Work very critical of DH, but did not know he has ASD - discriminatory?

[WhatNext321]

My DH has just had his appraisal at work. He has ASD, though his work doesn't know, as the diagnosis was only formally made in the last few years and at the time DH didn't feel the need to disclose this. His appraisal details what they perceive as his shortfalls in performance in relation to his communication and social interactions. It was all done in a very personal, and in my opinion, harsh, manner. E.g, many examples of "colleague A says this about you" and "colleague B says that about you".

If DH informs work about his diagnosis, can what was written in his appraisal be seen as discriminatory? The tone of the appraisal was very much "we have great concerns regarding your communication, if it doesn't improve, you'll lose your job", but was not explicitly said.

Any thoughts about what DH can do? DH is extremely worried about his job security and is very stressed out. He already works very long hours, seven days a week, most weeks.

@GiveItAGoMalcom
Not an unreasonable thought. I am a carer for my DS, who also has ASD, but is more severely impacted than DH. I have thought about what extra I could do to help, financially.

I've read it in full. Feel really awful that DH had to read all those comments from his colleagues.

I don’t think anyone is necessarily disagreeing with you that it’s difficult to work on an issue that forms part of a disability, it is, but the thing is neither the employer nor the colleagues know about his diagnosis.

So giving your wheelchair example, of course you wouldn’t ask them to run faster, everyone involved can see why they cannot do that, so it would be unfair to comment on it. But none of these people know about his diagnosis, so if he has been rude/blunt/not communicating well with a number of colleagues in the same way and they have no context for why that is, of course they are going to mention that rudeness or communication issues when asked by management.

Are they colleagues or his line manager. Is your dh expected to comment on his colleagues appraisals, if not how can they be allowed to comment on his, that seems very unfair and unprofessional. I would contact the union he is in. He is entitled to support like pp mentions, that includes asd. Is it a Large organisation with hr and occupational health. In hindsight he should have declared asd and his colleagues are not responsible for not knowing or understanding his needs.

Actually, an employer can be held accountable for disability discrimination where a person hasn’t disclosed a condition, if they could be reasonably expected to have known.

I don’t know if your husband works in the public sector or the private sector but I know in the public sector there are additional rules about this, under the equality duty, that mean employers have to consider whether a policy, decision or action is likely to have a disproportionate effect on those with a disability.

Anyway, it would be pretty sensible for your husband to disclose his disability and point out that the expectations placed on him are discriminatory. This will give him some protection. He should also be able to access support via government funding, through either access to work, or some other scheme for work coaching specifically aimed at neurodivergence. This will address any communication deficits (or help him push back against discriminatory expectations).

But if someone is in a wheelchair it is clearly visible to everyone. Your DH has a diagnosis (hopefully formal and provable y professionals) that is not visible to the naked eye. So how on earth can people make allowances for him when they don't know that he has an issue. You keep blaming his workplace and colleagues, but they are operating from a standpoint that he does not need allowances made for him as they don't know his diagnosis. Are you on the spectrum as you seem a little stuck on the part that almost does not matter and not the part than needs/can be resolved.

Also, if all this is being told to your husband second hand, through his line manager, then there is a huge possibility that colleagues haven’t made those comments in the first place.

This happened to me. I put in a subject access request to gain access to exactly what had been said and it turns out my manager was full of shit.

It sounds as though the employer has recently changed to a 360 degree review process where they take the opinions of colleagues and any "underlings" to get a fuller picture of the employee's performance.

Their contributions are supposed to be anonymous though, the OP's husband shouldn't know that it was Gary who said X, or Jane who said Y.

https://www.aihr.com/blog/360-review-process/#:~:text=The%20360%2Ddegree%20review%20process,or%20negative%20employee%20performance%20patterns.

They can't be held to be retrospectively discriminatory for anything they did before the diagnosis was disclosed.

Is DH in a union who can help him navigate all this?

He needs to write a formal letter disclosing his diagnosis and asking for reasonable adjustments for how to adapt the normal ways of working to allow DH to achieve the function of his job without coming in for criticism for not being neurotypical.

The letter should include something along the lines of "When I got this diagnosis on (date) I didn't believe it was necessary to communicate that to you as I believed I was able to achieve everything required in my job without any adjustments. However, many of the concerns raised at my recent performance review boil down to effectively people recognising that I do not interact with people in the way that neurotypical people do. This is not something I will be able to change therefore it is not appropriate for anything related to these issues to be part of any performance management process. None of this affects my ability to do the core functions of my job to a high standard and I hope to continue doing so."

No it is discriminatory as I’m sure they would treat other employees the same.

If he wants reasonable adjustments due to a condition or disability, he will need to supply his workplace with an official diagnosis.

HR person stepping out of the Work board. (AIBU is dreadful for HR advice.). Haven’t read the full thread yet. I’m also from a very neurospicy family and have disclosed my ND since diagnosis because of the benefits of doing so.

Have had people try to claim discrimination for conditions they had not been disclosed (apparently disciplining someone for calling a customer “a twat” within their earshot could be explained away). Needless to say it went nowhere once they started asking ACAS and their Union.

ASD is a condition but it isn’t a golden ticket. Your husband will presumably have forgiven feedback on his colleagues too and may have said things they consider harsh.

Whilst comms can be challenging for those with ASD, your husband has a responsibility to behave appropriately and take on feedback. I’m not sure what A2W would offer in this scenario, but he should apply alongside talking to his employers about support he needs. (Many employers will fund adjustments rather than A2W).

Did you mean to be so rude to PP? Their points are valid. And yes, an employer needs reasonable grounds to suspect there is an incapacity that meets the terms of EA2010 in order to be obliged to make a reasonable adjustment. NB. There is no requirement for a diagnosis.

You don’t need an official diagnosis to request adjustments.

The proble is that others might not know they need to adjust their communication. When I send messages to my cleaner, I know she uses a translation app becuas eher English is terrible. To make the translation easier, I use very simple, short sentences and proactively try not to say things that are vague or unclear. If I am talking to my friend's autistic daughter, I have learnt that I need to take a similar approach and give her time to process aspets of the conversation. I do not adapt my style of communication for other people.

So I do 100% agree that part of the ASD disclosure process is the company putting in place processes to make it easier. A friend has an adjustment which seems so minor but has been lifechanging for her, and actually some of her colleagues, in that in her team, meetings are NVER held anymore without some written bullet points and a formal agenda. This allows her to get her head there because she struggles with things being thrown out at her due to her ADHD.

It is important for him to declare his ASD, as that opens different routes to tackling the issues, including funding. He would also need different training approaches. Having said that, his ASD is not going to mean nothing needs to be done about his communication style.

For example, I worked with a man once who felt it was ok to tell his team that nobody was allowed a day off for 3 months, that they all had to do overtime, and told several of them in detail how "bad" their work was. None of that was appropriate and we needed to adjust a lot of expectations around line management to settle it all back down. Funnily enough, your story made me wonder if the line manager delivering your DH feedback has some significant communication issues, as naming colleagues along with consistent negative messaging is also inappropriate. If DH is comfortable to explain to colleagues then he may also find they are more tolerant. If your DH's HR team are aware, then they may be able to make the communication rules clearer for him, which should help a lot. If he is disorganises, then consider if ADHD is also an issue, there are lots of useful coaches and resources for ADHD.

I wondered this. Whether is workload is actually similar/the same but he finds it more challenging and completes work slower than others?

"If DH informs work about his diagnosis, can what was written in his appraisal be seen as discriminatory? The tone of the appraisal was very much "we have great concerns regarding your communication, if it doesn't improve, you'll lose your job", but was not explicitly said".

The Equality Act of 2010 says even if they do not disclose disability "Employees are still protected from discrimination if their employer could reasonably be expected to know they have a disability." (ACAS) So I guess, from what the employer saw, could they have realised that DH was struggling, not just being lazy or enjoying being rude or whatever? I mean I guess if there really wasn't anything that made them think he needed help, then yes they could claim they did nothing wrong because they didn't know he is disabled, but they would be on thin ice, especially if they didn't really help him when they identified he was struggling.

From what you say about DHs current state though, I would be more trying to focus on going forward. They aren't trying to dismiss him yet, so what would help him going forward? The work place probably need to help him get Access to Work support and put reasonable adjustments in place to help him cope.

I have had AtW recently, to do with my brain injury which causes short term memory difficulties affecting my organisation. It also affects my fine motor skills. I have 2 hours a week with one-to-one support for admin tasks, especially organisation of those tasks, and tasks requiring fine motor skills (mouse use). It helps me to keep on track with everything. Focus on what would help things improve now.

It is quite a standard practice to have peer evaluation and even 360 evaluation where juniors evaluate bosses.

it sounds like problems have been raised that he needs to work on. If he doesn’t improve here then they don’t see a future for him. That doesn’t sound like they are trying to manage him out (at least yet).

surely they are raising it with him so that he can start working on it. People can’t develop if they aren’t given feedback.

At my work we request feedback from colleagues of all levels (upward, downward and peer) and it is not anonymous.

OP, you don't like this phrasing
many examples of "colleague A says this about you" and "colleague B says that about you".

So what should they have written instead? What would be factual, simple and have the phrasing you want?

How would his workload end up being lighter if they knew about his diagnosis?
It sounds like he has time management problems; would that get fixed if his line manager(s) knew about his diagnosis?

Does everyone else in his role work 7days/week and only see their kids for 10 minutes a day max? If the reason they don't work like that because they are NT?

Which is exactly why sharing his diagnosis ought to help him.

As you say, conversation and communication typically comes with hidden meanings, unspoken rules, vagueness and an expectation and ignorance that everyone should just know what they mean..

If people know that the OP's dh doesn't get all those nuances, and does apply them when communicating himself, then everyone can make adjustments. Whilst he hasn't been willing to say he needs differentiation, then he isn't going to get it. You are getting people supporting you by communicating in a way that is clearer to you, because you have told them you need this.
It isn't about 'being at fault' it is about being different from, and communicating differently from the majority of his colleagues and customers / clients / service users / patients / whoever he works with.

They didn’t know. Whst did you expect them to do? 🤷‍♀️

Yes but they need to be aware of them to make those reasonable adjustments

@WhatNext321 I am assuming your DH is working in England, if so he should not be working 7 days a week. Under the Working Time Directive employees should have at least 24 hours uninterrupted rest each week. There are exceptions but these are limited.

Other posters have given good advice regarding telling his work, Access to Work and potential options to aid his communication. Your DH maybe entitled to reasonable adjustments. These can be simple and fairly easy to implement.

One area that I feel a lot of employers ( and the gmt) miss is the importance of flexible working for people with ASD. Your DH maybe masking at work which takes a lot of mental energy and as he becomes tired it’s harder to communicate in a NT way. Your DH needs to address the working 7 days a week and potentially look to reduce his hours/workload as a reasonable adjustment.