Neurodiversity in the workplace

>>Dan Samosh: Okay so we'll start off now, welcome to our second IDEA social Innovation lab webinar. Uh my name is Dan Samosh, I'm at Queens University in the Employment Relations Studies unit. Uh today we have a webinar with Susan Bruyere, I'll introduce Suzanne in a moment and share a bit about the webinar as well, um but before that I want to make sure that everyone is aware that for this webinar's um captions should be available. If you're having any issues with this please use the Q&A function uh to let us know and we can try to sort that out. Uh you can also email us as well and we can try to make sure in the moment we can help with some of those things. Um before we dig into the webinar as well, I want to give just a really short background on IDEA, uh the research, and kind of practice group that we're a part of called Inclusive Design for Employment Access. Uh our goal is to primarily really create more inclusive labour markets for persons with disabilities and many other identities and experiences, and doing that by largely developing evidence-informed tools, resources through co-design with partners.

So this webinar is a part of our speaker series and our goal with this is to be really, really, really practical, um which is in part why I'm really excited that our second one is with Suzanne Bruyere, because uh Suzanne has done some amazing work in this kind of knowledge to practice space. Uh we're going to hear just a bit about uh the work that she's done. If you do for future webinars have an idea of like, hey you should really have this person or someone else on, please let us know. Um please send us an email to let us know who you'd like to uh to learn from on our webinar series. And our plan is to run the webinars monthly, um so we have another webinar coming up uh in February and I'll tell you about that at the end of this webinar. We'll also be recording these webinars and posting them online at some point soon. So in terms of webinar structure, we have 1 hour today, uh and we'll keep time for your questions at the end. When you do have questions at the end, please use the Q&A function. Uh you can do that throughout the webinar as well, and uh I as along with the team in the background will be monitoring the Q&A and then we'll ask the questions of Suzanne later.

So from there right we have Suzanne Bruyere with us today. Suzanne is a professor of Disability Studies at Cornell University uh also the Director of The Yang Tan Institute on Employment and Disability and the title of Suzanne's talk today is Neurodiversity in the Workplace.

So over to you Suzanne.

>>Susanne Bruyere: Great thank you, Dan, and thanks to our sponsors of this event, I'm delighted to have been invited to contribute to the series. I think it's a wonderful contribution to raising awareness about research in the area of employment and disability and I'm pleased to be a part of that. Um as Dan said the topic I'm going to be focused on is one I have been more concertedly focused on in the last seven or eight years, neurodiversity in the workplace and I'll talk about why that has been. Um first a little bit about our team, the context that I'm speaking to you from, as Dan�mentioned, I am um the academic director of the Yang Tan Institute on Employment and Disability�and our Institute is housed in the it's under the umbrella of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) at uh in at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, that's the campus I'm located on. And our focus is maximizing full inclusion of people with disabilities focusing on employment but also in the greater context of ci civil society. We're an Enterprise unit, that means that we are self-supporting through grants and contracts, uh under the sponsorship of the ILR school, and we, as Dan mentioned, we're very pleased that our model is to conduct research as as University are focused�on doing, but also to do a lot with knowledge translation of the findings of our research. And we do a great deal of diffusion activities, this being an example of how we take try to take our research and make it more openly available and more user accessible to a broader audience. We have a very multidisciplinary team of 70 people, that image uh doesn't reflect all of our team, but uh we have economists, psychologists, special educators, uh statisticians, and many practitioners who work in the field that help us to translate our research to uh tools that are more applicable to the broader stakeholder audience that we serve.

So that's a bit about the context that I'm um coming to you from today. I'm in my Ithaca office as you can see in the background, so in our time together today um here is an overview of what I hope to accomplish, some of the questions that I'm coming to answer. First why an interest as I mentioned in neurodiverse job applicants and employees, why is this a target audience or target area population for focus? What is neurodiversity? In this case, for some of you, that is a new topic. What are some considerations specifically in the recruitment process, where we've done more concerted focus in the last few years, but also more broadly what are ways to improve the interview experience of neurodiverse candidates and subsequently to improve the success of neurodiverse employees throughout employment as well. So we will to talk talk a bit about the broader employment process although we will have a focus on recruitment and interviewing and hiring; and with that, I I'm assuming that there is a pretty broad audience participating with us today, what are the implications for employers, employer representatives like recruiters, ERS managers, co-workers and individuals themselves with autism.

So why an interest in neurodiversity? Um we have been working since the passage of the ADA, and before uh in 1990, been looking broadly at workplace disability inclusion and continue to do so in the ILR school and at The Yang Tan Institute. But in the last seven or eight years have been more concertedly taking what we've learned in that broader uh inquiry over the last 30 plus years and and parlaying that toward an better understanding what's happening with people who are neurodivergent and there's a number of reasons why we have done so. First of all, we look at the prevalence rates of this population uh for children with autism it has moved to 1 in 36 in the most recent statistics from our centers US centers for for Disease Control. This is 2023 statistics, but from data gathered in 2020, and as we look over the last 10 years, this is an increase of over 300%, so this is a staggering jump in the population. And we're not exactly sure whether it's better diagnosis or indeed there is a pre a higher prevalence rate but it is certainly something to pay attention to. Um it is estimated more broadly and I'm and and those are autism statistics, we are�now looking more broadly at the larger population of what's umbrellaed under the term of neurodiversity,�and in that broader umbrella, it's estimated to be what approximately one in five of the general�population using US statistics and that seems to generalize to other countries, other settings�as well that keeps these kinds of statistics, and it's of concern to us in The Yang Tan Institute and�the ILR school because individuals with autism are significantly underemployed. So not only is it an increasingly large proportion of young people, um but when they reach school age and employment age they are disproportionately not able to get into the workforce, and in our preliminary inquiry on why that might be, we see that autistic individuals seem to have difficulty navigating the employment process from recruitment to interviewing to hiring and then sometimes also once in the workplace. And we do know from our research to date, but also drawing from workplace disability inclusion policies, workplace policies and practices inquiries in the past, that things something can be done�to mitigate these barriers. There can, we can use improved workplace neurodiversity inclusive practices and and workplace disability inclusive practices more broadly. So it's worth the conversation to say, what we can be doing differently before I talk about the practices and the barriers we're observing.

I wanted to level-set the understanding of our participants here today, and uh and talk a bit about def definitions around autism and neurodiversity, and I'm drawing broadly from a variety of different sources so you'll see this particular these particulars ones are from 20 2006, 2015. It's the most common, autism specifically is the most�common member of a family called Autism Spectrum Disorders, also known as Pervasive Developmental Disability Disorders. Um you'll you'll hear me using different language, I'll probably talk about uh uh autism as a condition or just use the term "autism" where we're trying to be respectful of what the autism community tells us are their preferred terminology. The umbrella around these terms are more often being used, neurodiversity or neurodivergence in speaking about this population. The autism disorder, coming back to a more clinical uh look at this, is classified in the diagnostic and statistical manual as having six or more symptoms from a list of 12 possible symptoms, which the manual groups into three areas: difficulties in social interaction, communication, and sometimes behaviour; um but it's important to note even though there are these classifications in these diagnostic criteria, that no two people with autism are the same. Its precise form or expression is different in every case as we are more generally in human behaviour and human conditions. Moreover, there may be a most intricate and potentially creative interaction between the autistic traits and the the qualities of the individual. It is these anomalies or distinct characteristics that has uh piqued the interest of uh employers these days and why there is more considered attention to addressing the barriers that prevent these individuals from accessing employment. So broadening the definition and we we think that this is important because uh there are employment barriers for people, many people throughout this neurodiversity spectrum, and so we think it's good to be able to start talking about how what we've learned might generalize to other populations in in the broader neurodiversity concept. um

These differences can include people with Dyspraxia, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Dyscalculia autis Autism as we talked about Tourette Syndrome and others, and um there is, I included in um in this slide some particular, some descriptions that um give you more precise information about each of those. What might be unfamiliar terms Dyspraxia, is physical uh Dyslexia is reading or interpreting words, ADHD we hear a lot more about, as uh can can manifest as an attention or difficulty focusing. Dyscalculia is�difficulty in arithmetical calculations, autism we talked a bit about already and Tourette Syndrome uh can de can um show can be demonstrated may demonstrate repetitive mo movements or unwanted sounds or ticks that can't easily be controlled. So a little bit more about the umbrella of�neurodiversity and the kinds of conditions that might cover, um I'm hoping that this will show for�us, uh let see if I can get this to come up, this is what I think is a really nice short neurodiversity um YouTube uh video that gives us a nice little broad overview. Let's see if I can get this to show right.

{Audio from video}, "Just like our fingerprints all our brains are unique, but for the majority of people their brains are similar enough that there are largely no obvious differences in how they function. They have differences in things like skills, preferences, and styles but mostly their brains mean they perceive the world in the same way, but for others their brains are more fundamentally different. They have differences in things like social understanding, sensory processing, communication, and information processing. These differences are a result of neurological differences such as autism ADHD dyslexia and more. This natural variation in our brains is called "neurodiversity."

Those of us with no neurological conditions are neurotypical, and those of us with neurological conditions are neurodivergent. Neurodivergent people think differently, their�unique perspectives and experiences mean they can often excel at creativity and innovation, have highly specialized skill sets, and an ability to hyperfocus. If embraced this can be a huge advantage to organizations and society; however, the differences neurodivergent people experience can make life challenging. In order to thrive at work they often need some simple accommodations for example a sensory calm environment to recharge in or a routine with the same start and end times. Approximately one in seven people are neurodiverse. So not only is embracing neurodiversity critical for a truly inclusive organization but it also presents organizations with a huge opportunity. {end of video audio}

Alright, so I hope that was a useful addition to the�overview I was was providing about neurodiversity and autism and why we're interested in it.�Um again, I want to emphasize that like all characteristics there is a spectrum, I think we I we don't focus on the medical clinical terminology we're looking more broadly at how that might manifest in getting a job and staying in the workplace. Um and we like to also emphasize what we're seeing as a real difference in perspective right now in the employing environment and and the perception, that many of these limitations can also be assets particularly if workplaces take a neurodiversity perspective or inclusive perspective to cognitive differences. If workers can be accepted as a part and and and these characteristics as a part of a normal human variation that we all are a part of. It's important to create support and awareness for both, not only the individual, but also for the supervisor who is affirmatively trying to work with a company that has affirmative hiring pro programs. Which we're seeing an increasing number of to tap this talent pool that has previously not been tapped.

We're focusing on autistic job seekers and some of the research that we have been conducting over the last three or four years because they have higher levels of um of of of unemployment, that should read and underemployment, than both people without disabilities and people with other types of disabilities. The disparities in employment exist for even autistic individuals who have a above average education and qualifications to the rest of the workforce. So we see people coming out of college with computer science degrees who which are dearly needed for many jobs that are going lacking now for applicants, and yet not making it through the screening and interview processes. That's uh a barrier we would like to be able to address because employers need the talent, want the talent, and they are also eager to understand how they might be an unnecessarily limiting these candidates from their talent pool. We also know that the interview process which, is why we have focused on it, is particularly difficult for many autistic job seekers. Uh that's the first step if they make it through the screening pro if their�application makes it through the screening process where they encounter, often encounter, um not being able to make it through; that and companies are genuinely looking to people like ourselves, to service providers who support these candidates, and to researchers to figure out what can they do better, so it's nice to have um them asking for the information.

Uh we do know that um it's important to prepare the workplace. As uh as uh you know I mentioned that many organizations are now actively pursuing candidates with disabilities one of, and and candidates specifically who are neurodiverse. One of the things we really have found that is helpful is if they do some pre-thought to that process rather than just jumping in, and really prepare their workplace for these�kinds of initiatives as would be important with any neurodiversity affirmative recruitment process, but this seems to be particularly important with these candidates; and that they create a climate that is neurodiversity inclusive as they plan this process. So, and it's not just on�the front end, although I'm going to be talking about the interview, it really needs to happen�with thinking about your strat-- embedding it in your strategy for recruitment and human capital�development. As well as the process in selection, interviewing, and making a good job match as we�should be doing with all candidates, right? Um but this is particularly where we're focused now. It's�also important to think about neurodiversity in�the job design, and in the availability of what might be more often occurring accommodation requests.

Excuse me, it's also important to think�about how this uh affirmative hiring interest will transition into career development and retention considerations, like equity and training and development opportunities. And not um not laying unnecessary limitations on what these candidates, who may be interested in as well as equity and compensation, and benefits. Um preparing employee relations or labor relations parts of your department, as well as health and safety department, so having the whole workplace�all the services and pra policies and practices that surround good workplace practice� prepared to support these candidates is a really important part of the�process, as we have learned over the last eight years.

So, one of the questions uh I always find interesting to look at in existing programs, or to discuss with employers who are considering programs, is where the program is situated. And there are potential strengths and weaknesses, as you might imagine, in putting these in any number of places. We often saw in the earliest days of in interest and inquiry by many especially tech-related companies that they were positioning uh these initiatives in the technical areas that needed the new talent and over time that has changed. Uh many of them now are now moving it into human capital talent man, talent management as a part of the more generalized capital, um human capital process. Some of them are included in diversity and inclusion ELO or employment labor relations, although less so. There uh very many more so in the job or content area where talent is being recruited, less likely although it's often under discussion or consideration in health and safety or occupational health�in case there are accommodation needs. It might be an accommodation unit or disability case management. I think it's important, those of you who might be employer representatives who are thinking about this, and are on because you're interested in it, it's important to think about situating this in a place where supports will be available, and understanding about the motivation of why this is important, is uh is embedded in this process. Uh that although you want the services to be available, that you are not flagging a pre-set or pre-perspective that this is a problem area, that rather that it is a part of of really being an affirmative interest in the new talent. um

So there are promises, promising recruiting practices that I want to talk about, uh one of the things we have found in our efforts is that candidates might self, um select out of applying for a certain, uh employer even though they are ardently looking for the kind of, uh job skills that the person may actually have because of how the, uh career weight pages are um pres are presenting information about the recruitment process. So it's really important for us to, as employers, to take a look at how are we presenting ourselves and are we actually characterizing our recruitment uh efforts in a way that it makes it more attractive, developing more sophisticated career websites that appropriately brand the organizations hiring goals and contribute to more accurate and less exclusionary self- selection through employee, through such as the characteristics, that we find people are looking for, are employee testimonials. People who have the characteristics that you're recruiting for who said that they've had a good experience, why they've chosen the organization, but also showing with, uh the availability of perhaps targeted internships. Besides testimonials of employees, information about the affirmative hiring program, information about relationships with community organizations that source neurodiverse talent, all of these things are signals to people that says the organization wants this kind of talent. So, um it's important to make that very, uh easily accessible on the career website, personalizing recruitment processes by allowing candidates to build up personal accounts on the website, beyond just a personal, impersonal application form or procedure. And engage in applicant track tracking that involves recruiters and other collaborators is important rather than just relying on algorithmic filters. We find that those filters might, uh eliminate unnecessarily these kinds of candidates. If they can come in through targeted portals or through targeted recruiting/recruiters� processes who've already, their awareness has been raised about the desire of the organization to recruit this talent; it heightens the likelihood that these types of candidates will get into the applicant pool.

So moving on from the screening process and how people even get to this job interview process, which we just talked about. Um we in our research found out that there are definite barriers in the job interview process and interview envir environment, and we found this out from um in input from employers who are affirmatively recruiting, from autistic job seekers, as well as from the service provider employment organizations that provide supports to people to get to the work environment. We found out that some of the barriers, um and it and it was um reported across all three of those stakeholder cohort informants for us, the types of questions that were asked they were too open-ended or hypothetical, um that was difficult. Um personality profiles, uh might be precluded depending on how they were shaped. If if it was more personality-focused than skills focused, that could be a barrier, people didn't necessarily understand how to answer some of those questions that interviewers were asking to try to get a handle on the person rather than the skill-set. How the interview was structured also could pose a barrier. Large groups, multiple sequential interviews, long days of multiple interviews over the day, rather than um shorter interviews, or fewer people. If the environment was noisy or overstimulating or had noxious odours or very bright lights, any of these things could also be off-putting and make it more difficult for the candidate to effectively interview. And um how the recruiters, or interviewers, or hiring managers were trained or prepared for interviewing neurodivergent candidates also was a significant factor�that posed a barrier. If they had not been, um you know given some information about this being a desire of the company, there is an affirmative hiring program that candidates might have certain characteristics or ways of interviewing that might be different than what they were used to that also�was an impediment. It was greatly facilitated that the outcome would be better when those those, uh employer professional representatives had been trained and educated in the affirmative hiring interests of the organization and what they might expect in in interviewing candidates who had been targeted because of those characteristics.

We also wanted to know how could we help candidates better prepare. Uh we work with service organizations, we work with schools who�are supporting school-to-work transition. So it's important to have them doing, upholding their end of this process towards success. Um we found that surprisingly, many organizations had little prior experience in preparing people concertedly for this job interview process. They might make the job match, but not support persons more concertedly in that�part of that recruitment and job development process. Um they perhaps uh that that um that so�the individual themselves had prior, little prior job experience, as did sometimes supporting organizations, the job seekers may have had little prior work experience, a lack of familiarity with workplace settings, they this might be their first job interview, or or this particular job setting was one that they had no experience with�that might have been uh difficult for them. They might be challenged in addressing what was perceived to be ambiguous questions. I just referenced that some of these broader personality or "how would you deal with" questions would be difficult for them. They might have difficulty in explaining how how their skills address job requirements, making that match, this where coaching really helps. They might, by the nature of their characteristics, be awkward, um in what is usually expected social interaction in this interview process. And they may be made more anxious by a desire to camouflage or fake um socially appropriate responses, which they believe the recruiter wants and it's difficult for them; so that might heighten their anxiety even though they've tried to prepare to do that. The expectation that they are anticipating makes it more difficult for them. And this is what we learned from job job seekers, from employers themselves who'd had positive changes already made to their workplace policies and practices that really can make a difference.

Employer strategies for more inclusive practice can include autism awareness and sensitivity training for HR and hiring professionals prior to the interviews, modifying or replacing existing interview protocols. And examples might be of that providing interview questions to interviewees in advance, which historically has not been very common for employers to do, they feel that advantages them to see how individuals respond. It's very advantageous for the candidates to be able to know what's coming, introduce applicants to the work environment prior to starting the interview as an icebreaker, so allowing them to come in take a look at the room that they might be in and navigating how to get to that room can really lessen anxiety. Consider replacing interview panels of four to six people with shorter one-on-one or two on one interview approaches. Um and replacing rapid fire questioning strategies with more slowly paced, even paced, allowing people to take a moment to respond and eliminating open-ended and vague interview questions, um and really focusing on technical skills rather than those personality or "what would you do if" kinds of questions. And allowing opportunities for the candidates to actually demonstrate their technical skills by solving a specific work relevant problem, and we did see those more seasoned companies who've been having success move toward this skills demonstration type of approach over a several day period rather than a one-time verbal interview with candidates that seemed to advantage many people, not all need it, but those who do really were advantaged by that type of change in approach. So it's also important to think about, when you're designing these programs, if you want to affirmatively recruit and successfully expand your candidate pool and if you want to be successful in pitching the idea of having a an affirmative neurodivergent hiring program. These are many of the the stakeholders who it's advantageous to bring into that conversation early on in program design :top management, CEO�imperative. And if you can get a statement from that that person or persons in your website that says this is a part of our strategic imperative to strategically recruit from historically underserved or under under-addressed talent pools, like neurodivergent people. It helps uh immensely having a designated Champion, either from that leadership pool and/or perhaps from uh trustees. Very important enlisting the um support of employees who are family members, who may be able to serve as mentors or champions in inside the organization. Later on, supervisors, getting, enlisting the help of supervisors, and maybe a subset who are family members, who you start with and expand that as you go along and the program gains momentum. Um enlisting job applicants, or job recently hired individuals to help understand what works and doesn't work-- very important. And looking for places where you can have conduits with community service providers or associations, um of family members in the community who might be referral sources, is very important. And enlisting the support of family members within your organization that you might tap through RRGs perhaps, and there are other stakeholders, but thinking about how do you list support across all of these potential stakeholders is really important as you design these programs. Um so um this, going back to uh candidate preparation, how candidates can uh better prepare pre-interview preparation. Access to questions and ability to practice skills, preparation on how to present skills in the interview process, preparation in how to demonstrate skills or build a portfolio of examples of demonstrated expertise. Um prepare for select social interface expectations. If you, if you know the questions it may help uh immensely for the individual to be able to address some of these personality or more ambiguous questions. Building self-advocacy skills, asking for accommodations or breaks if needed, asking for time to think to answer questions, this can be in the interview process or post-hire. Um and working with service providers who work with in employers and recruiters to build their knowledge of neurodiversity, and explore willingness to alter the traditional interview process, like breaks, questions in advance, clarification of unclear questions. So these bullets all represent things we encourage individuals to consider. And one of them is actually working with organizations that can support them in this kind, these kinds of preparations skills really important and making sure that the provider that you work with knows how to do these

Things. Uh so I mentioned, uh I think ,I mentioned this already I have a duplicate in here, so um I think we talked about so many of the things that would work. Uh we focused on, emplo on uh preparation skills. I also want to mention getting people uh to be able to advance once they're in there. The nature of neurodiversity identity, like diagnosis, is usually the least important things. Other things that we should be focusing on more broadly once the person's in the work environment is their own hesitation, their own anxiety. Um they may have self-limiting behaviors because they're concerned about being able to make the next leap, so having supervisors that support them is really important; and give them equitable opportunity; and making sure that that we address, um as as responsible agents in the workplace, uh stereotypes and stigmas that may be affecting the opinions and perceptions about comp competence by supervisors. And also being aware that what we're calling now, intersectional identities for people, may have, may present added disadvantage people from racial ethnic minorities. Uh autistic people who are also women, um and or from the lgbtq identifying community, these kinds of things, can also mean that there's added limitations in equity in the career development process. And it's important for us to be aware of that in supporting candidates and looking at equity in our workplace policies and practices

So it's important to prepare supervisors, um companies. These companies that have these programs have explored a wide variety of, uh ways to, uh help their supervisors be more successful. Some of them have internal training programs, some of them um have partnerships with external vendor developed programs, and there are many more of these programs being developed. They some of these programs are, uh several weeks in nature, uh and some of them are more targeted. Some of these supervisors are a part of a six- week training program, or or orientation programs that the companies might have for candidates, um themselves so that they get a sense of what the program is about, how candidates are performing. And companies have many tailored training programs of varying lengths. And um companies also um are aligning with service providers that can provide related training programs that support the companies over time and complement their own internal efforts. So as I mentioned, there are many more of these types of services surfacing. I think it's important to talk about supervisors because we know there are already many people, autistic people, neurodivergent people in the workforce, who are hesitant to come forward and, uh would be able to flourish with um with more um assuredness of being able to advance if they could talk about accommodations that they need. And this, more often this disclosure of needing accommodations, is more likely to occur to supervisors than HR, so educating these, this group is critically important. And thinking about what will support um people to be able to feel comfortable coming forward. And and it's important that we do that, because indeed neurodivergent people are covered by our protections, like in the US, for the Americans with Disabilities Act. And in order to be able to benefit from those legal productions and access accommodations, uh in the US, people need to be to say that they, uh need the accommodations and many individuals um have concealable disabilities um and so are not willing to disclose unless they feel that it's a safe environment. So these, these decisions are not easy, they require careful consideration by the individuals, and uh not only does it mean it could preclude them from getting um access to accommodations, but there's an increase in anxiety, uh that comes along with having to, having to hide um or do identity management kinds of behaviors. And the work environment is a big predictor of whether or not people are comfortable coming forward. I have here a list of accommodations that, uh questions to ask when you're exploring the accommodations. Um look at what limitations the employee is experiencing and the supervisor can provide help and feedback on this and how that those limitations affect job performance. What kinds of tasks are problematic as a result of the limitations and what kinds of accommodations might specifically reduce or eliminate these problems. Um has the employee consulted, been consulted. It it's really important to have the conversation, besides just observing what the limitations might be, or the performance outcomes, but having a dialogue with the individual. And once the accommodations are in place, looking whether or not it would be helpful to meet with the employee on an ongoing basis to determine if this is actually working. And in this process, looking at do we need to also better educate our supervisors and employees about accommodations and um identifying issues as as they arise, and more quickly moving in to help support the individual and getting the accommodation when needed. Some factors in the workplace that help with retention, um clear job descriptions and clear performance expectations, and timelines. True for all of us, but particularly true for this population. Training for supervisors, I mentioned about the equity and advancement opportunities, and ways to approach performance issues that might reduce anxiety, um and the the value of mentoring systems, buddy systems and facilitating social networks so that the person feels integrated in the workplace environment and can enjoy the other benefits of affiliation that come along with having a job that you enjoy and are good at. I can't talk enough about the value of employee resource groups, in general, uh for people with disabilities, and for around issues of neurodivergence, whether um people are are allies or people with neurodivergent, uh characteristics themselves who might join these groups, they're most effective when senior management lends support. They can assist with candidate recruitment, identifying supervisors who might be willing to ally with these initiatives and to to provide what mentors and buddies, when needed to. Also help with identifying barriers and finding solution to those barriers, and supporting families or neur neuro newly diagnosed individuals. Many individuals that we spoke with didn't know until much later um and sometimes because it had a child who is diagnosed, that indeed they themselves have these characteristics. Um it can also bring significant value when, uh when aligned with product development, if you have people who actually have these characteristics who can provide input to that process. And it's important to network across um other diversity groups, because as I mentioned you can, uh in that alignment, can get more support for neurodivergent individuals who might have intersectional identities. I also want to talk about the importance of communications in this process. Um working with your your department of communications, marketing and branding can help um with, uh branding um support support of organizational events. Like April is autism month, leveraging the company internet to talk about successful successes, raising awareness for support of this initiative, the creating messaging that is more affirmative and positive, and not limiting. Spotlighting this program in various communications, both inside and external to the organization, and helping with event planning. As I mentioned, Autism Awareness in April, but also the International Day of persons with disabilities which is December 3rd. All of this access to communications can greatly raise support for these kinds of initiatives.

I here present a, uh a a one, uh slide snapshot of all the parts of the employment process that should be considered, and I will leave that for your future reference because I' I'm trying to move quickly now make sure we have time for questions. Um I believe I'm going to just quickly say, uh this next slide here, I'm also quickly going to say is a is a summary of what I've just talked about. Accessing progress, uh assessing progress across the employment process. I talked about, uh all of each of these things. Reading the workplace, recruitment supervisor role, retention, um thinking about uh climate for inclusion, using external and internal resources, internal and external communication, and thinking about I have not talked about the importance of sustainability and scalability over time. It's imperative um that you do that, but also that you create a metrics and analytics process that allows the organization to assess how they're doing broadly across each of these features. Of what will lend to a truly successful process. So thinking about embedding that in your existing metrics and analytics, or creating metrics and analytics that will assess this should be an important part of the overarching approach to designing one of these uh affirmative hiring programs. And with that I will mention that I share here online recruitment related resources, uh generally um uh that are ones that relate to what I have said broadly are good practices. Not just for neurodiverse individuals, but good practices in general, but more broadly for people with disabilities. And I share here some of our academic resources that are targeted on neurodiversity related resources in particular that are available online, uh with the links that I have provided you. I want to acknowledge that the research that I have shared with you, about um neurodiversity hiring and disability affirmative workplace inclusion, uh practice, policies and practices are from two sources: the US Department of Labor's Office of Disability and Employment Pro uh Pro Policy and also from the National Science Foundation, who have supported this work. With that I'm going to pause and turn it back over to Dan to help us to, uh identify the questions that have come up in the chat. Thank you Dan in advance, you're on mute Dan.

>> Dan Samosh: Ccan you hear me now?

>>Susanne Bruyere: I can thank you.

>>Dan Samosh: Great um yeah, thank you very much Suzanne. Really appreciate the presentation and the the practical focus of it. Uh I want to make sure for everyone in the audience also, there's like almost 150 people here, which is pretty amazing, um if you do have a question, please type it into the Q&A. We only have a bit of time left, so we won't be able to get to every question, uh but please send us an email and we can always answer your questions later as well. Uh something that really struck me too, uh in all of the advice that you shared, is that some of this advice, um is good advice for for organizations and interviewers regardless of of who we're talking about. Whatever community we're relating to, uh especially things on, like uh work-based tasks, skill-based tasks. Rather than these sort of more personal questions, uh, replacing panels with one-on-one interviews, this sort of thing. Uh and I also, also really appreciate how you mentioned many of the different actors in the system, employers, supervisors, managers, uh persons who are job candidates, also intermediary organizations. And we have one question here, uh that's about another one of the kind of actors in this system, uh and the question asker, uh posed the question, what role can the union play in championing inclusion in this space?

>>Susanne Bruyere: That's a great question, um we we have always, because we're in the school of Industrial and Labor Relations, really thought about um how how can we engage unions in affirmatively supporting this? Um and I think they definitely can play a role. I think you know worker rights is one of the things that unions um are the guardians of. And that has also been true around disability, protecting the interests of um of their employees who are already incumbents in the job when they become ill or injured, especially if it's an occupational related injury, but otherwise as well. And I think this is another area where the union can support the affirmative hiring and the retention and equitable access to career advancement for neurodivergent individuals. And again, that means that um you know there's education about this, that that there is an appreciation of differences and characteristics and how people might approach work and um and supporting individuals. But the bigger picture perspective of neurodivergence, as a part of the human condition, and human variation, and a characteristic that is to be supported and appreciated, um and you know helping to minimize some of the negative things we see-- like bullying-- um that might occur and when people have these types of characteristics. And unions can be terrific allies across all of these things.

>>Dan Samosh: And our next question, uh is about entrepreneurship and whether you can share about if there's research on autism neurodiverse identities, uh and entrepreneurship?

>>Susanne Bruyere: There is some preliminary work, I can't give you a, qu a a specific citation off the top of my head, but I have sat on panels of researchers who are, and it was International representation, who are across the globe interested in. Um, not surprisingly a part of that is because, um well I think there's lots of reasons, but um we do know that there's some research about people with neurodivergent characteristics being also very entrepreneurial, and having part of those characteristics, being advantageous in the entrepreneurial process. So we're interested in finding out, is this another area where we can promote and capitalize on those skills, and advantage people and minimize barriers where they have experienced them in the past? We do also know that, reportedly, you know, people with disabilities more broadly, um and neurodivergent characteristics, might have a harder time getting Venture Capital, getting approval from banks for loans to capitalize small businesses and entrepreneurial ventures. And we want to make sure that we minimize those limitations and those disadvantages and barriers, which is disequitable. So yes, there's interest and there's good reason to and there is some preliminary work being done. Um it's, you know it's coming. That's I guess what I can best say about that.

>>Dan Samosh: And our next question, uh reads, uh from an anonymous attendee, uh I'm autistic and often have to ask so many clarifying questions during interviews because interviewers� open-ended questions are not precise in their wording. My question is, how can we train those conducting interviews to word their questions more precisely and in a straightforward manner so that the burden is not always placed on the autistic person to change their communication.

>>Susanne Bruyere: Well, I couldn't agree with you more that the responsibility is really shared between employers making changes in their processes as well as us, as individuals who are, um preparing for these interview processes to anticipate some of these things and prepare ourselves. It is a shared responsibility, which is why we approach our research the way we do. And I think it's also shared by those kinds of organizations that support people in this process, the employment service providers. Um it's it's slow and coming, it is coming, I would say particularly those organizations that are now affirmatively recruiting. And there's many of them, they are doing a better job in this process, and my hope is that as Dan flagged for us, um that our awareness of how we unnecessarily eliminate candidates who are, have been marginalized in the past, um historically, of many, many different kinds, that we will do a better job of making these kinds of changes. Of being more focused on skills and allowing people to demonstrate their skills rather than just have to verbally interview. And and maybe that's not people's strong point, and we needlessly eliminate them as viable candidates from the job search process.

>>Dan Samosh: And our next question is about, um peers and co-workers in the workplace. So, um our question asker has asked, I would be interested in hearing strategies on how to encourage peer, employee acceptance and inclusion.

>>Susanne Bruyere: Often this is the hardest aspect of inclusion. If accommodations are seen as inequities between employees, yeah that's a great question. And and, um, and and that's not new, just to people who are neurodivergent, it's something that when we have, uh workplace accommodation provisions regulations, that you know that are designed to prohibit discrimination and accommodation, is a expectations of employers. As a part of that, that's always been an issue of concern, and again, is a place where broadly educating the workforce is critically important. Um and although I think we're talking about neurodiversity, and I think that is targeting that as, I think the where we see the most success, is in backing way up, is where it's made very clear to supervisors, very clear to the workforce as a whole, that this affirmative hiring initiative is is is not only, um nice, it's a strategic imperative. And that there's an expectation that everyone will step in and support it and that you know there is an expectation of civility among employees. Uh that accommodation is a right of people to have across a whole host of diff of different characteristics, and that people are expected to respect that. Um what we found in our research, that 95% of accommodation requests come from people, this is from National Census Data, other than those with disabilities. And I think it's important for employers and supervisors to let people know they're asking for accommodations, all the, all the time. It's being given, and to recognize that this is just a part of that process, and not just special to a person, just special to a person with a disability or one who is neurodiverse.

>>Dan Samosh: Thank you, and so we just have a few minutes left in that time. Suzanne, uh I wanted to ask if you just have any, like last point that you might want to make?

>>Sunsanne Bruyere: Um I think I just want to make the point that I, I appreciate first of all, people's interest and any of you who are joined us today, I appreciate your curiosity about, or your or your, maybe already concerted investment in this area. I think neurodiversity can really help us because, because um there is such a large proportion of people who represent these characteristics in making our workplaces more generally inclusive for a much broader spectrum of people. So I appreciate your attention and please do let Dan, um and our sponsors know if you have other questions. I'm happy to continue to share resources with them as a conduit, so please do come back to us if you need for future information.

>>Dan Samosh: Thank you, yeah thank you so much Suzanne. And thank you to everyone who asked questions and attended. I'm sorry that we couldn't get to every question. Um tried to get to a range of them, though please do send us those questions though, because I'm happy to answer more, Suzanne is happy to answer more, and our team as well. Uh I do also just want to thank, uh the team who helps make this all possible. Uh Eakam Grewal, Therese Salenieks, Sabrina Chaudhry, Emile Tompa, and Rebecca Gewurtz. Uh our next presentation is going to be February 23rd, with Mahadeo Sukhai from the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. Uh so thank you everyone again so much for joining us for a bit of your Friday, and have a nice weekend.