Being in the workplace
What happens in a workplace can vary a lot. Even within the same organisation departments may operate in different ways and have different expectations of staff.
It can help to have some background in the social rules, culture and processes that are often found in workplaces
Workplace etiquette is not often spoken about until someone has breached an unwritten rule. To make it more complicated still, rules vary from office to office, and even from one work area to another within the same company.
Workplace etiquette refers to the way people behave at work and is often the sort of thing that often no one tells you about, perhaps until someone has broken an unwritten rule
Workplaces are social environments that can be hard for autistic people to work out. To stand the best chance of getting it right from the start, ask for this information to be included in your induction. If in doubt, ask your line manager or a colleague you trust.
General guidelines:
- Be on time when starting work and for meetings or other events.
- Say hello to people when you arrive and goodbye when you leave.
- Pay attention to people’s names – try to memorise the names of the people you need to speak to regularly .
- Keep the noise down in the office – people are trying to work.
- Find out whether people offer to make tea and coffee for each other. If they do, make sure you take turns. Some places have a rota to say whose turn it is. Unless drinks are provided by your employer, be prepared to contribute to the cost.
- Don’t use someone else’s mug. Take your own in unless everyone uses the same design, which is a clue the company has probably provided them.
- Don’t eat food that you have not brought or bought yourself unless specifically invited to do so. Take in or buy your own.
- Be aware of your personal hygiene and the need to wash your body and clothes regularly. Don’t forget to use a deodorant. No-one likes working with someone who smells of body odour.
- Only use your personal mobile phone at meal or breaktime and away from your colleagues. It distracts everyone and is not what you are paid for.
- If someone brings in cake, sweets or other food for everyone to share, only take one helping until everyone who want one has had a piece.
- If there are birthday traditions, try to do the same when it is your birthday.
- Try to be positive. Don’t be the person who moans and complains all the time. If you have a complaint about a work situation, there is a formal process for that.
- If there is a rota for any other job in the workplace – e.g. cleaning the kitchen area, make sure you take your turn.
- Coughing and sneezing can’t be helped, but do use a tissue and wash your hands to prevent spreading an infection
- If someone looks busy and doesn’t look up as you approach, try not to interrupt them.
- If you have to interrupt, apologise for interrupting before you launch into what you need to say. If you are not sure, try saying, ‘Sorry to interrupt, but I have a question I need to ask… Is now a good moment or should I drop you an email?’
Body language and non-verbal communication
The way you use your body affects how other people see you
Body language is the way people give information without using words – this may involve: facial expressions, hand gestures, touching, the way they stand, and many other signs, including eye contact. How you feel has an impact on the way you stand, the way you sit and whether you speak up. You can study how this works and use it to create the impression you want other people to have of you.
Be aware that people respond to body language without knowing it and may not be familiar with the different ways that autistic people sometimes respond
If you find eye contact painful, for example, you need to inform the person that you are speaking to so that they do not judge your non-verbal communication negatively. Or you may need to ask someone to say something in a different way if they have you an expression, term or gesture that isn’t obvious to you.
Unless you are working on your own in a remote location, you are likely to need to interact with other people.
It is important to be able to get on with people in the work environment and socialising often helps people to do that better. You may want to minimise the times you need to use these skills as it gets very tiring to concentrate on this as well as the work. Social events can be formal and planned, or informal and arranged by the teams themselves. Many organisations put time and money into making sure that their workers feel part of a team. This is important to most employees and is thought to help individuals get to know their colleagues so that they can collaborate in work more effectively.
You may be expected to attend some social or team activities, others you can avoid without causing offence
Team building – daytime or evening events designed to improve communication, build trust, reduce conflict, and improve collaboration. You will probably be asked to work with other people in teams and may be asked to solve a problem. It is paid for by the company and counts as working time. They are usually held away from the office, so ask for all of the details of the event in advance and to be assigned to a team with your line manager or another colleague that you like so that you feel as comfortable as possible. Examples might include an evening bowling, team quizzes, going sailing, or an escape-room challenge.
If the venue or event type isn’t accessible for you, you may need to ask for a reasonable adjustment or explain why you feel unable to attend
Going out after work – often an informal arrangement where groups of people go out for a drink or other activity, with or without a meal, in your own time. You do not necessarily have to attend these informal events, but they are often an opportunity to find out more about your colleagues and build relationships and understanding.
If you want to get involved in these kinds of informal team activities, you might want to talk to a trusted colleague about what would make it easier for you to attend – for example knowing where you’re likely to go and whether you’re planning to stay out for meal times in advance. Sometimes going out after work is spontaneous – for example as a response to something really good happening at work that day. And sometimes plans change, meaning colleagues might decide to change venues during the evening. It’s OK to go out for a while and then go home when you’re ready to do so, you don’t need to feel you have to stay until a particular time or until others choose to go home.
Christmas Meal – many workplaces celebrate Christmas by going out. This could be a Christmas lunch, or an evening meal. Ask whether or not you will need to pay or contribute a proportion of the costs for the meal and drinks as not all companies will pay. You can expect to pay a price per person and choose options from a set menu. Find out who is organising the event, check the menu in advance and agree to go to a venue that serves food you are ok to eat. If you are based in an office, factory, shop or place of work with other people, you will probably be expected to go unless you are ill, but you do not have to go if you don’t want to.
Office Party – held in the office itself, at a hotel, bar or other venue. You will probably be expected to go and look happy to be there. In reality, not everyone enjoys work parties and the fact that many who attend often consume lots of alcohol. If it is held outside work time, you do not have to go and there is no need to drink alcohol if you do not want to.
Going out for lunch or coffee break – Work colleagues will often go out in small groups to buy lunch or snacks and bring it back or eat lunch out together. If they are happy for you to join them, they will invite you. You do not have to say yes. You can also suggest lunch with a colleague yourself. Teams sometimes go out for a working lunch, where everyone needs to attend as you will be discussing work. If you are working on that project or in that team you will be expected to go with them. You should discuss any dietary requirements with the person booking the venue to make sure there is something you are able to eat. Also, be ready to cover your share of the costs.
Conversations, both with one person or with groups of people happen both formally and informally in most jobs. Not all meetings have to be in person. As well as being a reasonable adjustment to avoid the stress and expense of travel, phone, webinars and video conferences are less time consuming and reduce the organisation’s environmental footprint. In some jobs, you may have to travel and stay away from home to attend face to face meetings.
Types of meeting
Good practice can make meetings more accessible for everyone – request or suggest adjustments to the organisers
There may be several different types of meeting you may be invited to attend. These could include:
One to one, line management and supervision meetings – Most organisations have a formal performance management process, which will be covered in meetings with your supervisor. This will include how often you should meet to discuss your work with your line manager or supervisor. You can ask to meet more often than that as a reasonable adjustment.
Conference calls – Increasingly businesses are using calls to bring multiple colleagues together to discuss a particular topic or challenge. Sometimes these are run over the internet via video call, and you can see your colleagues, or they can show you documents or other information on their computer screens and vice versa. It can be difficult to know when to talk without interrupting, or to know when other people are going to talk or ask a question, but it’s the same for everyone else on the call! An agenda can help, as can having someone chair the call, who is skilled at ensuring everyone can contribute.
Team meetings – Where you meet with other members of your team – typically all those who report to your manager. The frequency of the meetings will vary, they may be daily, weekly or monthly. Companies where things change regularly tend to have more frequent and shorter meetings. Sometimes team meetings can take all day if they don’t happen all that regularly.
Leadership briefings and management meetings – Usually led by a senior member of staff at key periods – e.g. at the end of the year, or times of change. They can relate directly to the work you are doing, or to the organisation itself.
Staff forum meetings – Many bigger companies have staff groups, often made up of volunteers, who come together on a regular basis to discuss a workplace issue that’s important to them. For example there may be a workplace Diversity group. You could volunteer, or be asked to represent autistic or disabled people in such a staff forum if one existed at your employer. The forum might focus on employment issues such as pay and working conditions but may also consult on changes in strategic direction.
Project Management meetings – If you are working on a project, you will need to meet (in person or virtually – e.g. by video or conference call) at agreed intervals or stages of the project to discuss progress.
Quality management meetings – Attention to detail is a strength for many autistic people and is essential to developing and delivering a consistent high-quality approach to organisational delivery. There will normally be a group pf people responsible for quality within any large organisation.
Organisational Awaydays – (Sometimes called ‘off-site’ meetings) When a new team is set up, or a major organisational change is happening, many organisations will choose to get key people away from the office so that their thinking can be more creative and they can work more closely together than is possible with the usual workplace demands. These meetings are sometimes combined with evening social activities.
Accessible meetings
Meetings can be overwhelming. The items in the following list may be provided to make the meeting more accessible, or you could ask for them as reasonable adjustments.
All meetings can be made more accessible for autistic people by incorporating good practice such as:
- A timed agenda saying who is due to attend
- A map, and details of how to get there
- Link to the venue with pictures of the room and a guided tour if needed
- All papers sent out in advance of the meeting. Read them through in advance so you can prepare for the meeting so that you can contribute in writing if that works better for you.
- Share your dietary needs (e.g. vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, plain food) with the organiser in advance so that they can provide food that you can eat if the meeting or event goes over a mealtime.
- Sending a draft set of minutes to participants for comments and questions before the final minutes are sent out.
Accessible conferences
If you need to attend large meetings, staff briefings and conferences, they can be made more accessible by following the guidance for meetings above. The following things may be provided by the organiser, or you could suggest them:
- Reserved seating to minimise sensory overload
- Early registration to conferences to avoid crowds
- Access to a quiet room
- Interaction badges – coloured communication badges to indicate to other people if you are happy to be approached by them. You should have access to all 3 badges and be able to choose which to display:
- Green – Please talk to me (I may have trouble starting a conversation)
- Yellow – Please don’t talk to me unless I already know you
- Red – Please don’t talk to me
- Questions submitted in advance – submit written questions to the conference organisers in advance if you do not want to raise them in person
You could meet in person, over the phone or video call. In a lot of organisations, this is done monthly, but as an autistic person, you may find it helpful to speak to your line manager or a mentor much more frequently than that to make sure you are getting the support you need, clarify expectations or to talk through situations as they come up in your workplace. This can be a reasonable adjustment.
During probation
When you are given a job, it is usually conditional on you completing a trial or probation period. For most jobs this is between 1 and 6 months and is often the period covered by your induction if you have one. It is a time for you and your employer to be sure that you are trained and supported to do the job.
Your employer may extend your probation in exceptional circumstances, such as a period of absence of the employee or line manager. At the end of that period, you will be informed whether you are confirmed in post.
If you are not going to be confirmed in post you should be invited in writing to meet with your employer – you should take a trusted colleague or union representative with you to that meeting which is your opportunity to understand what has happened and why, and to give your views
If it is decided that your employment is to be terminated, you should still be given at least 1 weeks’ notice.
If you decide you want to leave either at the end of or at any time during your probation period, you must also give at least 1 weeks’ notice in writing. Unless you are informed otherwise, you are confirmed in post.
One to one meetings, supervision and performance management
One to one meetings with management are either:
- Informal: conversations that take place on an irregular basis to help both you and your manager do their job effectively This is helpful to check your understanding and work out alternative approaches to problems, rather than make it formal. These meetings are a chance to discuss any issues you are having without needing to record them.
- Formal: which will typically be at regular intervals, sometimes in line with a company policy and often documented. If you have a Performance Management procedure which lays out how often you should meet formally and complete any forms your company uses to record the discussion. Formal meetings often have an agenda which is the same for all employees, and might include some of the following:
- Reviewing your objectives for the past year
- Identifying your successes
- Reviewing attendance
- Identifying where you are struggling
- Discussing any issues with colleagues
- Agreeing what support you need to be able to do well
- Changes to your reasonable adjustments
- Training and development needs and career aspirations
- Setting objectives for the next year
- Talking about pay, pay reviews or bonus
Your line manager should not wait until the annual review to identify any concerns with your performance. These should be raised with you as they arise
Most companies hold a formal performance review at least once a year which should be recorded in writing. Performance reviews and scores can be considered when assessing employees for pay rises, promotion or transfer.
Promotion is the process where a company chooses a current employee to fill a role they have at a higher level.
Promotion usually comes with a higher rate of pay or increase in other benefits.
In some companies you may need to apply formally for promotion
When you accept a promotion, you are accepting an offer of work under a new contract of employment. You must check carefully that the terms and conditions are still suitable for you. It is common for a promotion to include a requirement to work different hours, in a different location or to be mobile. A promotion can:
- Be temporary – sometimes called ‘acting up’ due to
- the absence of a colleague
- a need for someone to do a role while a someone is recruited
- a short-term project
- Be permanent
You will usually (but not always) be paid more for carrying out the higher role. Temporary promotions usually happen more often in large formal organisations. In each case, the employer will have specific rules for what happens at the end of the temporary promotion. These rules will govern whether you will revert to your previous salary when the temporary role ends, or continue to be paid at the higher rate until your salary catches up through annual increases.
