Disability in the workplace advice.

[user1482956724]

My job is office based. I've been there for 2 years and 6 months.

I'm registered disabled and due to an office relocation a year ago, I have a long commute. The commute and normal full time hours are tough going, but as a single woman, I can't afford to change my job to a part time one and as it's a select field I work in, finding a local job is difficult, although I am looking.

If there's a requirement to be at home, we can work from home and we are geared for remote working. The only thing missing at home is a printer and postage, but the letters we send are not a daily occurrence. But work can still be done and printing reserved to the next working day.

Anyway, my boss and I don't see eye to eye, she recently passed me up on promotion in favour of a less qualified person stating my interview wasn't good enough. Fair enough. I've long said I don't feel valued or supported. So, in an attempt to tick the box of being supportive, she offered to send me for an IMASS assessment to see what she could do to help me feel supported.

I had my assessment and the Dr who did that and the report recommended I work from home whenever feasible. So it was a bit ambiguous. Meeting today with my boss and she said sorry, your job isn't suited to home working. But if you have a specific need to be home then we can accommodate that.

Hence my wording of ticking box exercise. Can anyone offer any advise on what, if anything I can do? My job can be done at home, ok, not 5 days a week, but it can be done 2/3 days a week. I have to err on the side of caution because if I ruffle feathers, she really will make my life hell, but I've simply had enough of her manipulative ways. I want to stand up for my rights, but I need to know if I have any?

You have two rights

1. Right to reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act - this entails you to request, for example, a reasonable adjustment to enable you to work from home eg on Mondays and Fridays, to alleviate the burden of your long commute, which is causing you considerable fatigue. You could strengthen your case by asking your GP for a letter to include reference to your disability.

1. Separate to (1) you have a right to request flexible working, for which your employer should have a policy, which could also enable you to request wfh 2 days per week. Here your employer could more easily decline your request with a business rationale eg "we need you in the office 5 days a week because of xyz business reason"

(1) above is more likely to be successful because no matter how amazing your boss thinks she is, she won't be able to magic away the fact you have a disability. Also, be aware you are protected from disability discrimination from day 1 so it doesn't matter that you've been there 2 years or 2 days, you have the right to be put on a level playing field with those who do not have a disability. Hopefully this helps.

Thank you. That's very useful.

I will contact our HR department as it's no good trying to talk to my boss. She a) hates being challenged and b) hates being wrong. It's her way or no way. It will just take some careful handling on my part.

HR is a much better route. Also don't forget to get any agreement in writing from them, so it is binding. Your manager could try to play silly-b's but if it's in writing I bet they're the type of person to back off, esp in the case of a legal protection such as disability. Any change they try to make in the future needs way more justification that they're likely to muster up!

Thank you. We're a very large organisation very much in the frontline. Its ironic that we are geared to work remotely, laptops, mobile phones, internet phone lines etc. But apparently we cant work from home. Yet my manager does so frequently. The only thing i cant do from home is print and post, but the majority of our work is online.

I had a manager like that once. Complete pain in the backside yet doing all the box ticking whilst acting hypocritically about home working. Definitely go through HR. Find someone who is less interested in having a bit of petty power over a subordinate and more interested in the organisations fulfilling its legal obligations properly.

If others doing your job work at home that will help!