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.

And don't get me started on people saying they can't do phone calls, teams meetings, in person meetings or visits, when that's an integral part of the job.
Or if they can do those things, they want a support worker from Access to Work to do things like make the calls for them. How would that even work!

And btw I'm totally in favour of access to work support workers enabling someone to fulfil a role, but when someone cannot do or does not enjoy something like contact with the public, surely it's much better to apply for one of the many jobs that doesn't involve that.

I feel a lot of issues around reasonable adjustments are because of, or exacerbated by, bad management. Very often managers are promoted because they are good at their job but being good at admin, coding, educating, whatever the job is, does not necessarily make you a good manager.

I was good at my job which was a very independent, project-based role, so was promoted and given a team despite having no management training or demonstrating the skills required. Despite asking I was given no support or training into how to manage people or even my legal/ HR responsibilities. I did seek out courses and did research and do now consider myself a strong manager but it wasn't easy.

Someone in my team was brilliant a real asset but fell ill and then needed quite extensive reasonable adjustments. It was suggested she was moved to the side and given busy work but that would not have offered fulfillment or allowed her progression. I reached out to some mentors and with out of the box thinking and a reshuffle we were able to create a slightly different team structure that really worked. It was difficult and required some change management but she has remained one of the strongest on the team and colleagues don't feel like they had her worked dumped on them but do feel the company would be there for them if they needed something.

I feel strongly if managers were better trained and educated and hired on their people management skills not just because they were good in their previous role, it could go along way to solving this.

that is a tad disingenuous.
What the poster was complaining about was the fact that so many colleagues had "reasonable" adjustments, that other colleagues were getting more work because the ones with adjustments weren't getting through all their tasks.

That is not "reasonable" if they are being paid the same.

I mean, for this family to have brought nine claims, that means either every single one of those employers was a discriminatory piece of shit, who didn't want to he adjustments or it just wasn't possible to make the adjustments.

My money's on the latter.

I have done the research, thanks. The threshold for being declared a vexatious litigant is extremely high it’s reserved for people who bring repeated, baseless and abusive claims, not for those pursuing valid cases where employers may have broken the law. Several of the cases I mentioned were settled or upheld by a tribunal, which clearly shows they had legal merit.
And to put it in perspective across a family of around 6 people, 9 claims works out to roughly 1.5 each over several years. That’s not excessive at all, especially when you consider how widespread disability discrimination still is in the workplace. People are entitled to challenge unfair treatment, and using the legal process designed for that doesn’t make someone vexatious it makes them informed and willing to stand up for their rights.

if they were the problem why would they win at a tribunal?

My reasonable adjustments include NOT having meeting in my lunch hours - yes my actually unpaid, uncontracted lunchtime hours and yet it took 6 months and then me digging my heels in and constantly referring to the consultant and OH assessment report of making sure I wasn’t requested for a meeting during my actual lunch.

Two days ago I had a schedule for September (I’m off in August) two meetings a week during my unpaid lunch time.

My workroom can be between 7 and 12 degrees during December as my heating in my room doesn’t work and has been for the last 4 years. Both consultant and GP have written strongly worded letters to employer pointing out I am disabled (autoimmune disease and another disability)and I can not move like ‘normal’ and even if I wasn’t disabled it would still be illegal as it is under minimum temperatures. I will await with baited breath to see if the heating is fixed on 25 th August when I go back to work after my summer holiday - this is have asked for under reasonable adjustments for my disability 😁

Quite right and this applies to everyone whether disabled or not. Many people leave jobs they cannot do.
I have employed disabled people in the past and made adjustments so they could do the job they were being paid to do. I must admit I had no idea I was supposed to allow them adjustments such that they are not expected to do the job as competently as anyone else.
My experience is that people want to be seen to do their job well and be respected for that and some need help to achieve that. But I never came across one person who was happy to be seen to not be doing the job as well as others.

I am disabled ( physically ) . I hired someone to work in a sub team of 3 workers . At interview the recruit did not mention she had a disability ( anxiety and depression ) .

Within a few months she sought reasonable adjustments so effectively her two peers did the stressful parts of her job and she did the less stressful parts of their jobs. That meant the other two were at high stress all the time and were working more stressful jobs for the same pay.

We could not afford to hire a fourth person to help the two workers now limited to working the stressful parts of the job and no one in the firm would accept a redeployment of the new recruit as all jobs involved stress ( it was the very nature of the work ! ).

Understandably the two loyal staff members left after the person who had obtained the adjustments of her workload accused them of not doing enough to support her with her reduced areas of work. She felt she was entitled to this extra support because of her anxiety.

Within 6 months we had gone from a team of 3 to a team of 1 but the 1 left could not do most of the job description with her increased anxiety.

Difficult to recruit replacements for the two who had left because of the revised job descriptions. At that point the recruit with anxiety decided to complain again to HR because her request for additional reasonable adjustments had not been met.

The sad thing was that I had never asked for reasonable adjustments for my physical disability but the team just helped do the bits I could not do and I tried to help out in other ways and we had all rubbed along like that for over 6 years.

The experience we all went through was the most stressful and anxiety provoking in all the years of work.

I feel sorry for any small employer trying to manage requests for adjustments because I don't think enough thought is given to the impact on others in the team. Most companies don't have the money to recruit extra staff because of the need for an adjustment for one staff

Tale ended with the worker quitting because the job was making her too anxious ....

If this is in response to the other thread from today, you seem to be willfully misunderstanding the point of it. The majority of people are happy with reasonable adjustments being made to make work accessible for more people. Few people argued, on that thread, that it was a special favour.

The problem is that some adjustments being made are not reasonable and are negatively impacting other people in the workplace. I worked with someone whose workload had been reduced temporarily due to anxiety which started after a specific event in their life. However, due to poor management, this was never reviewed. This person openly told me that she felt it should have been ended, and did not think it was ok that she had, in effect, a permanent adjustment for a temporary situation. However, until it was raised, she was not going to say something. This situation helps neither the people who need reasonable adjustments or their colleagues.

If people agree reasonable adjustments are necessary
And people accept some adjustments are unreasonable

there is a meeting in the middle

if too many employees demand adjustments it will end up employers seeking legal advice to remove those roles or employees being extremely cautious whom they employ in the first place

if you are new to a company and are expecting to be paid you need to be abe to do the actual job you apply for, changing some aspects of working conditions can be very different to changing the actual job

if employees start holding all the cards it will become more difficult for everyone to find a job - it’s a balancing act and if it tips too much either way it will all come crashing down

Surely you can acknowledge that 9 claims across 6 people is a lot. Either the jobs were wholly unsuitable, or all of the employers were discriminatory. Which let’s face it isn’t likely.

My stepson has significant needs, and currently is cognitively 2.5 y/o - he’s 8. If he ever is able to work, what we won’t be doing is shoehorning him into jobs that aren’t suitable relative his needs. He’s not a particularly social person, and has limited communication - hospitality or telesales won’t be the jobs for him. That’s not discrimination, it’s fact. He’s not suitable for many lines of work, and likely never will be.

People don’t like arguing with the disabled. For very obvious reasons.

We see it all the time, people allowing him the first go on a slide when actually we’re teaching him waiting skills. Nobody expecting him to share toys or equipment when that’s a life skills he needs to develop.

It’s seen as discrimination to not go out of your way to make things easier. Sometimes it’s not about that, it’s about just not actively making it harder.

Life isn’t fair, and we’re not all able to do everything. We actively teach my stepson that things won’t always go his way, and the world won’t always bend for him. For reasons exactly like this thread. So he doesn’t grow up feeling like the world owes him a favour, which it will not give him.

Reasonable adjustments, to me, means putting help in place to complete a task, not accepting failure to do the job or to get half as much done as colleagues for the same pay.

You couldn’t expect to be a trader in a noisy dealing room if you were overly sensitive to noise. You just aren’t the right person for the job.

And you couldn’t be a teacher if you were overwhelmed by teaching a class of teenagers.
Politically you can’t go too far with this stuff without getting a backlash. Equity in most people’s minds means fairness, like the cartoon where the small person is given a higher chair to see over the fence, not saying we are going to pay the same for half the work.

You need to look at the vote rather than the comments to see what people really think on this.

So I have a colleague who suffers from anxiety. Their reasonable adjustments are to take themselves off frontline duties whenever they feel anxious. It’s a 24/7 organisation but night time makes them anxious so they don’t work nights. If they are feeling particularly anxious, they can work all day shifts, skipping the late shifts too, even at short notice and with no regard to whoever is already on leave/sick, which often brings us below minimum staffing. It’s impossible to book leave that includes night shifts, because it would often bring us below minimum staffing.

The reality of this is that they choose to come off frontline duties frequently mid-shift, usually when a particularly griefy job is passed over the radio or one which will guarantee they finish late. When they do attend jobs, they very often stand at the back or busy themselves with something not at all useful, because conflict makes them anxious.

We are police officers. This person is completely unsuited for the role, but occupational health insist these are all reasonable adjustments. Never mind that I can’t often book a full set of shifts off, or that I’m at far greater risk due to frequent short staffing because they can change their shifts on a whim.

That sounds incredibly frustrating and completely unacceptable, especially when medical professionals have backed up your need for these adjustments. Honestly, starting the Employment Tribunal process, or even sending a formal Early Conciliation request through ACAS, can often get things moving faster.
Sometimes employers only take things seriously when they realise you're willing to assert your rights formally. It’s not about being combative it’s about making it clear that ignoring legal obligations around disability isn’t an option. You absolutely deserve to work in a safe, accessible environment, and it shouldn’t take this much effort to get there.

One claim a year is excessive. But you've convinced yourself and just wait until you are all unemployable, and have to declare all these claims.

I’m genuinely glad they were able to get the adjustments they need that’s exactly what the Equality Act is there for. Anxiety can be a serious and disabling condition, and the law protects people from being forced out of work because of it, especially in high-pressure roles like policing.
That said, I do agree the employer needs to manage the wider impact better. Reasonable adjustments shouldn’t lead to unsafe staffing levels that’s a resourcing failure, not the fault of the disabled colleague. The solution isn’t to take adjustments away, it’s to ensure there are enough people on duty so no one is overstretched. It's possible to support disabled staff and maintain operational safety but it takes proper planning from management, not resentment from colleagues.

there is no legal requirement to declare these claims, also you can ask the judge to anonymize your name so others can't see it, which we do every time and have never had refused. also as a business owner I no longer am an "employee"

I don't believe your posts are genuine.

If they are, you are a horrible person. You literally don't care about anyone else having to pick up the slack or how badly their working lives are disrupted, just as long as this fake anxious person gets what they want.

I genuinely don't want an anxious police officer around if I ever need help.

I’m self employed, I’m autistic and I set my own reasonable adjustments when working with a customer.
There are certain things I need - mostly clarity, which make me far more productive and worth the money I charge for my services.
The kickback I get from this is ridiculous. Most clients complain when I need to (shock horror) go through the job specifications with them before starting the job and making my own list - tbh I don’t even think this is a reasonable adjustment, it just feels like common sense.

I don’t usually mention I’m autistic, I just say that this is my process, but clients think I’m questioning them unreasonably, or that I should be able to translate their badly written and vague instructions.

I've disclosed my autism to one frequent customer and he treats it like a joke, and still complains and looks visibly annoyed when I go through the jobs before starting!

The thing is though, just going through my process saves them and me time, means I make fewer mistakes, means they are more likely to be happy with the job I do.

I’ve learned over the years that people who are not disabled or ND have real problems being flexible and working with others. Particularly with ND/invisible conditions, when there’s often an added extra element of trying to deliberately make life/work harder and make a big deal of how they shouldn’t have to be put out of their way to make my/our life easier. It’s very weird.

My favourite clients are the ones who are also autistic, because we know how to communicate better together. There’s definitely a communication incompatibility, but most of the time it’s people being dicks about disability, there’s honestly no need for it.

I really do appreciate your perspective, and it sounds like you're putting a lot of care and thought into supporting your stepson, which is admirable. But I think it’s worth saying that recognising limitations and protecting rights aren't mutually exclusive. Yes, not every job will be right for every person disabled or not but the Equality Act exists to stop people being unfairly excluded when jobs can be adjusted to suit someone’s needs. That’s not about bending the world — it’s about removing unnecessary barriers.
As for the 9 claims across six people, over years that’s not some wild number when you understand how common it still is for employers to fall short on their legal obligations. Many disabled people go years putting up with disadvantage or mistreatment before they even consider a tribunal. And if several claims were upheld or settled, that’s a strong sign those employers did get it wrong.
You're absolutely right that life isn’t always fair but that’s exactly why we have laws like the Equality Act. Not to promise life will be easy, but to make sure people aren’t shut out just because their needs don’t fit the standard mould. Most disabled people don’t want favours they want fairness, and a fighting chance to contribute like anyone else.

maybe if disabled people actually went to tribunals when dismissed this madness would stop and disabled people wouldn't be treated badly.

I think Op and other posters make good points and I believe some workplaces could do better but the examples you’ve presented are ridiculous - the individuals concerned sound entitled.

The first one sounds prejudiced himself and with the ambulance worker - aside from the hygiene angle, Imagine the anxiety and discomfort it would cause those patients allergic, phobic or just fearful of dogs.

And I wonder what “assistance” the dog was providing because aside from guide dogs for the blind I’ve found many of these dogs are basically just emotional support crutches.

9 claims from 6 people is huge.

And a company settling doesn't show it had legal merit at all. It shows it can be more expensive to represent themselves than it would be just to pay off the employee.

I’m sorry you feel that way, but I can assure you my posts are genuine and based on the actual legal duties employers have under the Equality Act. Supporting disabled colleagues isn’t about “not caring” about others. It’s about recognising that the responsibility to manage workload and ensure safe staffing lies with the employer, not the person who needs adjustments.
If someone’s anxiety is so severe that it prevents them from doing the job safely, then of course that needs to be assessed properly. But if adjustments can allow someone to continue contributing without risk and tribunals have shown again and again that’s often possible then employers are expected to make that work.
This isn’t about one person getting what they want. It’s about making sure people with long-term health conditions aren’t excluded unfairly from jobs they’re capable of doing with support. That’s not horrible it’s basic fairness under the law.