WEBINAR: When Accommodation Requests Become Conflict
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About the webinar
By the time a workplace accommodation request lands on a mediator’s desk, the dispute is rarely about the accommodation itself. It is about what came before the request, and how the employer responded once it arrived. For practitioners working with neurodivergent employees, this is where the real work happens.
A 90 minute live webinar for HR professionals, mediators, conflict coaches, employment lawyers, counsellors, and EAP practitioners.
Workplace accommodation conflicts involving neurodivergent employees are appearing more frequently in HR processes, mediations, and tribunals. The Australian Fair Work Commission has seen a steady increase in cases involving ADHD, autism, and related conditions. The United Kingdom has recorded a 95 per cent rise in tribunal claims involving neurodiversity discrimination over five years.
These disputes share a recognisable shape. An employee has been struggling, often masking, sometimes already on a performance improvement plan. They disclose, often as a defensive move, and ask for an adjustment. The employer experiences this as a sudden development. Trust on both sides has already eroded. By the time a third party becomes involved, the relationship is in adversarial mode and the original adjustment has become almost impossible to discuss.
This webinar gives practitioners a working framework for understanding these conflicts at the level they actually operate. It draws on current research, recent Australian case law, and the same conceptual foundations that run through the Working With Neurodivergent Clients in Conflict course.
What You Will Take Away
By the end of the session you will be able to:
- Recognise the five most common patterns that accommodation conflicts follow, and identify which one you are looking at
- Understand why most of these conflicts begin well before the formal request is made, and what that means for how you hear the parties’ accounts
- Distinguish between behaviour and the manifestation of disability in performance and conduct disputes, including how the Purvis decision shapes Australian discrimination law in this area
- Identify the structural choices employers can make (universal design, dynamic workplace design) that prevent these disputes from forming in the first place
- Apply a practitioner level framework drawn from the cross cultural translator role, helping parties understand how the work environment itself produces the disadvantage
Who this is for
This session is pitched at practitioners working with workplace conflict, including:
- HR professionals managing accommodation requests and grievances
- Workplace and commercial mediators
- Conflict coaches working with managers or employees
- Employment lawyers
- EAP counsellors and workplace psychologists
- Anyone supporting neurodivergent employees through workplace disputes
No prior knowledge of neurodiversity frameworks is assumed. This is a standalone session, although it builds on the same foundations as the Working With Neurodivergent Clients in Conflict course.
About your trainer
