I work from home in a role with minimum core hours. I can do the bulk of work to a weekly target outwith those hours if it suits me - so I might put work off to late at night or the weekend if I'm having a bad week.

Due to this, I meet targets and generally do very well no matter how bad my symptoms are.

I also chose a fast-paced role I genuinely find interesting a lot of the time. That makes the stress easier to deal with.

I almost never take a sick day and have been like that for years.

To be honest, when I hear about people getting signed off sick with 'work stress' for months, 99% of the time they're in the wrong job. Both they and the company would be happier if the person moved on.

Of course accommodations should be made where possible.

Jesse your story is shocking and I'm sorry you've had to experience all those things - sadly I'm sure you wouldn't be the only person with such a poor experience of disability in the workplace.

With mental health and ND I think it's a relatively "new" thing for employers to navigate and many simply aren't sure what to do. Also so much depends on the people you are dealing with. So you get a whole spectrum of reactions - ignoring it, discrimination, refusal to make adjustments, adjustments made but the adversely impact other colleagues (like the person who asked to be put on shift with a particular person - ridiculous), all 'needs' accommodated to the point where the person no longer actually has to do their job, proper support given and adjustments made.

I have a chronic serious MH condition and ND, my working conditions at the moment are making my MH bad in ways that aren't usually part of my chronic condition but once I'm under acute stress my chronic condition kicks in and makes my reaction much worse. My manager is aware, I've been very open with him, but his approach to being supportive is to leave me alone to "do what you need to". Seemingly the adjustment he has made is to never interact with me!

He's also not addressing the issues that are making it worse for me, so nothing gets solved and things get worse and now I'm not sure I can continue working. I have a few close colleagues I've confided in and they noticed what's going on quite quickly - but they're not in a position to actually help. If the people who are supposed to help you won't, you're screwed, especially if you can't advocate for your needs.

A few years ago I worked at a company where 3/6 in my team got signed off for months - two with stress for 9 solid months. From the near the start of my contract to the day I left.

The roles weren't covered. I went from working 9 - 5 to 7 - 7. I was called into a meeting for being 'inconsiderate' by taking five days off sick (5 days in 9 months - one week) 'when you know we're short staffed.'

I'd disclosed having bipolar to HR right at the start. I was viewed as being resilient so expected to cover multiple jobs for no pay increase.

I left and get paid twice as much elsewhere now.

I worked with someone who had autism and mental health issues. The company put various things in place for her like working in a quieter part of the office, allowing her earlier start and finish times, working at home when necessary and excusing her from certain activities/meetings. She was extremely hard working and lovely and a real asset to the company, these things thankfully made her able to continue working.
By law, reasonable adjustments have to be made, asking for them in itself was tough for my colleague and I know she wrote her difficulties and suggestions of adjustments in an email so she didn’t have to explain everything face to face.

This is appalling but sadly unsurprising. Sorry you've had to go through this.

@FromTheSoul What allowances and adjustments are you wanting?

I think the crux of the issue is when the allowances someone asks for fundamentally mean they can’t do the job they are employed to do.

I worked with someone who was very open about the fact they were neurodiverse and found it difficult, if not impossible, to concentrate on one task or project for a long period of time and see it through to completion. Their preference was to constantly switch from one task/project to another.

However the work they were employed to do included a mix of short and longer term projects, and the longer term projects taking months, or possibly years, were a central part of their role.

What should the solution be? Workplaces can’t let people effectively pick and choose elements of their job description they want to do when they need someone to do the whole job.

Yes, my point wasn't to sound harsh or disbelieve the OP but to point out that dealing with mental health issues is loaded onto colleagues rather than dealt with by OH or HR or health professionals. This is dangerous and bad practice. Whoever came up with the idea for those ridiculous 'mental health first aider' courses? No-one should be expected to be a mental health support human for someone they work with. That exacerbates mental health issues and stress, not solves it.

What is deemed a reasonable adjustment will depend on the nature of the role and on the company i.e. a small company of 2 or 3 people may not be expected to provide as much as a large company with thousands of staff.

Reasonable adjustments can be physical e.g. a fixed desk in a hot desking environment, wheelchair access, a special chair/mouse and specialist software. Or it could be an adjustment such as extra rest breaks, flexibility to come in a bit later or to WFH during a flare up. Tasks can also be shifted e.g. if colleagues in a team take it in turns to take minutes of monthly team meetings, a colleague with arthritic fingers who struggles to write quickly enough could be excused from that or be allowed to use a dictaphone and type them up later.

Employers only have to make adjustments if they know a colleague has a disability or could be reasonably expected to know.

You don't have to disclose personal medical info to everyone. People in my team know I have reasonable adjustments as some are obvious but they don't know what particular issue/s are behind them. They just know, for example, 'that's Demelza's specialist chair' not 'Demelza has that because of XYZ diagnosis'.

Allowances are made, but to get them you kind of have to tell people - they’re not psychic,

Also depending on workplace allowances are limited or not possible, the same as with physical disabilities.

Yes usually at the expense of WOMENS mental health and workload

Don’t get me started on that.

What do allowences look like though? And have they been communicated? Everyone's needs are different and people can't be expected to just know.

Just out of interest, how old was he?

Workplaces are required to make reasonable adjustments.

Employees are required to be able to do their jobs.

If they can't do their jobs despite reasonable adjustments then they need to find another job that is better suited.

In his mid forties.

You may be over estimating the "allowances" made for people with physical disabilities. They are often limited. But your area entitled to have reasonable adjustments considered. However that won't happen since you have masked your condition and not told anyone, or asked for support. So yes, YABU because your employers are not mind readers. You can't criticise that lack of adjustments when you haven't asked or said anything.