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I mean, discussing your work with your coworkers is a pretty reasonable workplace responsibility. What's illegal about asking if someone was comfortable doing i

I mean, discussing your work with your coworkers is a pretty reasonable workplace responsibility. What's illegal about asking if someone was comfortable doing it?

hnra 8y ago
Not discussing, talking about. Not work, accomplishments. Not comfortable, liking it. I guess those would be the differences. "Do you like talking about your accomplishments with the rest of your team?" "Are you comfortable discussing your work with the rest of your team?"
- ascar 8y ago
  But why shouldn't companies be able to hire only employees that like and fit into how the company is run, i.e. culture fit. Every company is different and attracts different kinds of employees for various reasons. Anti-discrimination is important, but it shouldn't go too far.
  - andrewingram 8y ago
    The key is to make your culture filter not cause people who actually would be a good fit to self-filter. Mental illness is insidious because it can make people who actually would enjoy something if given the right push instead think/assume that they don't want to do it. It affects a large enough percentage of the population that it's something companies need to be thinking about. One of my friends worked for a company where one of the official values was "100%", and to me this was problematic because different people would understand it to mean different things. Some would assume that it just means that everyone works hard, that it's not a cushy job. Whilst others would interpret it to mean that everyone works crazy hours and is expected to give their life to the business at the expense of other commitments. My friend couldn't recognise that different people would interpret the value differently, so believed it was a perfectly reasonable way to get the wrong kinds of candidates to self-filter.
- hawkice 8y ago
  I'm not sure there's any legal significance to those minute phrasing changes.
jodrellblank 8y ago
I was wondering this, I thought the discrimination was about disability, particularly, and "depression and social anxiety" are casually considered illnesses rather than disabilities. https://www.gov.uk/reasonable-adjustments-for-disabled-workers https://www.gov.uk/reasonable-adjustments-for-disabled-worke... says "Employers must make reasonable adjustments to make sure workers with disabilities, or physical or mental health conditions, aren’t substantially disadvantaged when doing their jobs." and the examples given on the gov.uk site include a specific mention of an anxiety disorder "doing things another way, such as allowing someone with social anxiety disorder to have their own desk instead of hot-desking" But I don't know where "reasonable adjustments" comes in with this. "I have social anxiety and don't want to present in front of a group, may I send an email instead" sounds reasonable to me. "I don't want to send an email, someone else will have to do this part of the job" doesn't sound reasonable. You don't reasonably hire one person to do a job, then hire another person to the parts the first person cannot do, right? But I'm no lawyer.
- hawkice 8y ago
  Considering it is an email in the case of Stripe, I think you're analysis is correct.

I mean, discussing your work with your coworkers is a pretty reasonable workplace responsibility. What's illegal about asking if someone was comfortable doing it?

hnra 8y ago

Not discussing, talking about. Not work, accomplishments. Not comfortable, liking it. I guess those would be the differences. "Do you like talking about your accomplishments with the rest of your team?" "Are you comfortable discussing your work with the rest of your team?"

ascar 8y ago
But why shouldn't companies be able to hire only employees that like and fit into how the company is run, i.e. culture fit. Every company is different and attracts different kinds of employees for various reasons. Anti-discrimination is important, but it shouldn't go too far.
- andrewingram 8y ago
  The key is to make your culture filter not cause people who actually would be a good fit to self-filter. Mental illness is insidious because it can make people who actually would enjoy something if given the right push instead think/assume that they don't want to do it. It affects a large enough percentage of the population that it's something companies need to be thinking about. One of my friends worked for a company where one of the official values was "100%", and to me this was problematic because different people would understand it to mean different things. Some would assume that it just means that everyone works hard, that it's not a cushy job. Whilst others would interpret it to mean that everyone works crazy hours and is expected to give their life to the business at the expense of other commitments. My friend couldn't recognise that different people would interpret the value differently, so believed it was a perfectly reasonable way to get the wrong kinds of candidates to self-filter.
hawkice 8y ago
I'm not sure there's any legal significance to those minute phrasing changes.

jodrellblank 8y ago

I was wondering this, I thought the discrimination was about disability, particularly, and "depression and social anxiety" are casually considered illnesses rather than disabilities. https://www.gov.uk/reasonable-adjustments-for-disabled-workers https://www.gov.uk/reasonable-adjustments-for-disabled-worke... says "Employers must make reasonable adjustments to make sure workers with disabilities, or physical or mental health conditions, aren’t substantially disadvantaged when doing their jobs." and the examples given on the gov.uk site include a specific mention of an anxiety disorder "doing things another way, such as allowing someone with social anxiety disorder to have their own desk instead of hot-desking" But I don't know where "reasonable adjustments" comes in with this. "I have social anxiety and don't want to present in front of a group, may I send an email instead" sounds reasonable to me. "I don't want to send an email, someone else will have to do this part of the job" doesn't sound reasonable. You don't reasonably hire one person to do a job, then hire another person to the parts the first person cannot do, right? But I'm no lawyer.

hawkice 8y ago
Considering it is an email in the case of Stripe, I think you're analysis is correct.