AIBU to think employers aren’t going nearly far enough with adjustments and that ableist attitudes are still totally normalised?

[coffeeandmycats]

I’m honestly so fed up with how “reasonable adjustments” are treated like some kind of special favour or workplace charity. They’re not. They’re a legal duty under the Equality Act, and they exist because without them, disabled people are shut out of employment or slowly squeezed out once they’re in.
Every time someone says “we couldn’t adjust the role” or “it wouldn’t be fair on the team,” what they usually mean is “we didn’t want to deal with it.” And that’s what drives me mad how often laziness, bias or lack of imagination is brushed off as “just being realistic.” That’s not realism. That’s ableism.
Most jobs can be adjusted. If someone can’t do one task but can do everything else why is the answer to push them out, instead of reshuffling the tasks or offering alternatives? We do this all the time in other settings. You wouldn’t chuck a kid out of school because they struggle with stairs. But in work, suddenly job specs are sacred texts.
And now, with the government trying to push more disabled people back into work (often with threats of benefit sanctions), where is the structural support? Employers still get to decide whether something is “reasonable,” even when they’ve shown time and again that they don’t understand or don’t care. That’s not a system that’s a gamble.
We should be encouraging every disabled person denied adjustments to take their employer straight to tribunal. I don’t care if it’s uncomfortable the law needs to be enforced. But also, it shouldn’t have to get that far. There should be an independent ombudsman-style service that employers must subscribe to something that can assess adjustment requests fairly and quickly, without making the disabled person go to war to be heard.
And honestly? If a business can’t afford to make space for disabled people, whether that’s with flexibility, equipment, transport help or task reallocation, then maybe they shouldn’t be in business. If your model only works when everyone is 100% able-bodied, then your model is broken. Shut it down.
AIBU to think we’ve got this totally backwards? That we’re still treating inclusion like a bonus feature instead of a basic requirement? That people who need adjustments are somehow seen as the problem instead of the systems and attitudes around them?
I’m sure this will rub some people the wrong way. Maybe that’s the point.

I’d just say have a look at the thread properly. I linked actual legal case studies (like Archibald v Fife Council and Southwark v Charles) where things like transferring someone to a less demanding role on the same pay were found to be reasonable adjustments by Employment Tribunals and even the House of Lords. So it's not just me making wild suggestions it's backed by case law.
That said, I do get that some adjustments could feel like a stretch depending on the role, and not everything suggested will be reasonable in every case. It depends on the context, the impact on the employer, and the specific needs of the disabled person. The Equality Act talks about reasonableness, not a free-for-all.
But I think sometimes people hear "adjustment" and imagine special treatment when in reality it's about stopping people being pushed out of work altogether.

Nope. I'm OK with saying that until they could find a suitable shoe that they can wear that I wouldn't want them in the office.

Be in pain, or take time off, or find a suitable job I honestly couldn't care.

And I think *you hear "law" and thinks that means you can argue with people to make them change their minds on what's right.

Plenty of people wear open-toed shoes or sandals in offices without causing some hygiene apocalypse.

Ignoring any hygiene aspect, there are often things like staples, drawing pins and the like dropped on office floors, as well as the hygiene aspect for the individual about walking on flooring that may be less than clean by the end of the day. I don’t think many employers would be comfortable with allowing bare feet for this kind of reason. A reasonable adjustment might be to wear slippers, flip-flops etc - not to be barefoot.

"offering a less senior or stressful position on the same pay" 😂😂. Wouldn't it be nice if we could all do that...what a nonsense...if you can't do a senior job then why would you be paid for one. Living in an entitled dream world.

Based on this thread they’d be yet another tribunal if someone trod on his foot by accident…

As I said earlier, slipping shoes off while sat at a desk, and then putting them back on for client facing is reasonable. Going all day without shoes is unreasonable and a H&S nightmare. It's the bottoms on shoes that are needed when walking around the office, not the top. So put flip flops on, but that isn't no shoes at all is it?
I wore crocs today because of an ankle issue over the weekend. No one cared because I didn't go shouting about it. Sounds like your family shout about thinks and go looking for offence.

I’m sorry but no, barefoot in the office is not acceptable. As others have said what if there were hazards on the floor? Pins/staples/spilt drinks? Shards of glass from broken cups? There could be dog poo brought in on shoes. The person in question could have fungus on their feet which they traipse all over the floor. It isn’t hygienic and there is the potential for the smell as well. I think this is a joke honestly. If you have foot pain I am sure there are specialist shoes that could be purchased that would help alleviate the issue.

Completely agree OP but most people just can't get their head around the fact we would much rather not need to have these adjustments and just be able to function like everybody else. Unless someone has a disability themselves they will never understand

This is also all within a workforce that is suffering from sever lack of productivity.

The social costs of this are significant, like this police force with the officer who is basically useless. Policing is in crises, they cannot cover everything they need to as it is, their budgets are requiring hard decisions all the time.

And then they are supposed to spend on a whole extra officer to essentially make up for a person who is dead weight - they might as well be paying this person to stay at home.

People keep saying that the public sector can cover this stuff because it's funded by taxes. Well, it does have the advantage of many employees which gives management flexibility. But do people not know what stress the state is under with regards to funds?

Being unreasonable with this, treating some people like they are more deserving of fairness, is going to cause a huge backlash when people are also seeing their money not going far enough, and public services deteriorating, and taxes going up.

Poeple like the OP are creating a massive own-goal.

Finding a job too stressful isn’t a disability ffs

So someone is employed as CFO on £100k, finds it too “stressful” and expects he can get a management accountant role which would normally be £50k for the £100k salary? Away you go 😂

What is actually your skin in this game? No win no fee or a “disability consultant”?

Having read this whole thread, I am beginning to think that the OP is intentionally radicalising people against the Equality Act.

It's certainly made me much more aware of how crazy the law is!

If the OP is correct about what the law actually is - and I have no doubt to reason to doubt that they are - then we should change it.

Some form of reasonable adjustments are fine, but these things are bonkers: being entitled to a promotion you didn't earn, doing less than others in your team for the same pay; having reduced workload targets; having a demotion to a less stressful job but insisting on the original higher pay. (All things the OP has said are currently lawful!)

In the case of the interview and the woman who had dyslexia, if she could not cope with reading in stressful situations, then it is very hard to understand how start-up life in a sales organisation would be the right job choice for her. Start-up life is always stressful, and reading is central to pretty much every job.

If the law entitles this person to a job they cannot do, the law must be changed.

I actually own a cat cafe

And given in a lot of areas hearings are now
being listed for 2027 and beyond you really
aren’t doing people favours by encouraging them to bring claims

Are you the poster that was on the wind up the other day about a toilet situation in your cat cafe?

Just out of interest, if one of your staff said they needed to walk around barefoot as a reasonable adjustment, what would your response be?

Oh that’s interesting. Same as the poster who posted a thread about trans women in toilets the other day.

Seems like you have gone to great lengths of research into the subject just to make sure that you can legally continue to be a silly pain in the arse. You need to get a hobby! Honestly.

actually a judge in England found barefoot was a reasonable adjustment for a woman with trunk foot who couldn't wear shoes

I’m absolutely astonished that, as I’m typing this, two thirds of voters think you are being unreasonable, OP!

I haven’t started reading the responses yet, but I will be very interested to see how people try to justify that!

You are, of course, absolutely right. I no longer work thanks to my disabilities, but I often felt that my able-bodied colleagues resented the reasonable adjustments that were made for me. I was sometimes made to feel lazy or useless, unable to keep up with the rest of the team/section and was often asked why, when ‘so much was done for me.’ It was like the employers were doing me a favour instead of it being my right.

i think that many people have no understanding about disability and how it affects a person; that’s not unreasonable if they’ve never experienced it, but it’d be great if they listened and at least tried to put themselves in the shoes of a disabled person. But mostly I think people just won’t care until it affects them personally.

Pretending to be all morally right on, then drops this bombshell.

HH

that was me...

In the case of the interview and the woman who had dyslexia, if she could not cope with reading in stressful situations, then it is very hard to understand how start-up life in a sales organisation would be the right job choice for her. Start-up life is always stressful, and reading is central to pretty much every job.

There is specialist software to help with dyslexia, so that shouldn’t be a reason not to employ someone in a standard office job (assuming they are able to do the job with the software in place). Access to Work even covers the cost if it’s applied for within the first 6 weeks of employment.

Presumably you employ people. How do you deal with requests for RA? Cafes run on tight margins. Could you have an employee who is too anxious to talk to customers? What about an employee who develops an allergy to cats?

I think issues can arise when some people do try to take advantage, and this does happen, albeit I do believe that a vast majority of people are genuine. A colleague was pushed to the edge when another colleague asked for many reasonable adjustments, which were obviously put in place. The problem was that my other colleague became so stressed with her additional workload that these adjustments meant for her, that she ended up being signed off with anxiety herself. This was in a public sector role and there just wasn't the budget to hire another individual. I agree that it's important that adjustments are made, but there should be some kind of balance.

BTW I'm disabled myself.