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Feeling supported in the workplace

Sho

As someone recently diagnosed with autism at 50, I've been reflecting deeply on how workplaces support-or fail to support-neurodivergent individuals. My diagnosis was a turning point, helping me reframe years of personal and professional experiences.

The Equality Act 2010 requires employers, service providers, and public authorities to make reasonable adjustments for people with disabilities. These adjustments are meant to remove barriers and ensure equal access to jobs, services, and opportunities.

From what I've seen, many organisations I’ve worked for fall short of meaningful inclusion. It's easy to draft a diversity policy, host a few "neurodiversity awareness" sessions, and then consider the job done. But real inclusion requires more than ticking boxes; it demands understanding, accountability, and action.

My concerns are:

Manager Training - Many managers don't know enough about autism or other neurodivergent conditions. Without proper understanding, they may not recognise when adjustments are needed or how to implement them. Why isn't neurodiversity training mandatory for all managers?

Subjectivity of "Reasonable Adjustments" - What's considered "reasonable" can vary widely. Without clear guidance and awareness, managers may unintentionally overlook or dismiss the needs of neurodivergent staff.

Self-Advocacy - Autistic individuals often need to understand the law and advocate for themselves to receive support. That's a heavy burden, especially when self-advocacy isn't always possible for everyone in our community.

 Lack of Governance and Accountability - In education, we have SENCOs (Special Educational Needs Coordinators) to help ensure students' needs are met. It's not perfect, but it's something. Why don't workplaces have a similar role or system to ensure neurodivergent employees are supported?

 Does anyone else feel the same way?

Parents

  • Adding all this up, you are asking a lot of employers, both in terms of effort and in understanding.

    Looking at the drivers for this - do we offer good enough value to them to make it worthwhile? Are we going to offer greater productivity, insight, performance etc than a NT counterpart?

    I rather suspect that we will offer, on balance, less value to them than an NT precisely because our ND traits will make us more prone to periods of burnout, difficuty in processing some tasks such as change, stressful situations etc.

    If we cannot cope with these things like out NT counterparts can, we cannot function on an equivelant level and with our persistent social interaction challenges, most will never be able to operate in a team in the same way.

    It is these fact that is making the government force employers to accommodate us with the laws but it does not change the fact that most employers will be skeptical of our value.

    How do you think we can convince employers we are a better hiring opportunity than an NT person?

Reply

  • Adding all this up, you are asking a lot of employers, both in terms of effort and in understanding.

    Looking at the drivers for this - do we offer good enough value to them to make it worthwhile? Are we going to offer greater productivity, insight, performance etc than a NT counterpart?

    I rather suspect that we will offer, on balance, less value to them than an NT precisely because our ND traits will make us more prone to periods of burnout, difficuty in processing some tasks such as change, stressful situations etc.

    If we cannot cope with these things like out NT counterparts can, we cannot function on an equivelant level and with our persistent social interaction challenges, most will never be able to operate in a team in the same way.

    It is these fact that is making the government force employers to accommodate us with the laws but it does not change the fact that most employers will be skeptical of our value.

    How do you think we can convince employers we are a better hiring opportunity than an NT person?

Children
  • in reply to Iain

    I think a lot of my work burnout had to do with managers having no understanding of my differences or even that differences existed in general. If I spotted a detail that might cause problems in the course of the project, I was nit picking. If I asked questions to try to understand the requirements in more detail, I was being awkward. If I tried to communicate that my point was important enough to deserve some extra scrutiny or investigation, I was being argumentative.

    Some managers were better than others. The ones who didn't like me tended to be the ones whose projects failed miserably. Those managers wouldn't listen to anyone, not just me. They were the manager, so they knew better—end of. However, I would remain vocal while everyone else on the team just learned to give up and shut up. My strong sense of loyalty to the business meant that I couldn't sit back and watch a project fail without at least trying something to avert disaster.

    Other managers trusted that their engineering staff knew their stuff and that the engineers and not the managers should be the ones driving the engineering decisions. Those projects tended to be far more successful. More trust, more collaboration, far less friction and better outcomes.

    I believe that I brought something to the table that would otherwise have been lacking. I think I was quite popular with my peers for being the one to ask the questions that everyone else was afraid to ask. The groupthink on projects I wasn't involved in tended to sink a lot of them.