Deciding whether, when and to whom to disclose
Whether to tell work, how much, and in what words, plus the accommodations worth asking for and a 30-day cadence. Templates HR will not hand you.
For the Work Protection Kit. 30 minutes. Private on this device; nothing is sent anywhere. Not clinical advice.
Who it is for
You are hiring in, holding on, or heading into a conversation you did not choose, and you need to decide what to say before someone decides for you. The kit is not legal advice; it is the preparation that lets you use legal advice if you ever need it.
The short version
- Situation (step 2): hiring, steady, slipping, or already on a performance plan. This picks the scripts; everything else still applies.
- Disclosure (step 3): answer the four questions in order. Whether. When. To whom. How much. Most people skip to "how much" and lose the first three.
- Adjustments (step 4): choose from the matrix, then cut to the two that would change your week. A long accommodation list reads as a demand; two reads as a plan.
- Scripts (step 5): edit the words until they sound like you. The templates are deliberately plain so you can hear where your voice differs.
- Cadence (step 6): what you will check in on, week by week, for a month. This is what makes the conversation a process rather than an event.
- Legal scaffolding (step 7): read it, and know which line you would quote. Then do not quote it unless you have to.
- Export. Keep a dated copy; it is your record of what you asked for and when.
A worked example
An invented reader, so the mechanics are visible. Your answers will differ.
You are steady, you have a new manager, and the old one knew. Step 3 says: whether, yes, because the accommodation already exists; when, in the first one-to-one, not by email; to whom, the manager only; how much, the accommodation and nothing diagnostic. Step 5 gives you the sentence: "I have a health condition I manage well; the one adjustment that matters is a fixed start time, which my previous manager agreed. I would like to keep it." Step 6 is a note in four weeks to confirm it held.
The one thing
Disclose the accommodation, not the diagnosis, wherever the law lets you. The kit shows you where.
Evidence: ambition is the bridge between bipolar and the business idea.