Urgently need your advice for a family member having issues at work

[advice999]

Hi everyone.

Thanks very for a great forum with so much wealth of information. I'm hoping someone could give me some advise on current on-going issues my sister is having with an employer and she's getting extremely stressed with the situation. She is currently so stressed out, that I've had to write this on her behalf and with her permission.

I'll give you a bit of background, but will try to keep it as brief as possible, but there has been a lot going on, so please bear with me.

Her Health

• She has multiple mental and physical health problems - deafness, depression, stress, anxiety, low confidence, stuttering, backache, bells palsy - some I can't mention as I'm restricted with what I'm allowed to share.
• She has been on medication all her life and she sees various consultants for these issues.

Her Past Employment

• She's been working with the same large organisation for approx 7 years in one dept as a clerical typist worker. This dept was very empathetic and after an occupational health report, they were very supportive in providing reasonable adjustments, such as time-off for appts, late start at work due to medication side-effects, reduced workload and part-time hours etc. This allowed her to excel in her role and actually exceed the minimum requirements and management were very pleased with this. She applied for a promotion in a different dept for a full-time role and succeeded. The role wasn't for a clerical typist, but without stating too much, it still involves 99% working-time on computers.

Her Current Employment

• She started her new role about 4 months ago. But before she actually started her new role, her old manager met up and explained her conditions and reasonable adjustments to her new manager as they are all in the same building and same floor.
• However upon starting the role, her new manager advised that due to it being a totally new role, any reasonable-adjustments, bar the break-times, would be withdrawn, as he believed that the new role was totally different and also he felt occupational health needed to be reassess her health, in order for him to decide what reasonable-adjustments he should make. She complained, but eventually reluctantly agreed as she assumed that her manager was doing what was best for her.
• Whilst awaiting for the occupational health report though, within a short frame of time, she started to became ill, such as feeling very stressed, sleepless nights, anxiety. She felt this was due to the current pressures of the role, due to it being full-time and due to the reasonable adjustments being withdrawn.
• She decided to do what she felt was right and spoke to her new manager about her problem, expecting some empathy and support. However her manager turned against her and after their private meeting, he wrote an email stating that my sister was not willing to take responsibilities or wanting to work the current role. Basically the email twisted everything that she had told him. It was eventually agreed that they would wait until the occupational health report came through before deciding next course of action.
• However around 1 week before the occupational health report was due, her manager called her into a meeting and advised that although the report hadn't been released, he preempted that it may state reduction of hours and responsibilities and if it did, he said her that he would block this request from the occupational expert on the basis of business needs. He also said that she would be blocked from unreasonable flexible hours, even though this role could be worked at anytime during the week, day or night and she also was denied to work from home until she is fully trained, even though most training is completed and she only needs to ask occasional questions which can be done via skype chats and emails.
• He is now giving her the cold shoulder treatment, whilst being friendly with the rest of the team. Sometimes he's nice, but most of the times, he ignores her. This is making her life hell and already she has been off-sick due to this. All she wants to do is get on with her work.
• Even though he has since received the report, he's not informing her of his decision and delaying answering it as much as possible.

1. Could you please help give us any advice for this?
2. What do you make of this situation?
3. Do you think what he's doing is fair or is it discrimination?
4. What is the law for this kind of scenario?
5. What should she do?

Thanks very much and I eagerly look forward to your reply.

Advice999

[ULA]

Seeing as this is a large organisation has HR been involved in any of the recent discussions?
If not has your sister spoken to HR about the current situation?
Did your sister request to see a copy of the repot from OH? If not I would suggest that she asks to see a copy of it then she is fully aware of any reasonable adjustments that OH have recommended to be made.

[advice999]

Seeing as this is a large organisation has HR been involved in any of the recent discussions?
If not has your sister spoken to HR about the current situation?
Did your sister request to see a copy of the repot from OH? If not I would suggest that she asks to see a copy of it then she is fully aware of any reasonable adjustments that OH have recommended to be made.

Hi Ula,

Firstly, thank you very much for your reply. She hasn't spoken to HR directly - only what the manager has told her that HR asked him to do.

Yes my sister has seen the copy of the report and it's recommended less workload, less hrs etc and involvement of access to work - none of which have so far been implemented.

[ULA]

What I would suggest your sister does is:

1. The meeting that she had with her manager when he pre-empted the report from OH she needs, as far as she can accurately recall, make some notes of what he said at that meeting, she also needs to record the date and if possible the time it took place.
2. I suggest she sends an email to HR asking them for a meeting in regard to the contents of the OH report and to start a discussion about how they, together with her manager, are going to facilitate implementing the recommendations that will allow her to continue to do her job given her health conditions but that will also ensure that the work gets done for her new department.

[advice999]

1. Regarding the meeting - Thankfully, she's already noted the discussion and know sthe exact date and approx time.

2. Regarding HR - I didn't even know that you could do that....I thought it was only the manager whom would deal with them regarding her health situation. But wouldn't going directly to HR, thus bypassing her manager, cause more issues?

Also I know it's only an opinion, but does it sound like the manager is doing wrong in anyway?

Thanks.

[ULA]

Brilliant on her noting the discussions.

In most organisations I have worked at/with HR would be actively involved with the line manager in regard to any OH report that resulted in recommendations for reasonable adjustments to be made to accommodate health issues. Although this is only my experience and the HR department in your sister's organisation may not get involved in this aspect.

I am concerned, given what you have described, that the manager is not giving much if any consideration to the OH report, also knowing that he was aware from your sister's previous manager about the adjustments that had been made which allowed her to successful work in that manager's team.

If your sister does not want to involve HR as this point and leave that for later if things do not work out, then I suggest that she asks her manager for a meeting to discuss the conclusions of the OH report and what recommendations he is able to consider implementing to support her in her work environment and to do her job effectively.

[advice999]

Brilliant on her noting the discussions.

In most organisations I have worked at/with HR would be actively involved with the line manager in regard to any OH report that resulted in recommendations for reasonable adjustments to be made to accommodate health issues. Although this is only my experience and the HR department in your sister's organisation may not get involved in this aspect.

I am concerned, given what you have described, that the manager is not giving much if any consideration to the OH report, also knowing that he was aware from your sister's previous manager about the adjustments that had been made which allowed her to successful work in that manager's team.

If your sister does not want to involve HR as this point and leave that for later if things do not work out, then I suggest that she asks her manager for a meeting to discuss the conclusions of the OH report and what recommendations he is able to consider implementing to support her in her work environment and to do her job effectively.

Thanks ever so much! I feel the advice you've provided is very valuable to us. I'm also very concerned too and I will let her know what she needs to do. Her aim is to work with him, even though he's giving her a hard time, hence only if things get worse will she get HR involved.

I hope you don't mind me asking a few more questions.

1. Is it true that an employer can choose to ignore the recommendations of the OH report, based on business needs, even though it was them in the first place that wanted the OH report?
2. Do they have a right to remove reasonable adjustments placed by a different dept, just because an employee has been promoted/changed depts?

[ULA]

I am glad you have found the information provided useful.

Do you know by any chance whether the company has a policy of making reasonable adjustments if recommended by OH?

That aside unless the manager/company believes the report from OH to be totally unreasonable then the reason they sent your sister to OH is for her to be independently reviewed and the manager/company has asked for advice from OH. I presume she has a copy of the first report and it would be good to compare whether the recommendations of the first report are similar to the one she has just had.

I think they would struggle to justify as to why you cannot implement any of the adjustments that have been suggested by the new OH report if they are similar to the first report. It may be that if there are new suggestions, they might not be able to facilitate those adjustments if, for example, they were too costly but the company certainly has to give them serious consideration and it may be that they're not reasonable at that point.

There is the issue of one department already working with your sister to provide some level of reasonable adjustment in order for her to do her job and the new manager was already aware what had been done. Although you say she is not doing entirely the same work it sounds like it is still an office-based role with a large amount of computer-based work so not fundamentally dissimilar from her previous role which facilitated the reasonable adjustments.

I think what it will come down to is understanding any justifications the new manager/company comes back with for not implementing some or all of the OH recommendations. From that it will be easier to consider whether this is potentially a discrimination issue.

[advice999]

Thanks for your help ula. I've sent you a PM.

[ULA]

I'll take a look