Autism at work

good afternoon everyone or good morning I guess for the Americans and probably good evening for somebody in the world welcome back to one of my monthly live streams and I really hope that you can hear me right now because I have got a fancy new mic that should have made the sound much much better so please let me know in the comments how this how the sound is actually because it's a bit of an upgrade a bit of an upgrade so today we are going to be tackling a massive and important topic and it's so important that I have completely neglected to talk about it at all on my channel thus far but you know I'm the sort of perfectionist person that I want to get things right I want to do them properly and so I've been putting off doing something about work and I just thought now I have to I have to do something because it's a very important topic it's especially topical at this moment because well for various reasons but a lot of people have had their work situations changed people are working more remotely and so it's just a very interesting conversation this is not by no means going to be the only video that I do about autism and work as I've said I think it's very important so in a couple of weeks I'm actually going to have a video about the interview process and kind of interview tips not just how autistic people can do better but from the other side how companies can do better as well so I hope that you're into those topics and if you have any suggestions for other really good topics around work and workplace environment for autistic people please do let me know in the chatter in the comments or wherever it's so nice to have so many of you joining me in the afternoon you'll notice how energised I am how I'm really really not an evening person so I'm hoping that I can mess around with the times without excluding too many people it's really difficult I know so somebody says hello from Germany I suppose I mean if you're from Germany then I guess you asked hello we've got to have hello from Australia from hen lo I assume that's what you meant by that not hello course so it's it's really great to see you guys again autism and work right so you Google you google it I mean that's what I do for all my lives I just I just Google and you know what what comes up first the National Autistic Society statistics statistics sorry so basically according to the studies that they've done which they say have remained very static for years they say only 16% of autistic added adults are in full-time employment and 32% of autistic adults are in some kind of paid work now with all due respect I think these figures are really on the low side I appreciate that I know autistic people are very underemployed and underused and just underappreciated in general but I think that that is very very low and I can't really find any information on who they polled but obviously if you if you ask certain people maybe people who have been supported by the National Autistic Society all their lives and then you pull them when they're adults you might get different responses to asking people diagnosed in adulthood so it's kind of a difficult starting point when you don't know the extent of the problem so I looked up a couple of studies that have been a few studies done on employment around autistic adults and they're not really really big ones but there was a study done of 250 autistic adults that are found around sixty percent were employed and they also found that around those who disclose their autism were three times more likely to be successful at finding employment which is very interesting and of course that's fun for those of us in our 30s and older because you can't well those of us diagnosed in our 30s and older because you can't disclose what you don't know and under diagnosis is obviously a real barrier especially to minority groups women and ethnic minorities who are also under diagnosed so I found another study from Germany that suggested around 68 where percent were employed and another one that looked at high-functioning autistic those are their words not mine and they found surprise surprise that we are over educated and underemployed which yes I probably could have told them but they did a study so they found and these these ones looking at the high functioning adults they found 58 percent unemployment rate actually so different studies are saying different things we don't really have a wide scale knowledge of the extent of the problem but these are the things that we do know we know that we struggle to enter the job market and we know that we struggle to stay there and so that's what I want to talk about today I know it's a topic that's very important to our well-being and success in life financial stability our housing stability so I don't just want to cover it today and then be done with it and I hope that I can sort of collect some good information and provide some good resources for you guys but much more pressingly I have a special guest in the holding pen someone I know personally who is Naomi Johnson who is an IT professional and works as an irritable diversity consultant so let me just add Nomi to the to the chat let's hope this this works get out hello hey hey still positioning myself we've had a little rearrangement but I hope that I can hear you so I hope that we will have all the tech stuff sorted out and it's all gonna go it's all gonna go well the other questions can everyone else hear me as well because we were debating whether everyone else with him I think if I can hear you everyone can hear you should be yeah yeah so um would you like to introduce yourself because I you work in IT and you're in the neuro diversity consultant that's like the that's all I know actually a little bit better for my viewers please yeah so I mean potted history is probably a good thing I was only diagnosed at 37 I'm now 40 so I was diagnosed three years ago I've been in it2 20 years I did the universe II I didn't do a levels as you can imagine undiagnosed autistic at school it was sorry sorry been intellectual my audio is a bit unclear not so I could do much about it I'll try try yeah we were trying to just yeah just talk slowly and clearly you having some issues with the headphones yeah sorry about that so yeah I was undiagnosed so I went through school I did budget EEOC's I didn't do a levels which is the exams at 16 to 18 for those not a UK based I didn't do University I fell into IT somewhat randomly because I knew a bit about it and a friend of a friend gave me a job and then I've been there now 20 years working my way through technically I'm now in a leadership position or I have been so I was leading team technical teams running a company for the internal IT for 500 users so I've been doing that quite a long time it's been a interesting journey over the last three years because obviously getting my diagnosis whilst employed and trying to understand all of that trying to understand myself more has been very good quite frankly and good my confidence but then I've taken the opinion especially because I've got a son who's autistic I've taken the opinion that I should be very open about my autism I should be very out there about it we just passed the reason so and I know each other and therefore I have been doing talks about being autistic in the workplace I've been doing stand-ups in front of people every time I go to any event for Microsoft or anybody else I generally get involved in a conversation with somebody that starts off with the technical piece and talking about what I'm doing as a company and then turning around go and I'm autistic and waiting for them to go that's always fun I enjoy that bit because as one of my slide says what do you mean I don't look autistic were you expecting Dustin Hoffman trying to actually challenge people's opinions of what autism looked like as part of my fun I guess in life I enjoy doing it and then I enjoy talking about my favorite topic and explaining workplace practice and how things can be improved and how people can get into workplace and everything else entry so that's very positive history of me it's very cool yeah you're very inspirational woman I think which is why I wanted to have you have you on the show so more honest and open and without a filter is probably a better way yeah well you're in good company here you're in good company so let's just start by talking about being in the workplace and being autistic and what some of the struggles actually are why is the workplace as a whole a tough place for autistic people and what are some of the common struggles that we face not just in your industry but just in any working environment I think it very much depends on the environment you're talking about to start with because obviously I'm now working in autistic of the autistic I'm looking and I see I know my me I spent the last five years in an office which has been fairly open plan which obviously comes with a lot of sensory issues I moved up into a leadership position where I therefore spent a lot of time having to have conversations that will also involve conflict times which is not one of my strong points in life I led a team which means I'm learning about different people's communication styles and working on that for them so it's been a very interesting challenge learning about myself and trying to ensure that I Know Who I am because of course that's the last three years I've tried to figure out actually wills turned on its head now I know something else about myself yeah but also then trying to educate people around me so saying to them if I wander off I'm not just a randomly you guys to do your work yourselves it's because actually I need some time away from desk right now because I'm overloading trying to insure that I was making people aware that I'm autistic and I think that's the hardest challenge for anybody is educating their team educating the people around them to understand who they are why they do things in the way they do them and actually the confidence level do you need all the strength you need sometimes to actually be that open it's fast the challenge and yeah because I've been doing it now for 20 years I'm confident enough in my technical ability and my ability to get a job that I'm now working on the principal when I apply for jobs I tell them I'm autistic because at the end of the day if they don't want to know about that statement then I don't want to work for them exactly yeah and I thought of things that said that's from in a position 20 years worth of that 20 years worth of working and therefore I do have with an ability to do that to a certain extent where as I know at the beginning of my career that would have been not a choice I could have taken necessarily you know I'm trying to comment oh sorry I was just gonna say we've had a comment which I think was something that we were talking about before about you know being in the workplace so Katherine says how do I get support at work while awaiting diagnosis meltdowns and sensory issues take up so much energy and I feel I can't explain them to anyone without the safety net of a diagnosis so what do you thoughts on that I don't think you need a diagnosis to a point I think it depends on your workplace that's obviously the first one depending on if you've got a HR team it depends on if you've got an understanding boss there's a whole host of question mark I would say triumph if you have somebody within the company that you trust and you can talk to openly that's a good starting point because they connect as your autistic wingman for want of a better term or wing person and actually know that they understanding what's going on with you if you are struggling they can cover for you or help you or understand how to help you that would be a good starting point again like I say if you have a HR department they do need to have it as conversation they do need to understand but it may be you get in contact with somebody like me or you get in contact with somebody you can talk to locally in the area who can actually help you to explain it to them because I know three years ago was I know I know three years ago when I got diagnosed and the first thing that happened was I went to take John says I've got my diagnosis I know you knew I was getting it and they said what adaptions do you need and I just sat there looking like a stunned fish because of course I've just got my diagnosis I have no freaking - water damage and I need right now so if somebody what sort of a person would they look for obviously somebody like you you're called a neuro diversity consultant is that is that right I mean what what do you to help you it depends on what you're trying to do and what how you're trying to do it because at the end of the day everywhere I've looked so far there is a autism support group or something of that ilk admittedly there are some who are better than others and some who have very different opinions to others so it's finding one that has the right fit for you and the right expression you want to use and they understand that you want to use the term autistic as opposed to how the autism or whatever phraseology you want to be using to make sure you're doing it your way yeah and to make sure that they are acting as an advocate for you because I had an issue at work where I actually used a neurotypical friend of mine as an advocate but he and I had a lot of conversations about who I was what happens in a conflict situation I'm generally going to go nonverbal to a point or agree with everything cheerfully when I don't thoroughly agree with it and he was there to support me in that and ensure that when I went like that he would then step in and say actually we need a minute or Naomi do you think that's the right thing for you or do it that way to actually ensure I've got a second voice when my voice is not necessarily as prominent as it should be yeah therefore I don't kick myself two days later we're having protesters all going what was I thinking I just wanted to point out because obviously we have an international kind of audience a few people in the States saying in America I'm just trying to find the comment saying in America basically you don't have a diagnosis you don't get any support and obviously I'm having if you're unemployed you won't be able to afford the money to get a diagnosis so it's kind of like so I just want it done clarified that you obviously you work in the UK so yeah with with UK kind of law it well you know employment lawyer stuff so it's a little bit a little bit different in different countries let's have a talk to some people I know in the States and if I could put some answers to that later on for you to put up to your followers on that side yeah yeah it was just quite interesting to get their opinion or if there's a sport out there that we're not aware of yeah that would be really great right let's so one thing I wanted to discuss was that there are a few places where they have initiatives to employ autistic people which is great I mean a few places not everywhere but um and a lot of these things say oh like autistic people are such great employees because you know we have attention to detail where this this and this and it's it's so new and you think that's just like I I know what they're trying to do they're trying to be like hey autistic people are gonna be so great just employ them but do you think that that's kind of I don't know narrative or I don't really would you to call it but using that kind of way of it's working is it's damaging I didn't know and yeah yeah yes pigeonholing horribly I think I certainly I've been discussing with one of my mentors actually about this because they have a recruitment agency and it's trying to be honest about it because at the end of the day part of being autistic is being honest because we have to be honest about who we are we have to be honest about the challenges we face as well as how good we are at certain things or how we're not good at certain things and I think I'm not a recruiter and I'm not a salesperson as my non-filter will tell you I do think the recruiters need to be very good at being open about everything because otherwise what's going to happen is it's not going to benefit them or the person be employed yeah I think it's very important to have a very open and honest dialogue what's been interesting is there's been more of a move from varying places to allow mentors to go in and support both the company and the employee so for instance Otto Kahn who are down in London there is varying places now they employ autistic IT engineers consultants as a company they actually go in and they have the engineer themselves they have a project manager for that engineer and they have a mentor who supports both the company and the employee in helping the company understand how to work better with the employee and how to then also help the employee understand if they're having any hiccups or if they're having communication problems or if they're having any issues how to resolve them and that is actually been really interesting and I think any agency who's looking at placing not just autistic neuro-diverse or anything else between you know divergent people it would be really good to have that extra thread to the company that actually has a longer term support over a six months over a year however long it takes for that company to adapt and for that person to be able to be comfortable with being open who they are and giving them an extra voice if they need it and actually being able to say to them well you don't you know if I'm having a problem sometimes I don't even realize why I'm having that problem yeah only through discussing it with my husband for instance and actually going over it I suddenly go oh I know why I'm having that problem is because of X Y Zed yeah and I think times you don't know the answer to any challenges you're having unless you have that conversation with somebody who understands more exactly I'm just going back to what you said before somebody maybe Voldemort valle de valle de melt it's getting says if you get a response thinking think about forming a near diversity group i've helped run one at work and people didn't even know that it word near diversity twelve months ago now everyone does and i think that's such a good idea because especially if you work in a bigger company the chances are they'll be autistic and ADHD people they're like so you know it won't be alone no completely everything the other thing is localized networks as well so for instance pop imprint of quite a few people within the area i'm in that we communicate on a regular basis and like I've been gave to women in tech meetings but now we're having neurodiversity meetings at times where we can also discuss things we can all have a conversation about varying topics but we also then can use each other as almost mental mentees at times to actually have that ability to try bring your way through problems and issues and that's something we're working on at the moment is I went out to try and find myself a mentor a year ago and I realized that I needed a very specific skill set and that I needed somebody who would understand me being autistic for my leadership mentor and that's a more challenging thing to find and it's something I've still been going over and I'm be talking with some people about is actually how to set up that kind of network for people to then be able to have a mentor for instance if you work in IT you could get hold of me or you get hold of somebody else and have a weekly wants one or a monthly one-to-one or however often these needs to be and I would my time to somebody who was possibly further down the chain Junior within IT for instance who is diagnosed and therefore help them and they you know give them my advice and so similarly I could have somebody who is more senior to me giving me advice and all taneous Lee yeah I think that would very good thing if you can reach out and talk to people I mean we talk some and I talk in a group and we all support each other and I think that's also very important at times yeah definitely having having a support network because just I mean I haven't had like a sort of office job in well probably coming up to eight years now the last time I was employed was twenty twelve when I was back in the UK actually so it's only now looking back on that that I realized just how exhausted I was all the time and I you know I just I just couldn't I couldn't function I was I was low functioning at that point like literally all I did was get through the workday and then just and then just crash so I am well aware of how how draining it can be and you know I was not diagnosed but I was masking a lot I was trying I was doing everything I could to fit in and be the person that I thought I was supposed to be and obviously that kind of leads to burnout it's eventually and I think that's why a lot of autistic people struggle to remain in employment because the working conditions are not suitable and then one thing leads to the other and we just can't function anymore we can't do it and people don't really understand that I think have you had any experience personally with burnout or not so much I think actually this situation with kovat is probably the closest I've come but in a very different way in that I was made redundant just before this happened I'm in the middle of interviews for new role and my redundancy meant that all of a sudden I had no routine and I had none of the routine I have had for the last five years then I had my children at home all the sudden so I was overloading sense of sensory wise permanently I have one who's autistic one who's a question mark on the spectrum or not we had home schooling to deal with we had not being able to go anywhere or do any of my normal home routine either to a point yeah they and CLT and that actually pulls me probably a bigger issue than the 20 years I had in work yeah I guess independence on yours your situation really at work doesn't it yeah I think work I've always used it as a control mechanism and we talked about masks everything else in some ways work was my mask work was the thing that ensured I was doing what I was doing this is who I am this is what I define myself as this is what my day looks like and it struck me and organized me and all the time to have that taken away completely has been a real challenge yeah I mean it's something that I never even thought would be as much for challenger than what but do you think that I mean there have been a couple of questions about kind of like what a good jobs for autistic people and stuff like that and like working and I see that that's that's very stereotypical Naomi I mean like instructor and a nanny originally so interesting yeah because obviously IT that is almost always in an office environment and typically nowadays they're open plan offices some people are talking about open plan offices which are pretty awful and hot-desking as well a lot of companies do that which it's like you can't even have your own stuff anymore so sorry what was that getting out you know for people who are not maybe in like traditional office environments I think the first thing to do was trying to find a job because it's not necessarily IT I mean that's just my experience yeah is actually you need to understand who you are what you want Suk's I think if I went back 20 years ago with a diagnosis and knowing what I know now I would have been a complete ascent is actually and weirdly for me it would probably be to do with people and communication no totally that I think though because when I originally went to university like I did psychology I wanted to be a psychologist because I'm interested in psychology and like I never have influenced do I want to actually do the job of a psychologist do I want to go into an office or train with the NHS - do I want to do this and as soon as I realized what the the job would look like like another everyday basis it really wasn't that appealing to him anymore so I think it's like you can be so interested in a subject but the job might not suit you you know yeah yeah I think trying to find the right job and the right situations he was so important and I think part of that is down to ailing who you are but obviously you have to have you know people circumstantially when I was 20 21 I have to have a job it was the only way I was going to find life yeah and you then cannot be picking and choosing at times no struggle with itself and I think that when you need to try to find the right job with the right people and it's more about the people at that point you need to do your research into if you're going to be getting a call center job if you're going to be getting a retail job if you're going to be getting any job that you fit I think the challenge is also looking at the company looking at their website looking at the support around them asking or other autistic group so if anyone has any experience working for those employers and actually trying to find the one that you know will be more supportive yeah well you know that's what I'm doing at the moment actually I'm looking around also at who the companies are if they have neurodiversity structure in place if they're open about it if I think it's just a tip sheet on their webpage first is actually that they are interested yeah and trying to ensure that I'm going towards the right companies for me and the right situation for me yeah I think that's really important nowadays sorry I was just there was a super check came in with a really interesting question so let me just go and find it I can't put it on the screen anymore cause it's a submit and the advice for autistic people stuck in none'll autism friendly jobs like call center work or customer service do you wanna go like yeah I mean like I have never worked in a call center because that is literally hell on earth but when I was a student when I was younger I did a lot of temp work and basically I was on like the switchboards because that was all I could get and I needed money so and so that was kind of like working in a call center but um well my first ever job when I was was 19 it was in a car showroom and my desk was you know car showrooms tend to be kind of round right my desk was actually in the middle and they were like okay well here's a phone and you know these phones like you know they're like buttons everywhere not user friendly at all and like oh this is Harold this is Dave this is also Dave and I'm just like and then it was it was the worst so advice I [Music] spend my life going I'm going yes okay so so that's something that I do is I took I try and talk through my my thought process so I I'm upfront with people that I have difficulty with with the auditory processing I know they might be a bit like okay why are you working the call center but that's how I coped I'm like sorry I have I have some difficulty hearing today or something you could say like my ears I'm covering from an ear infection I don't know um terrible advice but what I'm trying to say is like I was talking through my difficulties if I had them so saying like I'm real sorry I'm really bad with names or I'm really bad with faces although the call center that's maybe not so much or just just also I found like part of my masking is being overly friendly and nice and I don't think masking is all bad actually if it helps you keep a job it can be exhausting but it does serve a purpose and it's essential for some for some people to do so I guess I kind of got through it and then just moved on to something as something else's as quick as I could that's I'm sorry that was a really bad answer I started out really cool like I've got experience and I realized I had no help I think that's right and I think you know being open about who you are doesn't necessarily mean saying you're autistic like yeah you know you can turn around say I'm really rubbish with names or I do forget names you'll have to remind me what my poor husband when he first met me I use asked me what people's names were at the bar and I'd say I'm going to lose could you introduce yourself and then tell me I think being aware of and self-aware of who you are and again way back to support groups were back to talking to other people who are in a similar vein to you because actually so much of my learning curve around Who I am has come from the group's I'm in when all of a sudden like a why'd you do that to and I didn't realize nobody else did yeah that was an autism thing nicely you know and that's been so helpful in understanding myself better and trying to ensure that I am I'm saying why I'm doing things in workplaces and everything else between I think the other thing you have to remember is especially with communication is the pause that you are doing and it's something public speaking is not as long as you think it is so extra thinking time do be aware that you can pause for a few seconds more than you think give you that time but also learn to have a bank of key phrases and words that help you if you need more time or extra questions for somebody that allow you to problem for more information without necessarily saying I have no idea what you're on about yeah is that so basically scripting but that's scripting in a very helpful way and actually that kind of dessert there's a comment from Voldemort again saying about call centers worth seeing whether you can transition as well a friend in a call center transition to web chat and that involves a lot less social neurons she loved her job so much more when she didn't have to talk and I think that's a great idea because like I hate talking on the phone and talking to customer service things is is super super stressful but I had a I had a website a web chat with I don't know I think it was with someone on a hosting for a domain or something like that and I was like really like chatting away to this person I had a great time not as a customer I mean and then I was like can I can I make do a referral link for you to like get your stats up and you at your monthly certainly I don't know what I took about anyway but is easier training I think I had a team member who I was until whether they were near it of us or not I suspected they may have been and they weren't talking about it and one thing they did with my team was I actually as a leader had been thoroughly course that talks about different communication styles and different personalities and how different person talk to each other for instance one personality will be incredibly abrupt and it's not because they are being abrupt it is because that's the way their brain works yeah just like all of our brains work differently and they just like getting straight to the point all the time yeah and I rolled that training down to my team so they could start understanding each other so those personality clashes started slowing down but also so for instance a cursed understanding actually I communicate better on email I communicate better via webchat I am far better on a video chat myself I act for face to face because I can pick up nuances and I can pick up body language whereas if I'm on the phone or in chat you'll find I use a huge amount of Smiley's and lol's and everything else in between purely because I'm trying to make sure that people aren't reading me as abrupt or they're not reading me as rude or anything else between I worry that the nuances of my speeches cannot coming across properly in text because I'm so animated normally when I talk but also I have a really bad tendencies use a huge amount of sarcasm and that can be translated depending on people sense of humor I can be really terrible on that so yeah I think I've totally lost track now with you as well I totally lost track on their communication styles yes it all comes down to education education of employers education of HR and like it's it's sort of like I feel like in schools there's much more focus on this that gets treated autism new diversity is much more important and then all of a sudden you in the workplace and it's like oh or two sick people getting bullied and that's that's not important because they're adults they should have grown out of it or just if people who have to stim like why are you being why are you being so childish about it you know and so it's like how other than people like you and maybe people like me how do we how do we get this revolution going how do we educate on a mass scale so it's not just certain communities it is this it is this kind of talking it's being open and honest and educating which I know is a challenge to some people because obviously being honest comes with it positives and those negatives about who you are for instance where I am at the moment there's been a lot of interest in these conversations we started them probably a year ago and there's a huge amount of talk about it now with in varying companies there's a lot of adoption going on I think it's been quite interesting seeing how it has tumbled on and expanded you know because it's a bit like those diagrams you see if one person bit like okay the diagram I think that's part of it I think also what's been interesting is I've had some people from schools attending some of my tools and that's been really good to see because it means that the educational side of things are now looking at their neurodiverse children while children almost adults within and how to help them with working and how to help them find the next job I had a lot of questions from somebody on there who was three advisor and I think that's been really interesting to see and I think it's something I want to pursue when I've got a bit more ability to do so is actually communicating with my children's schools with other schools and seeing what else I can do for them to understand more because of course they are very good at or some of them are very good additional needs to university of the else between within the school system yeah actually knowing those children who are within mainstream schools as opposed to specialist provision he's actually a challenge in itself because of course they're just being thrown out into the world to university or just illustrating to work yeah and the university was probably think have the extended facility to help them sport my workplace and all of a sudden they're just going to end up landing in the work space with possibly no sports and that's a whole new burst of things but it's also the beginnings of their journey and therefore the beginning of that workplaces journey yeah and I think actually that's a very good time to start absolutely um so just carrying on with you know whose responsibility it is to educate themselves talking about kind of corporate corporate or company responsibility obviously you can everybody can educate themselves for free yeah on the internet but then you learned well yes exactly but in terms of you know provisions it costs companies to come to make accommodations often depending on what they are but you know it can cost them in time effort or just expense so how can companies see the benefits and how can they better serve the needs of the autistic population without kind of getting into this but it's gonna cost so much kind of mentality like how do you get people to see the value without just I guess there's a balance isn't there without saying autistic people are so great they're good at this this and this and then but they also need all this support so how do you present that to companies that balance right I think it depends on the company and what they are trying to achieve I think it depends on if they are putting in the university program in place for instance because there's a very - very different versions here there's a company who's hiring a person who's come to them for a job or there's a company who are actually in university program in place which actually means they are investing money they are investing yeah I'm very different scenario yeah I think for those companies who are having an employee a couple of employees however it goes I think the first thing is to actually talk to the employee yeah I think actually having the opinion of the person who needs the support and the voice the person uses force is actually paramount yeah I think it's the most important thing I think the HR side of things hopefully from what I've seen there is a lot more discussion within the HR community about this at the moment I have seen quite a bit going on within my side of things anyway and therefore if you have a good HR department they will be asking you if you don't you should probably go in problem with the stick and tell them about you if you don't have that confidence level I'd be suggesting possibly talking to appear who can help you with it again we're back to that side of thing yeah I think finding the right information to send them for you I actually for my boss I put together a huge pool of pictograms and means because it was the things that actually I relate to back ya know shared be entire lot with him so we have all something got 120 pictures [Applause] I think that means I think I'll just think people are very like into means more than the average person maybe I don't know I just I I have some friends that which who you know that we sort of very exclusively communicate in memes and it's sometimes easier than putting things into words so that that's yeah that's actually not a bad idea actually it worked for me because it gave him all the ones that related to me all the ones that I communicated about and everything else between it I wanted to explain to him and in a way he could look through them in his own time as opposed to me going right I'm going to tell you everything information although the challenge but the challenge of course for employers is that autistic people are so different so they get with the best of intentions they can learn about autism they can go to an autistic society and they can learn about what autism is like and then you meet someone else and you're like oh I don't need that accommodation you know and people the thing is though okay some people are not very good people but a lot of people do really want to try and I think in it wrong and you're just like I don't I don't need that but thanks so pretty unreal with that trying to tell people that we're all different and no I don't need this particular accommodation but I might need something that you might think is weird I think the most important thing actually from my point of view was trying to explain the specifics to me but also ensuring that I wasn't getting offended which was a challenge in itself when people pitch and hold me instantly yeah when I turned around and said oh I'm autistic and I mean I had it with a doctor who I had a whole conversation about my son we got to the end of the conversation and I said oh I'm not autistic by the way you know I don't know if that has any bearing on anything and he then decided to write down every dose so I needed to give my son of this medicine what time it was meant to be up and everything else between I just looked in with I can handle all of that we know but people might not be able to know there's no a case of saying to him look if I need provision I'll ask it but also we need to be able to actually be open to say I don't need the support but also add on to that but somebody else might do because you are right that is possibly somebody else's challenge and to make sure that we are explaining the autism is a spectrum make sure we're explaining one of my biggest ones and I always try and do it just to talk about it the diagnosis process is a flower I was really stuffed but you'll seen this is a meme again where you've got autism in the middle and then you have ADHD you have depression you have anxiety you have all of the additional pieces and I use that to explain to people that when they are talking and I hate the language apologies high functioning low functioning all of these words I don't like it is because what you are doing is you're looking at autism and adding on all of these petals on the flower depending on the person's diagnosis and I think that's such an important thing to people to learn that actually autism itself is the communication condition and then all the additional pieces make up that person in their diagnosis and therefore you cannot pigeonhole somebody into purely your autistic because that actually has no bearing on what that person's experiences know I'm autistic I have ADHD I suspect it's not diagnosed I have a PD I suspected self diagnosed you know audio processing disorder oh yeah I know if I'm talking somebody and I can't see their mouth properly all of a sudden I can really struggle to communicate especially in a noisy room because I hear everything at the same level yeah so nothing ever fades into the background so you stick me in an open-plan offices somebody the minute they cover their mouth I have no idea what that person say yeah interestingly as a sidebar my and put a mask on for the first time I totally freaked out because all the sudden I couldn't see his face and it really freaked me I had to look at his eyes and I'd never realized how much I was focusing here as opposed I never even realized yeah I I had quite a violent physical reactions of turning around and going I cannot take it yeah but I totally understand the whole I don't necessarily lip read but I definitely use people's mouths as cues to help me understand and help process I mean when I have the TV on for example I had subtitles on everything not not just things that are poorly you know the audio is poor badly edited and so it's just sorry um so I forgot what I was gonna say now but yeah I know I get that and this is the thing open-plan offices and a lot of a lot of bosses are like oh no I don't want you wearing headphones because I think a lot of the objections they have to accommodations for autistic people are based on a kind of slippery slope idea so it's like well if we let you wear headphones everybody's gonna want to wear headphones and then chaos ensues you know the challenge is in what environment you're working in and therefore their reasoning for it and people who are old school versus people who are in new school yeah because for instance working where NIT where we had a call center they didn't want the guys in the call center wearing their headphones because it meant they couldn't interact with each other and therefore if somebody was having an issue that they didn't understand the answer to they could then speak to the next person long or other people here listen in and help each other yeah and I think that was the challenge they were finding is that they didn't want them to be using their headphones because they felt that it was stopping team communication yes Emel simile actually understanding that you could do that in a group chat for instance yeah you've got that I used to throw my entire team into a chat window together and insist on them talking to each other in there at times be partly because I have team in India I have a team in the UK I have people in different place and it was the one way to ensure that actually they were all asking each other questions as opposed to asking me questions cheerfully all the time when actually somebody else beat the odds interesting idea of like it's sometimes you know we do have kind of yeah what's it called you know outside the box thinking like well we can't help but think outside the box and sometimes those are the solutions that actually will help everyone because having a group chat for example that's not just going to benefit the autistic person that's going to benefit instead of being able to just ask the person next to you you can ask the whole team like maybe the person next to you doesn't know the answer but the whole team somebody might so that's kind of like a lot of these things I do think will benefit everyone yeah I think it's again it's back to that conversation we had earlier about communication styles and it's something I'll try and find some links for you because some it taught me so much about how different people communicate and therefore how I should tailor my communication for them but again as a leader it's being open you know my team no or new now I'm not with them anymore but my team knew that I was always there to sound Baldauf and you know but simultaneously if I have my headphones on or everything else between they contact me or messenger so they wouldn't interrupt me because they met I may be in the middle of a thought process and if they interrupt me I'm losing half an hour's worth of thought yeah yeah you know in its understanding and outside of things and also ensuring that you're using the people around you at times as you know a tool yes of a better term not to read about other people so there have been a few comments like way back I can't put them on the screen about recruitment that's too much flipping it around recruitment process and interviews not being able to get to the interview process I mean the recruitment process we were talking about this before it's kind of peak its peak neurotypical it's a bit like dating is it's like if there's a lot of unwritten rules there's a lot of like flirting I think somebody took like in recruitment to flirting it's like you have to know what not to say and what to say and nobody tells you actually these rules but everyone else can work it out and then we're stuck there going why am I not getting any interviews so what are you what are your thoughts on like recruitment and that whole process it's something I've been talking to people about often on is how to change that process to make it more accessible to make it so it isn't as old-school as it was husband because recruitment hasn't changed in years years and years and my first experience of things changing slightly was actually going down to visit a company in London who sent me an email that had an attachment that had a visual guide to where I was going and it showed me this is the tube station exit this is the road outside this is the front door of our building these are the people you may meet this is the stairwell and I hadn't realized actually how helpful that was to me because at the end of the day I genuinely don't have a huge array of challenges over that piece of the equation but actually it took my anxiety away quite considerably in actually just having that visual reference it was fairly interesting for me and it's something I speak to a lot of companies about is actually it just took the anxiety away from going to that interview in the first place and that one small tiny change helps enormously yeah I think the difference is at the moment are we're now having video chats interviews my engagement now at the moment on audio or whatever else between that's in itself produces a whole set of challenges yes you know I think there should be a couple of different ways of interviewing I think it depends very much on what you're talking about I think you need to have almost the process of a multi question multi answer question set that allows you to answer the questions without having that face to face without having somebody in your face talking at you so it allows you the time to process yeah so for instance if you're in retail it can be a selection of questions on how you'd handle a customer or customer service but you don't have to actually communicate that verbally at that point in time you can actually think it through and have a thought process around it yeah you know I think that would be a very good way of doing I think part of HR the HR and recruitment process should be off see how people communicate and what their best way of communicating is yeah if you sorry um even if you work in retail and you in that situation you might react the appropriate way or the correct way reacting in that way is completely different from being able to tell the interviewer immediately how you would react so those are two different skills even though they sound like they're related but having somebody say okay well a customer comes up with a bad item and they want to return it and but it's not your policy or something like that how would you react to that and if you're if you're good at your job and you're in retail you might just do that but suddenly you're getting asked oh how would I come up with that and it's yes sir it's a verbal problem not a situational problem isn't it well I had it with interviews technical interviews especially is that when asked technical question I could have tacked in front of computer and done what they're asking me to do I can't verbalize it yeah people I had that problem too and I'm sitting here chatting for an hour on the internet like doing interviews that's fine but then somebody asked me a question that I'm not expecting or that is it's difficult in those high-pressure situations and I have really I struggled to verbalize in that way I said that the verbal thing the kind of it's not really situational mutism or selective mutism but it's definitely like there are some situations we cannot shut me up pretty much like on my YouTube there are some situations where I can't say anything and that's no I have the same problem right I do have the same issue I find that when I have that issue so he was just saying meetings are so hard and I totally agree what will happen is I'll go through a meeting and I'll come out the other side and a half a day later go oh I really should have put that point forward I really should have said that yeah and what I generally do at that point nowadays is I put in an email and then send it out to the people who are in the meeting attendees obviously not for an interview process but for meetings at work and actually just follow it up with I know we talked about this business and have you thought about this because it occurred to me later on and I'm just really open about the fact though I've thought about this after the fact you know because I know that with a mix of me being a bit ADHD at times and all over the place suicide so you know I I am and I haven't been diagnosed but I know I am and also the fact that the thought will occur to be due to my processing time a day later if I'm not careful yeah but actually it's very important that I get my input now and I have my voice heard in a boardroom in a meeting because if I don't it and it's back to being a diversity unicorn as a female in tech as well at a leadership level I have to have that voice heard I can't be the one sitting back and I can't be the one going on well I forgot to say it I won't you know I'm re okay I'm very forthright and life there I'm in a good position to be able to turn around to people and go I'm autistic deal with it and you're going to listen to my opinion whether you like for like for the autistic people who who kind of like do have voices to like put themselves out there not I don't want to say to speak for other autistic people or speak on their behalf that's that's kind of like not what I'm getting at but just like just so that you know people are used to hearing autistic voices so like the people who are confident and do who do have the privilege or who have that experience you know if we can I mean I say that like I am so confident I'm not really but um [Music] and not just to talk about ourselves but to raise the topic of autism and so people get used to hearing about it they start to understand more about it then we can say okay well not everybody's like me some people can't talk at all in a group setting some people will freeze up if they get they get talk to you I used to be like that at school if a teacher asked me a question I wouldn't be able to say anything yeah I'm also taking a pad and paper and a pen into an interview and I've had people interview with me who have done it and I have no noise and blinks and it means that what they're doing is they're writing down the question as I'm saying it all the key points of it and therefore they can look at their notes and progress and you know I've interviewed a lot of people and I've had people saying could you just give me a few moments to try to think about the answer and I have no issue with them doing that because I understand and you have to remember anyone interviewing you will understand that in interview stressful and an interview does bring out your nerves and everything else agrees and therefore be aware also on the flip side of you're nervous but the person interviewing does understand that they will understand and therefore if you want some more time things they should be able to give it to you and I think that's also important in itself even if you're not disclosing you can take you know just piece of paper different people communicate in different ways and that's not an issue in the slightest and I've you know had interviews with very different people who have either taken piece paper a pen I had one guy bring in a whole worksheet of notes with him and you know I don't I don't have an issue with that yeah you do what you need to make sure you get through the interview and actually is an interview would find that admirable because it shows that they understand themselves well enough to know what they need yeah but you've really a kind of special kind of interviewer like yeah you know I don't think many many like you I don't know yeah maybe I'm not we're all individuals but no I think I think knowing yourself and preparing for those basic questions is really powerful but how do you deal with the the kind of like what I was talking about the peak near typical process how do you deal with these the unwritten rules of the the unemployment dance that maybe you don't even understand now like like if you were younger and you weren't diagnosed and you're trying to go through all this like how how do you work out what to say when you aren't sure what they're really asking you I think there are a couple of different things could you elaborate on that is always a good we're back to stock phrases again you know yeah could you give me a real-life example is another wonderful phrase that you can use to give yourself a bit more time I really should probably put a lot of this down in paper at some point you and I have to remember to do this because actually it's quite helpful to have those key phrases and we should probably set up a group or something that actually allows everyone to share key phrases because there will be some that I haven't thought of and other people haven't thought of and they're quite handy to actually allow you to buy some time to understand the question further you know I think that's a really good thing to do and if you do have a few of those in your head ready to go from my point of view if I was going to do that I'd have to read them about three minutes before I went in because my recalls so terrible but actually if I present the day before no chance to be remembering okay but again it's being aware of who you are and how you handle thing yeah and I think that's also something that's very difficult because especially if you've masked a lot in your life like sometimes you actually don't know who you I have no idea you don't know what will help you and so it's really I found a lot of value actually in the in the groups that we're a part of you know like talking to other autistic people or just even lurking and like listening to other autistic people and be like oh maybe I should try that maybe that will help and like I've never been because I can't remember them I've never win one for stock phrases but I definitely went through a phase where I was trying to like well I actually worked in the careers department for about ten months and so like I learnt the theory behind how to get jobs and and everything like the interview I learned all the theory and I still couldn't do it that make that makes you feel really really bad about yourself when you like there is no reason why I'm so bad at this but I think it's important to remember that we're not actually bad at things it's the process that is not set up right fine for us I am you also have to remember percentage-wise when you think you are doing really badly you have to remember that actually a percentage of that is confidence levels and therefore you should actually ignore that entirely because I hadn't been to you recently I had my first interview for something two weeks ago I thought it on abysmally yes I got a second interview instantly and I thought it had gone horrendously and I think part of this is for anybody not just autistic with neurotypical as well is actually throwing caution to the wind and go you know what I'm going to be me again not saying diagnoses or anything else between I am me I am just going to get on with this I find sometimes actually interviewing where you don't want the job or pretending you don't want the job to a point it's actually a really good way of doing it because I pay you better when I don't want to know what told it I don't care yeah so yeah I think that's quite a good way of doing it I mean I don't know when I'm asking when I'm not I really don't because after 37 years before diagnosis I still have no idea I could still say kick and realize things from the group's we chatted nothing else ago yeah and I think it's also like it's important to remember that you started masking for a reason and for me it was very much like I see the reaction I see what how people react around me to people who are different people who who do that so I won't do that you know there was there was someone at my school who was bullied I was not bullied school because the way that I'm asked was to make myself completely invisible yeah I I was I really was and you know I I was bullied at school and somebody was actually earlier talking about bullying in the workplace yeah yeah it's something I experienced before my diagnosis which meant that the way I handled it was not how I would now you know back then I kind of just dealt with it curled up in a ball metaphorically speaking and sort of put my head down just kept going yeah where is nowadays I think I'd probably handle it very differently yeah but again you start to believe the things that people tell you about yourself because it's not just the bullies who say those things it's kind of society isn't it like society makes you feel like you're wrong so when people bully you it's almost like you think well they've got a point or something like so you really internalize it and I think that's why it's so it's so hard for us my husband my husband is still working with me on stopping me apologizing for everything I still now apologized permanently for everything even you know he could drop a glass and smashes and I'd say I'm really sorry I'm actually working on that with emails because emails are really a weakness of mine and I apologize if any of the viewers have ever sent me an email I haven't responded to because they're just now I get too many I literally just can't and but so I there are lots of emails that I put off because I just I can't work out how to do them and I put them off and then it's embarrassing amount of time later but I I've stopped myself apologizing and instead of apologizing I've started saying thank you for your patience and it do you know what it doesn't just make a difference to them it actually makes me feel less crap about myself because it's not like oh I'm sorry I'm just I um make up some lies or whatever I've just everything so it's like thank you for your patience I am acknowledging that this is late but I'm not making myself feel bad about it because I don't need to feel any buts you know you don't need to apologize to somebody for not communicating in a timely you a communication the time frame you are able to do something yeah and sometimes that timeframe is six weeks but I'm also autistic and okay I don't care how many people say how high-functioning I am I like sometimes I'm not not using that term no it's very obvious to people when they try and communicate with me on that kind of a level that sometimes I'm you know I put something on the bottom of my emails on my signature that says I will be getting back to you as soon as I can do but please bear with me you know because actually that means that they don't start chasing you ad nauseam and they don't start really hassling you for answers one or two people who have done that generally got the short end of my conversation and I've sat there going well I will come back to you when I'm ready thank you thing is that so much is now being done online as supposed to not face-to-face but it's it's weird you would have expected I would have expected more phone calls but actually everybody wants to see you so video chats are kind of like alright for me like they're okay certainly with people that I like you know it's just people I don't like but it's interesting how the current situation has kind of shifted what is possible all of a sudden all these accommodations that were not possible now everybody needs them suddenly we can all work from home we can all dwell we can't but you know we all of this stuff is being set up for the neurotypical majority and I think it'll be interesting to see the world moving forward after this because accommodation is going to be a completely different word I think from it was four months ago today because companies have had to learn that actually to drop those shackles of the old school and that everything doesn't have to revolve around the office instantly and that's been quite interesting what has also been interested in as I think we're going to see more and more working at home and I think it means that actually if we can get the HR price has changed workplace may well become a far better environment or more accommodating environment to us in autistic occurrences I'm already hearing about companies who are looking at dropping real estate and having people work from home because I realized that the financial savings they can have yeah so there are definitely people who are already looking at their workforce or the majority of it working from home is based on office which really will change things but it will where the longer term I think change global outlook for jobs as well because all of a sudden you could have people working on different continents or communicating via chat by web by an email and working on the same team and it opens up a hugely different market place at that point jobs will be really interesting I think that's a longer-term view not a short-term B and I think it's also it's right now we have a great opportunity we I mean like people like you have a great opportunity to say like okay we don't have to go back to the way things were can we can move forward and you can see remember that time we all worked from a home full format I don't we can do it yeah exactly oh why can't these people still do it so it's kind of like an interesting opportunity that we could capitalize on capitalize there may be the wrong word but you know I think while the iron is hot I think it is the right word I think it's something that companies now can't hide behind not helping and not being accommodating because it's been proven it works it's been proven they have to be able to they can do it because I've had to do this and I think that'll make a huge difference to be honest places like Oxford University University announced that for the for the whole year they're gonna have stuff available online yeah I mean disabled students there have been asking for these accommodations for years I can't imagine how annoyed they must be quite frankly you know I think I think we've got to pay it back bear in mind though that the what has happened for instance at the university what has happened with some of these companies is the shift they have done actually there will be a huge cost of the company it's been done very quickly but they have if you think about different all of a sudden the reason they are able to do it is all of their lectures are now on the line yeah set that up has been I suspect the IT people in the background have had a hideous time of luck pretty awful huh yeah you know the company I work for actually was fairly well prepared for this because they have something for business continuity set up because they were 24/7 operation yeah everybody used a laptop so we had already put in place this kind of eventualities so everyone literally just went home and worked but the majority of companies universities nothing else will not have had something like that and they wouldn't have pandemic training put in you know set up put in place so much as yes it is possible I think it's hot is actually a very good thing it's had to give them a short sharp shock to do it all and the expenses to the business would have been fairly horrendous depending on the business but it going forward it'll be fantastic for all of us yeah well I don't think we can necessarily be angry at them for not putting it in place at the beginning of things because I think it takes an adjustment of understanding and it was coming with some companies were definitely the young companies to startups the younger tech companies all have this in place they're already doing this yeah it's the more old-school like you say the universities and things and I think for them to shift their entire workload to online actually it's been very impressive to be honest you know you're in this time and to be able to get all of those lecturers set up all because at the end of the day you're going to be talking to some people who are very technical and you've got a whole bunch of users who wouldn't have a clue about how to even turn their computer at home yeah never mind do an online lecture that in itself has been probably a huge challenge but now it's there it's there and there's no going back from it which i think is going to be the most amazing thing for all of us yeah you know but with that comes its own challenges like I saying earlier about things like communication styles people who have always been in the office or extroverts who like talking to people all the sudden will be very isolated and they will be struggling to cope with work on something where is that those of us who like sitting at home cheerfully on the sofa curled up at a ball working very happy and I think that's actually important to recognize as well that much that will make us very happy it may actually cause challenges to other people and we've got to start looking at how we accommodate the workforce as a whole through that transition as well yeah and to ensure that everybody is working together they're able to work together relationships don't break down because they don't have the day-to-day silly conversations about how your caps doing or what your nose up to any of the daft things you know I used to bring my team biscuits on a regular basis as motivation all the sudden I can't be giving the biscuits every week how am i motivated my team if I can't feed them there's a hole in the opposite direction there's a whole challenge in itself for this as well taking into commendation from a neurotypical as well as an autistic spectrum yeah ya know it's a it's a very it's a very complicated subject because not only you're trying to make your workforce happy well I hope hopefully they are but but you're trying to make all kinds of autistic people happy and you know all kinds of ADHD people happy and it's so complicated and it's so difficult but I guess the important thing is that that that they try and that we try to go forward we try to educate as much as we can without being like well this is how it is for me so this is how it should be for everyone yeah that balance it is that balance of understand and it's something that I see in some of the groups at times is that it's back to communication understanding other people's opinions and seeing other people's thoughts and how they're feeling about it and this is something that can be a challenge at times yeah is actually seeing both sides of the story and I think because of my late diagnosis I'm probably in a good position with that in some ways purely because I've had to work both sides of the coin and my diagnosis came so late on that I'm now understanding myself I've done so much research and with more but actually I know what it was like before hand and I know that aside as well which has been quite interesting and I'm in a position where I see the business needs as well which is also different and I think sometimes businesses don't necessarily explain why it's a bit like parenting it's you say no you can't but you don't explain why you can't yeah and actually that's important as well as a business to elaborate not only on you know you can't work from home but the reasons why to make sure they make sense for that person and that person turns white because otherwise there's going to be resentment exactly yeah it's a bit like the headset scenario you can't wear headset why can't I wear Heather because I want people in the TV talk to you know that I've stopped if you don't have that extra phrase yeah you know you're just saying no you can't without actually explaining it and that in itself it's parenting you know yeah yeah you know the thing is I actually parent kind of like that I know some parents we just like know you kind of and you know my kids like I want to watch TV and I'm like you know we can't watch TV all the time because it sets a very dangerous precedent and you will be reduced you know like so I'm that kind of parent ya know I didn't know Harry just as a heads up might've just walk in the car you know I think we have we've we've got through a lot today and you obviously like we have so much more to talk about but yeah I'm gonna I mean it's 4:30 I'm gonna need to start thinking about parenting myself and dinner and you know all these things but thank you so much for coming on it's been really great to talk to you and I it has been helpful for for the viewers feels very much more we could talk about as well I mean we know but my email address up for them all so they can ask me questions directly I will I'll go back if you send me those links to your contacts in your email address I will put the description box or you know somebody wants to private message me I can another yeah if you want to know then then look in the description box for this this video here and that's that's where it's going to be posted and what else am I going to say yeah we've got a couple of weeks we've got a video on interviews where I'll be talking to a woman from a recruitment agency for autistic people she set that up and it's very cool so we're gonna be diving in specifically to the kind of the interview stuff so yeah I I have I have started the important topic I've jumped in and and hat and we'll see so see what people are interested in from here and and of course if you have any questions the live chats gonna go off as soon as we go off but if you comment on the actual video once the video is kind of like processed you can you can ask comments there and I will try and have a look at them and I'll try and answer them as well so thank you Naomi for coming on and thank you everybody for watching I hope you have a great Saturday you can still see how much energy I have because I'm not doing it at like 9 o'clock at night so I'm like woo I'm so energetic now this is the ADHD candidly traits coming out so yet take care everyone and I'll see you next time bye bye and the broadcast

Channel: Yo Samdy Sam

Views: 44,245

Keywords: autism at work, autism workplace bullying, autism spectrum disorder, autism at owrk, autism at work program, autism at work jpmorgan chase, autism in the workplace, autism in adults, autism and employment, autism jobs, autism at owrk program, hiring autistic workers, neurodiversity in the workplace, neurodiversity consultant

Id: jZyjw6pCRn0

Length: 79min 18sec (4758 seconds)

Published: Sat May 30 2020