Reasonable Adjustments and Working From Home

pfas

Hello, 

I recently had to complete a DSE Assessment with an external provider and because I have some health issues, which I've had surgery for, they advised that I should have an adapted chair and a desk which can raise/lower as required. 

The outcome of the assessment was sent to the employer, who passed the assessment to management who advised they wouldn't pay for the items to be able to work from home but only to work from the office. They went further and advised that they would no longer allow WFH (Working From Home) if it couldn't be done without the adjustment and there would be a need to be 100% office based. However, every single other member of the team was allowed to hybrid work and WFH and work in the office as they didn't need to have any adjustments and be provided with additional equipment. The business could provide a standard seat from stock they hold these were available to anyone but nothing that was suitable. 

WFH itself is classed as a reasonable adjustment because it helps with the conditions, which this option has now been removed, which is completely treating me differently to everyone else on the team, I feel this is discriminatory.

As the adjustments were suggested by the company's DSE assessors, would the request be considered as a reasonable adjustment under the Equalities Act? Has anyone had and experience of these kind of issues?

Undervalued

It is not clear from your post if your condition amounts to a disability for employment law purposes?

If it does, then yes they are obliged to make "reasonable adjustments". If however you are (sorry about the phrase) "only ill" and not disabled they are not obliged to make any adjustments. In effect they can say do your normal job in the normal way or stay off sick until you can.

Working from home can, in some circumstances, be an appropriate reasonable adjustment. However, unless less an adjustment is legally required or working from home is a contractual entitlement it is up to the employer whether to allow it or not. Obviously, for example, if they said only the women can work from home and the men can't, that would be unlawful discrimination. However most types of "discrimination" (apart from the legally prohibited grounds) are perfectly lawful.

housebuyer143

Has the company bought your colleagues chairs and desks for when they work at home? If not, I don't see how you can claim discrimination. If you want to work at home and require a specific chair and desk then you would need to buy it. If they are providing desks and chairs to colleagues then yes they should buy you what you need. 
If you don't want to buy it the company is covering themselves by saying that you must work in the office full time because you don't have the required equipment to work from home. 

If your colleagues didn't have the internet, would your employer buy it for them, or would they tell them that they need to work where they have internet access, ie the office.

Undervalued

housebuyer143 said:

Has the company bought your colleagues chairs and desks for when they work at home? If not, I don't see how you can claim discrimination. If you want to work at home and require a specific chair and desk then you would need to buy it. If they are providing desks and chairs to colleagues then yes they should buy you what you need. 
If you don't want to buy it the company is covering themselves by saying that you must work in the office full time because you don't have the required equipment to work from home. 

If your colleagues didn't have the internet, would your employer buy it for them, or would they tell them that they need to work where they have internet access, ie the office.

Morally maybe. However legally that isn't necessarily true. In most circumstances there is no legal obligation to treat all employees the same unless the reason amounts to unlawful discrimination on protected grounds. 

prettyandfluffy

Catch 22 I think: they will provide the equipment at the office so if you can work from home you can manage without it ....? 

Suzycoll

pfas said:

Hello, 

I recently had to complete a DSE Assessment with an external provider and because I have some health issues, which I've had surgery for, they advised that I should have an adapted chair and a desk which can raise/lower as required. 

The outcome of the assessment was sent to the employer, who passed the assessment to management who advised they wouldn't pay for the items to be able to work from home but only to work from the office. They went further and advised that they would no longer allow WFH (Working From Home) if it couldn't be done without the adjustment and there would be a need to be 100% office based. However, every single other member of the team was allowed to hybrid work and WFH and work in the office as they didn't need to have any adjustments and be provided with additional equipment. The business could provide a standard seat from stock they hold these were available to anyone but nothing that was suitable. 

WFH itself is classed as a reasonable adjustment because it helps with the conditions, which this option has now been removed, which is completely treating me differently to everyone else on the team, I feel this is discriminatory.

As the adjustments were suggested by the company's DSE assessors, would the request be considered as a reasonable adjustment under the Equalities Act? Has anyone had and experience of these kind of issues?

hi pfas

I don't think your employer HAS to - by law - carry out all of the reasonable adjustment if they can prove it is 'reasonable', which is the magic word. If they are prepared to carry out the adjustments in the office that may suffice (in their eyes) . Are you saying that you 'have to' WFH and unable to go into the office ?

I have had several Occupational health reports saying i need to WFH re a medical condition but my employer refuses.

In fact I am waiting for another meeting with HR which (it has been suggested)  they may dismiss me as I am unable to work from the office.

Its a minefield

Good Luck 

Savvy_Sue

When we sent everyone home, we asked each person to complete a personal DSE check on their home workstation. This was intended to avoid anyone damaging themselves by working from a laptop on their lap, sitting on the sofa. If anyone needed anything like a monitor or laptop stand, we provided this. In a few cases we provided office chairs. No-one asked for a desk ... 

Despite our best efforts, I KNOW some of my colleagues were indeed working from a laptop on their lap, sitting on the sofa. If I'd been managing such a colleague, I'd have required them to come into the office - we had a core team in each day but there was plenty of space. 

In your case, it may be that the employer does not want to risk you claiming that your issues have been exacerbated because of work. They know that if you are in the office, they can supply all the equipment you need. It may not seem reasonable to them to provide a non-standard chair and an adjustable desk. If you already had what you needed at home they might accept that you were OK to WFH, and I'd certainly discuss that with them, but I think they'd be arguing that they are not being discriminatory, they are complying with H&S legislation. 

If you're in a union, talk to them. 

TheSpiddalKid

This is going to come down to if your illness would be classified as a disability. There are two possible arguments I can foresee. 

The first is, if it is the requirement for you to come into the office in order to do your job and others who are not disabled can WFH then this could be indirect discrimination (a provision, criterion of practice which unfairly affects a disabled person). 

The alternative claim could be the decision that you need to work in the office is in breach of Reg.15, discrimination arising out of a disability.