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.

The law is an ass.

Could Access to Work have paid for the taxis? I know they do for one of my colleagues who can’t use public transport (for a physical disability in their case).

If not then redeployment would have seemed fairest, assuming this was similar terms and conditions to the previous role.

But unreasonable on the part of the employee to expect these adjustments when it was their choice to move somewhere where transport wasn’t possible.

A close family member got a job in a call centre, fresh out of uni. During training, she started having panic attacks every time she had to make or take calls classic signs of anxiety, which she'd struggled with but never formally diagnosed. She flagged it with her manager and asked if she could be moved to handle email and web chat instead, which were part of the same department. There were already staff doing chat-only roles, so she wasn’t asking to invent a new position.
Instead of even trying to make it work, the company said no. They told her she’d either need to do calls like everyone else or leave. To make it worse, they started piling on more pressure, telling her she was failing her probation because she “wasn’t showing the right energy.”
She ended up going to an employment solicitor, and long story short just before the tribunal hearing, the company offered her £12,000 to settle. They clearly realised that refusing a pretty minor adjustment without exploring it properly especially one that other employees were already doing looked bad. No formal diagnosis needed, because the Equality Act looks at the impact of the condition, not whether you’ve got a piece of paper for it.
Let’s just say they now take their OH referrals a lot more seriously.

If it was just to help someone through the interview, it was very unreasonable. They surely should have found out, rather than assuming?

it was at a start up sales company

I encourage all my family and friends to go to employment tribunals every time they face discrimination and they often win!

You’re spot on actually about it being toxic.

There was some nastiness towards one fairly senior member of staff (like rolling eyes when she spoke etc) and we (me and the other two newbies) always got the impression that it was because she was super sweet but also because she had a “foreign” accent.

It was overall toxic but I think I struggled a bit more than the other two newbies due to me being ND. They did leave shortly after though and I know they were pretty miserable too!

If someone can't read in an interview, it seems reasonable to assume they'd struggle to read while working too. I accept there are ways round this depending on the job role.

Ime many businesses settle because it's less hassle than going through the tribunal. It's not an admission of any wrongdoing, more a "we cba to pay lawyers to argue, we'll give you a percentage of the money the lawyers would need to make you go away".

Reasonable adjustments - the key is in the name; reasonable.

If a person cant do their job by any sensible approach, then they cant do their job. An employer (and colleagues) can only adapt so much.

Wages reflect jobs (in theory anyway) so eg if someone gets paid to work a stressful job, but has to change due to anxiety, why should they continue to get the wage for the stressful job?

Sometimes people need to take responsibility for themselves too and acknowledge what they can and cant do. I have a bad knee. I need to recognise that I cant do a job that 90% of involves going up and down ladders. It isnt up to the employer to figure out ways I can get paid whilst not doing the job Im paid for.

I voted YABU because of your "all employers bad" stance.

And that's the reason why employers are reluctant to take on anyone who already has a disability!!

The biggest lack of adjustment I’m
finding is that companies are very reluctant to have part timers in a role. I’m regularly called / emailed by recruitment agents with countless jobs I am more than capable of doing, but only if it’s part time / job share, and when the employer is asked, they are always not prepared to do this, leaving me without a job for over a year now after redundancies in a previous role included me. The fully remote is actually far less of an issue than the part time requirement

I think people seem to forget they’re being paid to do a job.

This

My understanding is that due to many other adjustments with significant costs meant the business would have needed to contribute.
Some other adjustments included; specific ongoing therapy for vicarious trauma, software, equipment, supervision from external supervisor of choice with adhoc when necessary. From what I could gather That with a 1hr taxi x2 per day meant it wasn’t doable through access to work.

Well if they’re chosen to move house, then that’s their problem, not the employers.

I think employers forget their legal obligations

every time they say no go to a tribunal!

So you are saying that companies that employ disabled people should also employ extra staff so that they can do some of the disabled persons work. This just doesn’t work for small companies.

no they move work around to accommodate

I don’t think it’s as simple as you’re suggesting. Some people expect adjustments when they could manage but they don’t, putting pressure on their colleagues with no thought to how the colleagues can cope.
Some people generally can’t but then that’s the job so how does that work?! Someone at my work wants adjustments like you mentioned earlier but it’s just not possible in our job and there’s nowhere to redeploy them to.

Good points.

I clearly stated @Livelovebehappy that after that job I was fired from I went on to work in a workplace that required me to work in the office that was a much nicer environment in that it was more ND friendly.
So obviously some offices are challenging than others. Rather than me asking the team of 40+ people at the PR job to change the office around for me I thought it made sense to seek a RA to work at home some days! There was no good reason for them to deny it.

Anyway it’s still much better for me to be working at home most days,even compared to a nicer office - which thankfully I am allowed to now.

This has led to me having an enhanced standard of living in that I’m not so shattered in the evenings and weekends from masking during the weekday and being stressed with the commute.

And OP made good points re. Diagnosis but personally I was officially diagnosed before I was in that job I was fired from. Thanks to my uni I got it free!

See this is the problem with some people who want to put a negative spin on RA for no reason. It’s like this toxic stiff upper lip attitude of “you’ve suffered before so why can’t you continue struggling for the sake of it” 🙄

Irrespective of whether I’ve worked in offices before the point is I’m now in a job WFH full time , my employer is happy, the work gets done and I am happy. That’s a good thing!!

Move work to who? Someone else to do their work AND some of that person’s work, for the same salary, to enable an adjustment?

Who do they move the work around to?

Are you joking?

You have to be on the wind up now. There are benefits to having FT workers which clearly the company wants. No one owes anyone a job, FT or PT.