Autism, Neurodiversity and Employment

Autism and Employment is a tricky issue. If someone has a sought after skill and they are good at what they do (or they excel in a niche skill), then they will stand a better chance of getting employment. Employers will bend over backwards to keep them when they have skills that are difficult to replace.

When someone does not have what are deemed valuable skills, then things get more difficult. If they have poor social skills, then finding employment will be very difficult. Some people can’t get past the interview stage for various reasons from not understanding what is expected to not being able to speak when under pressure. Other autistic people have no idea whether they are good at something or not: they may say they can do something even when they can’t do it to the correct standard. This is generally due to a misunderstanding of what the standard is and what level they are at.

We do workplace assessments. These are always much harder when someone has come across neurodiversity activism. It does not help that because Dr Guest has a diagnosis they assume she will agree with them. This can make it difficult to convince an employee that there are steps they can and should take to help their employer help them.

Neurodiversity activism believes that if someone is struggling then it is the the fault of the employer because it is the environment that is disabling, not the autism. It is not helpful to blame everything on the employer - though this can make the employee feel better about themselves. Just as it is not helpful to blame everything on the employee for something they struggle with, but don’t understand about themselves. The starting point should be that both the employee and the employer are doing their best and handing the situation with the knowledge they have.

In addition, businesses exist to serve a specific purpose which is to be profitable. For this reason an employer can only be expected to do what is reasonable within the context of their business. Failure to acknowledge this can lead to a significant challenges and often an employer will adapt strategies that tick boxes in order to meet their legal obligations rather than address the context of the situation between the needs of both the employer and employee.

More and more we are seeing HR teams utilising occupational health assessments to mitigate the risk of a negative tribunal outcome. This will tend to lead to the focus being more about what the employee cannot do due to their diagnosis and will often just provide very general accomodations (if any) that may not suit the needs of the individual as it often focuses on the diagnosis and not the specific difficulties of the person. At worst, because of a lack of understanding of autism, the occupational health doctor will make assumptions and say that the autistic person cannot do things they actually can do - such as manage other people or be in a customer facing role.

Aspiedent’s approach is different: we provide the knowledge they both need. Knowledge for the employer to create a work environment that is supportive of the cognitive diversity of all their staff and knowledge for the employee to have a deeper understanding of themselves, with often life changing results both in and outside employment.

For example, if you have an employee whose main issue turns out to be fragmented processing, how is it the employer’s fault that they are not accommodating for something they have never heard of and which the employee does not know they have? It is equally also not the fault of the employee: they have spent their life struggling with the issue and not understanding why either. Occupational health doctors cannot be expected to be of assistance in this situation because they don’t have the specialist knowledge required.

It is common for a complaint regarding an employee to be that they lack focus in their job and that they are easily distracted. But this is sometimes a symptom of something else, such as a processing issue, how someone learns, or how someone reasons. Occasionally, it is due to ADHD, but often employers jump to the conclusion that it is something to do with personality, or the person is lazy.

Processing issues can make someone appear inattentive when they don’t take in what is said to them. Someone who needs to understand something as a whole can appear inattentive as they attempt to build a structure from what you just said to them. And someone with delayed processing may appear inattentive in the moment, because their brains need time to process the information that has been presented to them. When you don’t judge an issue at face value, and investigate what the ‘why’ behind the issue is, you get a much greater understanding of how different people’s brains work and what they need to do their best work.

The solution is understanding the ‘why’ behind the employee’s struggles and educating both the employer and the employee on what that ‘why’ is, what it means, and how they can both contribute to easing the issue at work - often with very small and reasonable changes. For example, sometimes cheap software, or a simple change in management practices, or changing the way feedback is presented can go a long way towards solving the issues.

How to fix the problems caused by autism, ADHD, or other related conditions, means looking at the job, the environment and how this interacts with an individual’s autism or cognitive makeup - even people who would not qualify for a diagnosis can have difficulties in the workplace because of their cognitive makeup.

Some neurodiversity activism and much of the information on the internet, is causing problems to the point of preventing autistic people gaining employment and keeping employment, because of misunderstanding and over-generalisation. Greater focus needs to be put on the individual, the context of the environment and the context of the situation they are in. Generalisation tends to lead to false assumptions, and false assumptions are very likely to lead to suffering and injustice.

It is far better to work out what the individual autistic difficulties actually are.