AIBU for requesting reasonable adjustments for a disability at work

[Catty21]

I’ve been off work for a while due to an illness that has now made me disabled. Prior to going off sick , my role was full time. My consultant, family and my works occupational health assessment have all pointed out going back full time will be detrimental to my health and that I request to reduce my hours. I have requested reasonable adjustments to reduce my work to 4 days a week instead of 5. This has been rejected . For context, my role is admin working from home and it’s not like it’s senior role or one that would cause an issue if my hours were reduced. The company I work for is a large corporation so it’s not like I am working for a small business either.

My employer knows I’m protected under the Equality Act but have basically said , yes we acknowledge you have a disability , but we can’t make reasonable adjustments for it and if you cannot do full time, you will have to resign. It feels like they don’t want to me return and they are doing this on purpose so I resign.

AIBU by requesting dropping a day ? Where do I stand legally ? Do I just resign ? I have spoken to ACAS but all they have done is email me generic advice .

Any advice ?

It might be about the ratio. Thry can't employ someone to do 0.2 of the role but the workload can't be covered at 0.8.

I would send them an email stating that under the equality act your are a protected individual, that you have offered clear and meaningful ways a a large company can accommodate your needs and you feel that they are forcing resignation on you

That would lead you to take out a claim for constructive dismissal

You do have to be prepared to go down that route, but you seem to have a very good case

could you speak to an employment lawyer for one appointment and get advice?

I’ve suggested job share at first but that was a no also

For clarity, do you mean a job share where you each did between two and three days?

Have you been referred to Occupational Health? Has a well being action plan been discussed? E T A apologies. I see occupational health have said that going back full time would be detrimental. What have they said about work's refusal to reduce your hours?

You are not necessarily right about an employer having no choice but to make adjustments because occupational health recommend reducing hours and/or change in duties. They do have to show why they cannot accommodate the request, and if they can do that and follow the correct procedure, it’s not inevitable that they would lose at ET. I think it unhelpful to suggest it is a matter of fact that this constitutes constructive dismissal. It could be, but before OP “goes nuclear” with anyone she would be best placed to have some proper legal advice so she does not go in all guns blazing and make matters more complicated than they have to be. Such tactics can backfire- by all means be bullish once you know that legally you are in the right, but not until then.

In our case, we could not accommodate the request (the need for adjustment was agreed by occupational health in our case too) but we were able to show the reason the request was not possible and the ET agreed we were justified in our decision. Our employee lost her case. The package that we were going to offer was no longer an option, and she would have been far better off financially and emotionally taking it from the outset. OP may well be in entirely the opposite position, but she needs to seek legal advice- as she’s not in a union, it will need to be via ACAS or more likely an employment lawyer.

Yes , they arranged an assessment by their own OC health but have said they can’t meet the recommendations of reducing hours

I agree with others that you may have to seek legal advice. Acas can't offer input into specific cases unfortunately.

Yes exactly that , role would be split equally to cover the whole week

Did the OP offer ‘clear and meaningful ways a large company can accommodate her needs’ though?
OP, could you consider working 5 shorter days instead? My DH has a medical condition and when he went part time he was till unable to manage 3 full days, so tried working 4 short days - same hours. He managed much better for quite a while with this working pattern

Sorry I have skim read. Could you request 3 days per week as a job share. That would be very difficult for them to reject as your job sounds totally doable as a job share.

I asked for job share first but was rejected

Cross posted about job share. I would sit back and ask again why they think the job cannot be job share 2-3 days each.

You have a right to request an adjustment, not a right to receive one. If the business can reasonably justify rejecting the request they’re entitled to turn you down I’m afraid.

OP, I had an issue with occ health recommendations with my employer (around the need to WFH more often than they wanted). I joined Which legal - cost me under £100 - and was able to have a phone call with one of their solicitors. They can only offer guidance and clarify your legal position but I found them so helpful as I knew my rights and what they felt my employer legally needed to do before I discussed the issue further with my employer. I really recommend them.
If not then ACAS also offer free employment advise so worth a call to them for their opinion.

The employer is not obliged to agree to reduced hours if the business need requires a ft role, even if due to disability adjustments. A job share incurs additional costs not only recruitment but ni, training etc.

It sounds like they just want you to leave. So force their hand.
Are you back at work or planning the return. The return to work would involve some time working at part time especially after a long absence. Usually this would be building over a few weeks/months back to part time

Then when you've been doing a few weeks at part time resubmit the request pointing out how successfully it's worked in reality

If you can afford some legal advice I'd maybe get some. Some PP have offered some good ideas for that.

Fair point. I just find it very unbelievable, given what OP has said about the job, that a large organisation couldn't accommodate the request.
Small organisation, i get it and jobs that have very specific requirements eg receptionist where the opening hours are fixed.
It doesn't sound like they've said much other than it doesn't suit so they are not exactly trying to meet her half way here. They are very much playing as if they want to get rid.

The plan was to return to work on advice from Occ health that hours would be reduced. I have house insurance which covers legal advice so will look into Monday :)

I'm glad you're covered by your house insurance.

OP they don’t necessarily want you to go just because they have rejected it. They are thinking about the workload and if it is doable for the work to be done in less time.

My question is what happens to the work on the fifth day? If you are able to do it in four, then you needed more work to do. If you are ‘only’ doing four days of work, then there is a day or work that won’t be done.

it isn’t about you - it’s about a request to the business and rhe case being assessed on a business need. As others have said it’s almost impossible to get someone for one day a week so they need someone working five days.

I can honestly say in my career (working in senior positions in a number of large multi nationals) a reduction in days is almost universally denied.

I know it suck’s, but it isn’t personal even though it feels that way. Perhaps a follow up meeting to do four longer days, or four days in five (if that works for you?).

In the context op describes it seems working longer days or ft hours in 4 is likely to be equally, if not more, detrimental to her health than ft week. How have they managed during your absence? Is the workload consistent across the week or time critical?

This is often why we need to reject similar requests. No one wants 1 day per week and there is then the onboarding costs, new equipment, 2 amounts of line management etc…

Can you start later/finish earlier? Have additional breaks? Sounds like you are working from home so would they allow you to do a shorter day but still 5 days a week, or even to have a longer day to adjust for rest breaks and you catch up on work in an evening?

I think the issue with a job share is that the other person doesn't just make up a full time salary. I might be wrong but I am sure because of pensions and NI contributions it costs more having a job share than if it was just one person. I am not sure whether costs can be a reason for denying you going part time, but I imagine it could be argued that it could add to the costs.

You aren't in a union so they won't be able to help on this occasion, but I recommend you now join one as even if this issue gets resolved, you now know there may be other problems in the future so it's worth paying for that support.

It’s not always about if the actual work can be done successfully as a job share or not; it’s usually about cost as it costs far more for an employer to have two people covering a full time position than just one.

Even though it’s a large corporation, budgets will be broken down by categories and / or departments so if they went to tribunal, all they’d have to show is that a job share is not cost effective under the budget they have for administration within the finance department for example.