At what point do reasonable adjustments become an unfair operational burden on the rest of the team?
I’m looking for some perspective on a resource allocation issue that has pushed our office to breaking point.
Over the last 12 months, our team headcount has naturally deflated from 12 down to 7 due to retirements, maternity leave, and transfers. Management has no plans to backfill these roles. Out of the remaining 7 staff, 2 have reasonable adjustments (RAs) that allow them to work entirely from home.
Because we are a public-facing operational delivery site, the WFH staff are restricted to telephone appointments and admin. They cannot cover face-to-face delivery. As a result, the most complex, stressful, and physically demanding workloads are being disproportionately dumped onto the remaining 5 office-based staff.
To cope with the deficit, management’s brilliant solution has been to cut our allocated time per task/appointment. We are being actively pressured to work faster and squeeze a 12-person workload out of a 5-person office presence, all while the 2 WFH staff are entirely shielded from this pressure due to the nature of their adjustments.
The atmosphere in the office is toxic with resentment. We are all on the same grade and hourly pay, yet the office-based staff are grafting to the point of burnout, while management hides behind RAs to avoid addressing a blatant staffing crisis.
At what point do reasonable adjustments become actively discriminatory or detrimental to the health and safety of the rest of the team? Has anyone successfully challenged management or involved the union when RAs are used to justify an unsustainable workload for everyone else?