Reasonable adjustments yet again

Essentialy the role I do involves dealing direct with customers either via telephone, post or online contact (webchat).

I was recently moved from one team to another as the project I was working on moved onto one of the upper floors of the building, and due to disability I cannot work on the upper floors.

On my old team I again took calls from 3 lines of business, dealt with post, and did webchats.

On the phone I dealt with 3 incoming lines of business. This ensured that the work was of sufficient variation so that it kept my mind occupied/stimulated, and so I am able to better manage my chronic condition (via distraction techniques).

The team I am on now perform the same role, except they only do the phone work on a contingency basis (they are called on when the lines are busy) and only on 1 line of business, for which the calls are generally very repetitive and simple.

I have in place an adjustment which means I work slightly differently to the new team, and I can split work on the phone/post throughout the day/week to ensure that the work isn't able to become too repetitive.

Having those 3 lines of business, which I have over 10 years experience of working on, is essential to make sure the work I do is varied and includes some complicated/interesting cases.

The slightly different way of working on the new team was arranged as a reasonable adjustment and agreed due to the fact that I was not able to remain with the project I was working on previously for no other reason other than the move to an inaccessible (for me) part of the building.

I have it in writing that when moving to the new team I would be able to retain the 3 lines of business as a reasonable adjustment.

They have decided to takeaway 2 of the lines of business as the team I work on doesn't deal with them. Unfortunately for me they are the 2 lineswith the most interesting/stimulating work.

The subject matter is virtually the same (tax), it's just the type of callers (PAYE/Self Assessment/Agents) which make up the lines of business.

The team I am working on only deals with PAYE calls, and it has now been decided that this will be the same for me.

However this wont provide sufficient stimulation for me to manage sitting there all day without my chronic condition being an issue.

The chronic issue is severe pain which never goes away.

By having calls from all 3 lines of business there is enough variation to distract me from feeling the pain as much. This means I can a) get through the day with less very strong opioid based medication (which has it's own side efects including drowsyness/headaches/nausea), and b) it means I can actually work. Being in pain all the time is draining physically and mentally, and prior to this absence from work which is nothing to do with my disability, I had been able to remain in work continuously for over 12 months for the first time in 9 years sime working all these different types of work.

I have the skills, I have the knowledge of these other lines of business (which there is a shortage of), and it's beneficial to my health.

This is a Government department so the size of the business is not an issue. There is no cost implication as no other equipment is needed.

This adjustment has proven to be very effective.

The only reason I can see that it has been removed is because nobody else in this section of the department takes cals from the other 2 lines of business.

This causes no issues however as calls are individually routed to desktop terminals. So if I wasn't in, nobody else on my team would get the calls, they would just be routed to the other teams in the building which do deal with those lines of business. So it doesn't cause an issue in that respect either.

The only way I can see it having an effect is potentially on the cal stats (length of call/wrap up time/etc) with may have an effect on team stats. However none of us a receive any kind of performance related pay/commission, and so any anomaly in team stats can easily be explained.

At no time have they discussed the change with me, nor have they sought advice from Occ Health before taking this action.

Undervalued wrote: »

You obviously feel the adjustments you want / need are reasonable (any you may well be right).

However either....

They no longer agree for reasons for that have not been fully explained or you are ignoring.

or

This is little more than the type of administrative mess up that is all too common and it simply needs someone more senior to make a decision and enforce it.

I really doubt anybody here can solve this for you. Are you a member of a union or do have legal expenses cover maybe via you house insurance?

One final point.....

Whilst obviously I sympathise and am surprised by the adjustment that means you get a higher proportion of "interesting" work as a distraction from chronic pain. That presumably means your colleagues get a higher proportion of "boring" work and I wonder how they feel about that? It is certainly not a type of reasonable adjustment I am familiar with.

It's not that they get more boring work. They are not trained on the 2 lines of business that have been taken away from me, and so wouldn't be dealing with that work anyway.

The team I work with now only deals with PAYE tax calls and not self assessment.

Undervalued wrote: »

OK, so who is doing those two lines of work? Might that give a clue as to why the department feel the adjustment is no longer reasonable?

Those lines of business are dealt with by the contact centre/customer service centre, the latter of which I was a part of until their move.

The new team deals with telephone calls on a flexi/contingency basis (they take calls at busy times and can be called onto/taken off the phone at short notice). These are the same calls which the contact centre/customer service centre take, it's just that the team/department I am on now only take PAYE calls as they are not fully trained in subject that the other line of business deals with.

There are more than enough calls to go around so it's not like I'm taking work off anyone else.