Reasonable adjustments

[ohchristina]

In terms of reasonable adjustments where you have a workplace assessment I wanted to ask if parts of your role/duties or the way you do them are up for discussion as well as the environment etc? I don't want or expect to not do parts of my job but I honestly can't even identify what parts I find hard and what I find overwhelming and pushes me to the edge. I'd like to explore my job role and all the things I do with someone who understands my neurodiverse type and try to think of ways together to enable me to stay in my job.
I don't particularly want or need more tech, headphones or a sign over my head saying "neurodiverse don't approach"
And how does it work if you don't have an office base?

I think generally it's involves things like better specialised equipment , own office. In my experience getting rid of certain parts of the role hasn't been considered.

Yes it definitely can include adjusting duties. I've seen people in customer services roles which involve telephone, email and live chat. They then had an illness which affected their speech so the telephone part of the role has been removed.

BUT it doesn't sound like you have a disability which very obviously affects a particular area such as speech or an arm which doesn't work.

It sounds like you need a specialist in your condition to assess you rather than an specialist in employment/occupational health.
You know your job and your capabilities best and so if the specialist assessed you, you will then be able to help identify the duties which may be difficult and between you come up with idea of what adjustment will help you.

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Yes absolutely it can and should look at you role and not just things like software and your desk set up. For neurodivergence, aside from sensory things I think that's very often about how you do your job.

For me, my adjustments are basically to mitigate the things that can make me seem a bit odd, unreasonable or crap at my job when I'm actually very good at it and a great person to have in a team. As I've got more into senior roles that has become more important. For example

Someone else does my routine admin tasks like approving leave etc because I can sit an stress over not doing them for days

My manager understands I very easily get completely overwhelmed by emails and will quickly start to ignore them totally, so he helps me with that aspect if I need it.

I tend to overcommit, so we review what work I have on regularly through that lens. I find it helpful sometimes to be challenged on what I think I can manage, and it helps in turn with working reasonable hours so I get enough R&R time away from work. This is key as I wfh a lot so it's easy to just keep working isn't it.

I love writing papers and am very good at it, so I'll get given other people's as a calming task sometimes so I can take some time out but still feel productive and useful where otherwise I might stare at my screen feeling awful for half a day. Other people love this as they hate writing papers!

So as you can see they aren't necessarily big things but they recognise what gets in the way of me performing as well as I can and aim to remove those barriers. That's what an adjustment is for.

Sounds like a conversation about how you work, how you like to be managed and communication styles might be useful too