AIBU to think dismissal during probation was unfair given autism adjustments?

[SereneRoseRobin]

I’m looking for honest views because I’m not sure whether I’m being unreasonable or whether this was genuinely unfair.

I was recently dismissed from a graduate/analyst role after my probation was extended. I am autistic, and my employer knew this. I had raised the need for clear written instructions, defined objectives, examples of similar work, timelines, and timely/direct feedback. Some support was put in place, including coaching, but I don’t feel the actual adjustments were properly embedded or reviewed before the decision was made.

The difficult part is that the concerns raised about me seemed mainly to focus on communication style, professional behaviour, asking for clarification, Teams messages, and quality assurance under pressure — rather than on whether I could actually do the analytical work. Some recent written feedback said my analytical skills were good, that my work did not contain relevant errors, that I was taking ownership, and that I sought support appropriately. Another person said I had picked up on a complex project well.

The project I was criticised on was not straightforward. I was a first-year graduate with no prior experience in that sector, and I was assigned open-ended/data-heavy modelling work with a lot of ambiguity and short deadlines. Some outputs were expected within hours or by the next day, so there was not much time for structured review. I also didn’t always get timely feedback while I could still act on it. Some feedback came months after the work had ended.
My probation extension was meant to allow support and coaching to take effect, but I was dismissed before the extension period had fully ended. I had submitted evidence of improvement the day before the decision, but I don’t feel it was properly discussed or considered.
The coaching report apparently said the benefit of coaching should be assessed after a longer period, because performance can dip while new strategies embed.

I’m appealing because I think they didn’t properly separate disability-related communication issues from actual capability, didn’t give recent improvement enough weight, and didn’t consider alternatives such as letting the extension run, providing clearer QA/communication frameworks, assigning more standard analyst work, or redeploying me to a more suitable team.

I’m not saying I was perfect. I know there were areas to improve. But I feel like I was assessed against unclear expectations, on complex work, without the timely feedback and structure that had already been identified as necessary for me.

AIBU to think this was unfair and potentially linked to disability discrimination/failure to make reasonable adjustments? Or is this just how probation works, and I should accept it and move on?

This is a bit harsh 😳

I agree with others that reasonable adjustments are ok up to a point, but obviously mollycoddled employees don't necessarily do the best jobs or make the best employee. I think you might be better suited to less niche roles perhaps, either with more people who "get" your working style, or the skillset you have is maximised to offer the job your full potential.

So, obviously if you feel you work better in more routine tasks, with less project-lead things to do, plus more to your time management abilities, then these are the types of roles you are probably better applying for.

(I'd literally be crap at anything like this, especially as I am not great at time management and organisation!)

I honestly think this was probably a little blip in your career journey, and once you find something that plays to your strengths, all will be well.✨️👍

I’m autistic. Sometimes I’m also fucking lazy. Including at work. I do find sometimes I have to exert a lot of effort just to “be” as you put it. But it isn’t every day all the time. I definitely do not think I’m living in a nonsense world where everyone speaks a different language. Don’t get me wrong sometimes I don’t “get” people. But I’m pretty sure lots of people don’t “get” me. That’s fine. I really disagree with this mentality that every autistic person is absolutely burnt out from awful awful 24/7 struggles of living in this absolutely awful world where everyone hates us. It really isn’t my experience at all. I may struggle more than some people. I definitely struggle less than others. In fact most people at my job do not know I’m autistic so they certainly aren’t judging me by that.

Go to the civil service. They’ll make every single adjustment in place for you, however unreasonable. They’ll probably hire an extra person to ensure all adjustments are in place. And they ever get rid of anyone. Nap in the afternoon? No problem. Can only do 5 hours a day, 3 days a week but still want full pay? Of course. Want to be fully remote? You got it!

OP was not dismissed from an accountancy big 4 - they were dismissed from a consultancy big 4. BIG difference!!! Different jobs!!! Different skill set entirely!!!

😂

This is absolutely spot on 👍

I recently extended someone’s probation.

It’s less of a cowardly move, more a need for more evidence that we as a business did everything to support the employee eg with development plans. Only if we have this evidence that we have done everything possible and the employee is not responding then we should dismiss as a last resort

They failed the accountancy exams. The previous job.

So then why companies pretend that they want to employ people with autism? Why not just say we want the most efficient workers who are contributing from day one - and those with any disability ( for lack of a better word) need not apply. Problem solved and people like op won’t waste their time and hopes.

Also, critical reasoning develop over time with experience and exposure. Being a fresh graduate, op is still very young and looks like with support, she would have developed herself into a well functioning professional.

The Equality Act requires employers to make reasonable adjustments, but it does not mean a whole organisation must reorganise itself around one person.

If adjustments have already been put in place and the underlying issue is that the employee still cannot meet deadlines or core project requirements, the employer is not expected to extend timelines or change service levels for one individual.

They are not required to handhold or micromanage.

I am dyslexic and my company has made reasonable adjustments for me to be able to do my job.

However, it is still my responsibility to carry out my role. It is not my employer’s job to micromanage me every step of the way or to take over tasks that I am expected to perform.

Workplaces have clients, targets and delivery commitments, and they cannot pause operations because one person needs more time.

Reasonable adjustments are intended to help someone meet the same standards as everyone else, not to remove those standards.

Op i’m quite surprised you weren’t aware of this policy. Did you not notice that someone would always ask permission from other participants on previous calls before starting any recording? I can definitely see why the company have concerns with your conduct here.

It’s not just about doing the work, it’s also about relationships and expectations and social interactions. These are sometimes as important as the actual work as they affect the running of projects / teams / the business.

Were/are you in a union? Speak to them if so, and they may be able/willing to make a case with you/on your behalf.

JRM is that you?

Sounds from this and the other threads that op has been let go from several other jobs prior to this. So there could be an issue with op not responding to time and development, including extended probation time to allow this.

Companies aren't allowed to not give someone a job just because they have autism. That would be direct disability discrimation.

They are also required to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate someone with autism and support them to do the job. Not giving reasonable adjustments would be indirect discrimination.

But they don't have to employ someone unsuitable, who can't do the job, and allow them to do whatever they want and give endless support just because that person is autistic.

I think part of the problem is expectation. In school and uni environments saying 'I can't do that, I have autism' is acceptable, and the whole environement/expectations will be altered. This leads people to think that they can walk into a workplace and explain what they need/want and won't/can't do, and that this will be completelty fine. It won't. The job needs to be done, and if it can't be done with some reasonable support, then they will be let go.

There is a tendency in modern disability rights' advocacy, especially online, to assume the world can be divided into "neuro-divergent" people who should receive every possible adjustment and accommodation (no matter how unreasonable), and "allistic" (word for not-autistic), "privileged" people who should make all possible accommodations. It's a childlike, binary view of the world. The world is not that simple. What about when disabled people's needs clash?

One scenario I have encountered is a learning disabled non-verbal child who made high-pitched noises, and an autistic child with noise sensitivity who went into meltdown at such noises, and experienced the first child's happy noises as sensory torture . You can't put those two children in the same session, and no amount of lecturing about inclusion is going to change the second child's misery.

We all have limits and unseen burdens, including allistic people. One colleague at work being expected to give OP detailed instructions on top of her own work may have a parent needing palliative care, or physical health issues of her own that affect her energy levels. Or hey, maybe she actually has zero health issues, to the extent that she is training for the 2028 Olympics so needs to leave work on the dot to get to her coaching session. Her ambitions outside work matter!

It doesn't matter whether the OP is asking for extra support because of a disability or because not, the clock will not stop while those colleagues are writing feedback for the OP. Time continues to progress, their own tasks are not done, and now their job performance is potentially impacted. They could perhaps remedy that by staying at work/on the laptop after hours, but now that's their time lost, whether they wanted to be with family, to be on their own decompressing, or to be pursuing health and fitness goals.

If a colleague has a palatable reason for needing extra help, such as a disability that means they need a bit of extra time to get to grips with the role, decent people will often dig extra deep to find the time to help, but that is time-limited, because they will eventually come up against their own limits. You can't do 1.5 people's work indefinitely without jeopardising your own health.

Burnout is a physical and emotional state. For example, I think a colleague would reach burnout with their workload more quickly if they spent ages composing a considered email of constructive feedback to a new junior colleague, and then received "wdym" back. But that's purely hypothetical. I'm sure nothing like that has ever happened.

I would disagree - I absolutely think autistic people are hated. It's a kind of particularly evil discrimination that people find very easy to justify to themselves.

I also don't think the answer is "just do a low-paid low-status job". No other marginalised group would be expected to put up with that.

If you speak to/message colleagues the way you reply on here im not surprised you failed probation.
I feel for you I really do.
The PP who said we are not doing young people any favours with their constant ‘adjustments’is bang on right,
Youve been to uni, got a degree but haven’t got all of the skills you need to join the working world.
Yes, legally companies have to provide ‘reasonable adjustments’. But this works both ways -they hve to be reasonable to the company too.
You sound like you needed someone with you, checking , advising, giving feedback, making sure everything was explained in triplicate to you -you sound like you needed someone with you constantly hand holding & reassuring .
Why don’t you stop aiming so high?
Something about you simply isn’t fitting in at this level/in this field of work.
It’s not right for you- yet.
Be realistic. Look for roles you can do not roles you want,
You may have to look at minimum wage jobs to develop the skills you need -there’s no shame in this, it is what it is,
I really can’t advise you strongly enough to do this otherwise you will make you unemployable as your cv will be full of 3-9 month posts where you hve failed probation.
Do yourself a favour, step back and do some regular work to develop people skills, to learn to multitask, to handle pressure.
Seriously -it’s the best thing you could do for yourself.

All the OP wants is to be told that someone/some people should have done most of her job for her and that because they didn't they discriminated against her so she should sue them for every penny they've got.

While we all stand on the sidelines clapping and cheering and not a single poster dares to suggest that she might take some personal responsibility.

I think that's evidenced by her responses on this thread and gives a good indication of why she was let go.

Many autistic people are highly employable. Nobody is saying that being autistic means you don't deserve a job. But anyone, autistic or not, who antagonises the business to that extent is going to be moved on.

You just aren’t good at all the things needed to do the job. Sorry if that’s hard to take. You need to find a job that plays to your strengths and demands less of your weaker attributes.

Those of you who get so het up about adjustments at school/uni, what do you think will happen if those are removed? Do you think that people with disabilities will magically buck up their ideas and function normally? Or are you hoping they'll be forced out of higher education and into the kind of menial, low-paid work you think they should have to suck up?

Plenty of marginalised (and non marginalised) people take low status and low paid jobs because that's all they can get (or do). There's no shame nor anything wrong with that. We all have different skills as humans and work should reflect the skills we do have.

And suddenly things become clear. You can be honest and clear without being rude.

My son has managed to learn this by 13 (he is autistic just in case it wasn’t clear).

No, but they do give a false layer of security. Many of the "reasonable adjustments" in school are unreasonable to the staff and other students in my experience.