What works in promoting Neurodiversity - Educating and Training Employers

A recent job posting from a new startup foundation had an interesting stat:

Educating and training employers

When asked for the single biggest change needed to help autistic people acquire work, over 50 percent of respondents replied support, understanding or acceptance in the workplace. Meanwhile, a majority of the employers questioned said they were worried about getting support wrong and did not know how to obtain information about supporting neurodivergent employees. We will advance neurodiversity education and advocacy within public and private employers and in the community at large.

"Hello my name is Dan Harris and I'm the founder and CEO of Neurodiversity in Business and I'm really delighted to welcome here today Jane Pierce Jane is one of the founders of a great organization called autism forward"

Highlights from this section:

• Autistic and neurodivergent people can be a valuable pool of talent in the workforce

• Employers should ensure accessibility for neurodivergent individuals to access employment opportunities

• Creating an environment where neurodivergent individuals feel comfortable asking for adjustments can enable existing employees to thrive

• Neurodiversity can lead to avoiding groupthink in the workplace

• Accommodations made for neurodivergent individuals can benefit the whole team

• One example of accommodations made by a law firm was creating a document for team members to share their preferred working practices.

Transcript:

"I think you if you don't, you are missing out on a real pool of talent, if you don't ensure that autistic and neurodivergent people can access employment with you and you are you will not, you will harness and you will enable your own existing employees to thrive. If you create an environment where they are comfortable to ask for adjustments they might need and I mean a huge thing for me about and it seems fairly obvious from the whole of the actual definition of neuro diversity, People really want to avoid groupthink and you're only going to do that if you employ people who think differently and and and and creating an atmosphere in which neurodivergent people can. five is key to that and it's key for the rest of your stuff as well. And I would say that almost always when we have internship schemes, people have said these changes that we make, actually they would benefit all employees that would benefit all our employees if we spoke to them about how best they communicate if they prefer written instructions that they prefer email instructions. And actually, I was at the losses artist first neuro diversity event last last week and one of the law firms there said actually the last couple years, what we've been doing when we put a new new team together, the litigation department, we have a one note document where everybody puts it in their preferred working practices, not just the autistic members of the team, everybody. So we know how we all communicate, how we can best be reached when we can be reached, whether we're working home if we frame. And that to me was absolutely indicative of where an adjustment for that was made with autistic people in mind actually benefits the whole team. And that's been enormously successful with them. "

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