14 Workplace Accommodations for Autistic People

Hi, I'm Taylor with Mom on the Spectrum and in this video I'm going to be sharing 14 simple neurodivergent workplace accommodations that you can make today to make your workplace more neurodivergent friendly. Number 13 is my absolute favorite total game changer. Before we jump in, I want to make sure you know about my totally free Ultimate Guide to Understanding Autism. This is a list of 40 terms that I've defined to help make life on the spectrum easier to understand. If you're a late diagnosed autistic adult like me, this list would have come in very helpful much earlier in life, so link for that in the description. Again, totally free. Let's jump in. The first thing on the list is to create an environment where it's safe to ask for help or support. Autistic people especially need a lot of clarification and a lot of help understanding exactly what's being expected. Remember that questions from a neurodivergent person are not intended to be critical, we just need to ask a lot of questions to understand the expectations before we will fully commit to an activity. The second accommodation is to provide regular check-ins from upper management. Neurodivergent people tend to struggle with something called rejection sensitive dysphoria, which is basically what it sounds like. We don't tend to handle rejection or feedback well. The more feedback we can receive in a gentle manner from supervisors, it's not a good thing when you know that every time your supervisor comes to you it's going to be negative feedback, right? We need more regular feedback than that so that we can hear about the things that we're doing well too. The third accommodation is to provide visual aids, templates, guidelines, instructions, step-by-step, anything you can do again to clearly delineate this is what's being expected, here's when it's expected, and then to put it on a visual guide. That is so helpful. The fourth accommodation is to provide alternative methods of communication, especially nonverbal. If you can accept email conversation rather than face-to-face, that's almost always more helpful for neurodivergent people, generally speaking, but nonverbal communication gives us a chance to write out what we actually think, feel, want, need, and then when we receive a written communication back, it helps us have something to grab onto and, again, know what's expected of us. On that note, we also tend to have trouble with working memory sometimes, like holding things in our brain and remembering that somebody asked us to do that, so anytime you can put that kind of thing in written communication, that's helpful as well. The fifth accommodation is to reduce sensory overwhelm in the environment. Can you create cozier spaces, you know, couches, pillows, reduce overhead lighting, make sure that somebody's cleaning out the refrigerator and that there's not an awful smell emanating from the workroom all the time, you know. Anything you can do, maybe sending out an office memo to please be mindful of strong perfumes because that can really, really distract neurodivergent people from getting work done and can make us feel really, really overwhelmed. So anything you can do, especially that overhead lighting, oh my gosh, fluorescent lighting, please no, natural lighting at all costs whenever possible. One other thing that's really important to me is using mild cleaning agents. So if in your office building somebody's using like really harsh chemicals to clean, that will have my whole body stressed about coming into work every day. So I know there's not always a lot we can do there, but it would at least be worth having a conversation with the custodial team to see, hey, is there anything else we can do about this to make the chemicals less harsh? Also, it's better for your immune system as well. When we've got harsh chemicals in the air and the environment, it causes a lot of stress and inflammation in our bodies, which is not good for anybody. Okay, the sixth accommodation. If you schedule a meeting, give a very clear indication of its purpose and stick to the plan. Outline what the purpose of the meeting is for. In writing, if possible, stick to the plan and make sure expectations are clearly understood. The worst thing in the world is to say, hey Jim, I need to talk to you. Are you available at 3? That neurodivergent person is not going to get any work done for the rest of the day. You could say, hey Jim, I'd really like to talk with you about the feedback that you gave in the meeting yesterday. I thought there were a couple of great points that I want you to expand on if you don't mind. I was really interested in hearing more of what you have to say about project B and the deadline if there's any flexibility there, right? So before you even meet, giving them a better understanding of exactly what you're going to be talking about. Seventh accommodation, walk and talk meetings. If you can avoid sitting in a boardroom around a table, if it's a possibility to go outside to move around to do something a little more active, that can really help us manage the sensory component of our experience and it also provides a really great opportunity for moving pent-up energy out of our bodies when we can get out of the office and move around a little bit. The eighth accommodation you can make is understanding that transitions are especially difficult for neurodivergent people. So anytime there's a transition either from environment to environment, from project to project, from timeline to timeline, anytime you notice there's a transition if you can help provide expectations, you know, here's what the transition is going to look like when we switch from this team working on the project to this team working. Here's the timeline, here's, you know, extra support, here's extra resources to help us navigate. Just know any type of transitory period is going to create extra stress and if you can talk through it, it can really help your neurodivergent employees feel much more grounded and capable. The ninth accommodation is to offer mentorship opportunities. So along that same line of us needing regular feedback to kind of help us know what to expect, we tend to work pretty well one-on-one. So if you provide mentorship opportunities, this can give neurodivergent individuals the opportunity to really learn, which most of us love doing. Giving us an opportunity to learn from someone who does it really well in a one-on-one setting with direct feedback, this is an awesome thing for a lot of neurodivergent people. The tenth accommodation is to encourage breaks, especially outdoors. That one's pretty obvious, no-brainer. Eleventh accommodation, which most people are doing now, allow flexibility with work from home whenever possible. So I love that this is a change that we've been seeing since the pandemic. Neurodivergent people tend to work best in their own environment, so if you can give them more work from home flexibility, give it to them. Number twelve, the twelfth accommodation, set clearly defined and measurable goals in all things, in each email, in the meeting notes, in a one-on-one conversation. Clearly defined, measurable goals, measurable timeline, this is what I need when I need it. Okay, the thirteenth accommodation, which I mentioned is my favorite and a game changer, please consider this. Allow individuals to opt out of group work whenever possible. If I'm put in a group think brainstorming situation, my brain will melt into a puddle of goo and you will not receive any valuable feedback from me. But if you tell me this is what we're working towards together, we'd really like to come up with 10 different approaches to this project that we're working on, then you let me go back to my office and say, you know, we're going to meet back again in 30 minutes. I'm going to be much more creative, much more productive. Please let people opt out of group work whenever possible. It's just not a conducive environment for many neurodivergent people. And then the last, the fourteenth accommodation, get comfortable with saying, I don't know, let's find a solution together. So I think a lot of times we want to have an answer, we want to know what to say, we want to know how to help and support, but as we learn how to better accommodate neurodivergent people in the workplace, we have to be okay with saying, I don't know. We have to be okay with asking questions and saying, you know what, I don't really have a solution. Do you have any ideas? What would be helpful to you? Right? Open up the conversation. Don't pretend to know everything. Don't feel like you have to have it all figured out. Say, I don't know, let's come up with a solution together. So these are 14 simple accommodations that you can make in your workplace to make it more neurodivergent friendly. Let me know which ones are the most helpful to you and also if there's any you would add to the list. I always love learning from this community and there's always so many great suggestions. Don't forget, check out my Ultimate Guide to Understanding Autism, link in the description, download for free. Thanks for watching and I will see you in the next video.