To ask what are the benefits of me asking my workplace to recognise my disabilities?

[Chefpig]

I count myself as disabled as I have two ongoing illnesses. One is mental health. I've had three weeks absence just now for both illnesses which have flared up. My work ethic and attendance is usually excellent apart from a period of 13 days last year when I was off with mental health. When I disclosed my anxieties about being off work this long this time to my boss he told me he has absolutely no issues with me taking time out to recover, that he wants to me take the time to recover to full health and come back only when I'm ready.

I have been wondering about formally logging my illnesses as disabilities with my employer, but I'm not sure if this is necessary. I guess for my protection. My employers are very lenient. I can spend 20 mins in the bathroom in the office if I'm having a flare up from my illness and no one bats an eyelid, so I'm not sure what I want from it really.

Request a referral to Occupational Health. They can assess your health conditions and make recommendations to your manager regarding any adjustments which they may wish to consider to support you in the workplace.

It may be helpful if in the future you need any reasonable adjustments. As long as you feel you can trust your manager I would definitely disclose it.

As PP says, an OH referral could help them understand better how to support you which can also help with attendance improving longer term too.

They have a legal duty to support you with reasonable adjustments. It sounds like they already know about your health conditions though?

Reasonable adjustments if I’m sick because of my condition it’s not treated the same on the sick policy. I got special equipment which helps and best of all I was able to consolidate my full time hours into 4 days (I’m a lecturer) which makes the biggest difference to work life balance

I did this; my workplace and colleagues knew about my disability, but the formality of the OH assessment made the adjustments clearer and gave me something to remind my manager of on occasion, and made things less awkward when they changed. It also makes it more 'official' so that colleagues take it that bit more seriously, as it's a 'hidden' one.

I have disabilities which I disclosed to my employer. I guess the question is what support might you want from them or what might you want them to be flexible with? They can't support you if they don't know what you need. I disclosed that I was struggling to keep up with some particular admin tasks in my role, and this was able to translate into a one-on-one support for an hour a week with these tasks which is really useful.