Can employer overturn reasonable adjustments?

[SweetLike123]

My employer agreed to some reasonable adjustments a few months ago. These included having the office door closed, and limiting the amount of team members in my office to three. There is only space for three, but extra people would crowd the room with laptops and be quite disruptive having adhoc meetings and conference calls on a regular basis.

My team has now been relocated to an open plan office. There aren't any permanent spaces for us so we are having to hot desk, which is an issue for me, as is the open plan environment at the moment.

Does anyone know where I stand with my reasonable adjustments? Work are not adhering to them now, but can they overturn them just like that if they agreed to them initially?

I am worried that when I have a conversation about this with my manager, I will be told to go off sick if I can't cope

What are the reasonable adjustments for? Is it a diagnosed medical condition?

If the whole team are open plan you need to discuss new adjustments because the previous ones no longer apply. I've never heard of being allowed your own office as an adjustment because it's simply not how most modern offices are set up. There's plenty of jobs out there that may be more suitable where you could have your own spaces eg I work on my own.

Thought I replied to you @Maskin but it has disappeared.

It is a health problem that various health professionals agree is a disability and my employer and Occupational Health acknowledge that.

@stucknoue I am not asking for my own office. Although I was advised by a charity that I could ask for that, but I think it would be problematic for my team. Lots of people at work do have their own offices or smaller ones, less than 30% of the organisation is open plan (we all work in the same place).

I am job hunting and have been for months. It's hard, I've got some other stuff going on health wise which isn't related to this, but I am trying.

Ultimately I was coping with the setup I had before, and I am really struggling again now that it has changed. Manager is rarely present, hard to get hold of etc. I guess I feel stuck because I don't know what to do if they say well it's the current situation or go off sick? Our old office is now vacant, we were moved because my manager likes the open plan office. Our office was a bit old and tired.

Reasonable adjustments can change, what is reasonable depends on the structure of the business and your condition, these things can change with time.

If possible, approach your manager with solutions. Rather than "I need to sit in a less busy area", go with "There is space for me to sit in x place, it is quieter there and I am still close enough to communicate with the team".

It's not up to you to think up or work out adjustments, but you know your condition better than anyone else and therefore you're best equipped to know what works for you.

Thank you @MrsMaiselsMuff

Whilst you say that the onus isn't on me, at what point would my employer be expected to do more to support me? Would it be if they were looking to dismiss be based on sickness absence, for example?

I am battling to stay at work so I don't have sickness absence flagging as I am job hunting.

All I would like is an assigned desk that I can use on the days I am in, if not to be permanently assigned one. 95% of the open plan office have permanent desks. There is a bank for hot desking that is always full by 08.15. My disability means it is hard for me to get in at the same time every day, so I have a flexible working arrangement in place. If I get in at 08.45, there won't be a desk for me. And there is some pre booking thing which meant I got told I couldn't sit at the desk I was at for three days running this week. When I got booted out, there was nowhere else to go, so I went back to my old office. Manager has been on leave all week but is back next week.

He said last week that I can't have a permanent desk if the rest of my team don't have one because it isn't fair. Not sure what else I can suggest if I can speak with him next week...

There is a bank for hot desking that is always full by 08.15. My disability means it is hard for me to get in at the same time every day, so I have a flexible working arrangement in place. If I get in at 08.45, there won't be a desk for me.

Well, this is indirect discrimination per the Equality Act, which is unlawful. So he may wish to revisit his definition of unfairness.

Might be worth a phone call to Acas before you speak to them again to get yourself clear on where you stand?

He said last week that I can't have a permanent desk if the rest of my team don't have one because it isn't fair

Clearly an Employer who needs training on what it means to comply with the Equality Act (2010). The concept of fairness is inappropriate in this context unless it means fairness towards you to make it a more level playing field between you (with your Disability) and others who do not have same.

In my workplace we have hotdesking combined with Fixed Desk approach. After an HR/Occ Health assessment an employee is allocated a suitable desk based on position or suitability which is theirs for all days they are in the office. They ensure for all days they are not in the office they make it visible the desk is available for use so the desk doesn't lie fallow. It's a green sign if available and a red sign if required for use by the disabled employee as their Reasonable Adjustment. A label is on the desk saying Fixed Desk.

Can you select a suitable desk and suggest a similar approach as your Reasonable Adjustment?

If however you are looking for a new job and likely to be handing in your notice soon you may not need to worry!

Also I meant to mention your employer is running the gauntlet by reconfiguring your office accommodation and riding roughshod over your existing RA agreed. That's appalling. Legally if they refuse to take action to reassess your needs and take a like it or lump it approach when they know you have a disability they are breaching the law. You'd have to go through their Grievance process if they dug their heels in.

Where I work, for any planned change to the environment an impact assessment is conducted to ensure disabled colleagues are supported so their RA isn't removed without reinstating it appropriate to their needs. It's the right thing to do.

If the adjustments are no longer and reasonable (eg certain number of people in your office and now it's open plan) then yes. Depends on whether its practical to give you your own office. They should reassess, but aren't obliged to make adjustments forever if it becomes unreasonable to do so.

They should reassess, but aren't obliged to make adjustments forever if it becomes unreasonable to do so.

Are you giving this advice from a legal perspective Clouds if so, I disagree strongly that they no longer have an obligation. It doesn't sound from the OP that their requirement is unreasonable or difficult to implement, if they have a sensory or MH related disability. In general, "reasonable" is often a matter of affordability - the OPs requirement doesn't appear to be significantly costly.

Just because they have reconfigured their office space, doesn't mean they can shirk their responsibilities as an employer. Doing an the impact assessment and discussing with the affected employee takes little to achieve, when they already know the score. The employee doesn't have the luxury of deciding not to have the disability. Unfortunately, many employers think they can just arbitrarily kick the matter into the long grass.

The pragmatic solution in this case is for the OP to suggest an option that meets their needs, which involves being allocated a fixed desk, they shouldn't be left struggling with no support and told it "isn't fair on other employees" that's rubbish!

daisychain yes if it is no longer reasonable then the employer is no longer obliged, I would expect this to be quite a rare occurence but I have seen it happen eg premises relocated to an environment where putting in a stair lift was a fire hazard, employer is not going to flout fire safety in that situation in order to make a RA.

They would have to argue in court that there was no way round it. I'm not talking about this specific situation but generally.

In this situation the ' no one else has a fixed desk so you can't either' argument doesn't hold much water and would be easy to make a discrimination claim against. But I wasn't talking about this specific situation, the OP's question in the title was more general.

The ACAS guidance on reasonable adjustments actually refers to the “it’s not fair” argument being irrelevant and unfair