START HERE Autistic people and work Inclusivity and universal design Inclusivity and universal design “Good design enables, bad design disables” Paul Hogan - founding member of the Institute for Design and Disability How can I make my workplace more inclusive? By incorporating and allowing flexibility, any adjustment for anyone with a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010 should be in line with company policy. Many adjustments are simple to make providing you are aware of the reasons and of the different needs of people in society. While changing processes to increase inclusivity will help everyone, there may still be a need for specific adjustments for individual employees – and this may be a subject for ongoing discussion as these may change over time. The following are examples of the things you could think about when trying to increase the inclusivity of your workplace. Work together with all your employees - have ongoing conversations about their needs and what works best for them Be unambiguous and explicit; this will help your whole team excel and create better understanding during collaboration and daily work Recognise when you are using ambiguous language. Being a ‘team-player’ with ‘communications skills’ does not necessarily make for the best employee. Think about what type of skills you need a person to have in order to fill the position and be clear and explicit. This will not only help you evaluate the position you are trying to fill but also help attract the right people for the interview process. Seek out skills rather than shortcomings just like you would any other employee! Organise and plan; where will the employee be working? Where and when is lunch? Is it provided? Make sure to give this information in writing before the first day. You may think that you already do this, but be absolutely sure that everything is clear. Is there a certain lunch break time but half of the staff tend to wait and take their break at other times? Is it okay to buy lunch from across the street? Information like this is very important and will help you make the first day much more relaxed and enjoyable for every employee you hire. Routines are important to everyone but especially to autistic employees so structuring your environment is essential Make it clear if a meeting is weekly or daily and establish daily routines and priorities. By doing so, companies have improved both productivity and motivation through regular feedback and advise. Make reasonable adjustments for every employee if they express a desire for this Letting someone wear noise-cancelling headphones or provide them with a safe space in case of overstimulation can be the fine line between getting the work done and being distracted and uncomfortable the whole day. Be sure to have conversations that will allow you to accommodate for the needs of every member of your team. Make sure everyone knows what to do if something isn’t working or they need help This might seem like something a person would simply ask for, but knowing how to deal with problems or to begin with saves time in the end and a lot of distress on the individual. A simple solution is providing a list of the helplines available on call and/or in office. Or select a person that will be point of contact in case the employee needs help of any kind or have a questions. Again, making this information accessible will save time for everybody. Make sure everybody understands the task at hand A written step-by-step guide to a task can sometimes be better than verbal reassurance. It might take a little longer for some people to fully understand a given task and having a step-by-step guide is a useful help to this. Perhaps others will prefer to be shown what to do so they will be able to copy and another group will find repetition of the training is the most useful aid to fully understand. Ongoing assessment ensures the employee is on the right path Regular meetings and openness will help any employee reach full potential and make sure the needs of that person are always met. And equally important, share the compelling business case for inclusion. Actually being honest about where you stand on this can be difficult, but it is the first step in becoming an inclusive workplace. What is universal design? Design is all around us in society, on public transportation, in education, jobs and every product meant to be used by people. Universal design is the idea that all things should be usable by all individuals to the greatest extent possible, without adaptation or specialised design Accommodating as many people as possible regardless of abilities, language, vision, hearing, or mobility is important for the inclusion of everyone in a community and society. Universal design encompasses everything from ramp entrances and wide interior doors to meaningful, colour contrasted signage. It can be helpful to remember that accommodating for a specific group of people will most likely benefit others as well. For instance, providing a ramp entrance is not only helpful to wheelchair users but also to people with pushchairs, delivery workers or people with a rollator to name a few. Although there are no set technical standards for applying universal design, some general principles you can think of are: Avoid unnecessary complexity and make the design intuitive and simple to use Support users of various different abilities Accommodate a wide range of language and literacy users Do not assume prior knowledge or extensive attention span Make sure essential information is provided in more than one way to accommodate different sensory abilities Universal design requires awareness to different user needs and feedback from a variety of communities. Universal design and the social model of autism In understanding what universal design is and means, it can be helpful to understand the difference between the social and medical model of autism. The social model of autism is built on the foundation that if an autistic person has difficulties fitting into society or employment, it is because of barriers in society not living up to the access need of every individual. For example, if using public transport during busy periods is a problem, allowing flexible working hours would allow someone to travel to work outside busy times and eliminate the issue. However, the medical model assumes that the problem lies with the person, not the environment or conditions it imposes and that the person themselves must change to fit in. A way to ensure accessibility and inclusivity is applying universal design. Universal design is a way of designing every environment, product, workplace, building etc., to make them accessible to all people regardless of age, gender or potential disability In that sense, universal design is in line with the social model. If more attention is given to improving function for a broad range of people, a usable world for people with disabilities would become the norm. In other words, creating an inclusive and accessible environment for the few means doing it for the many first. Bibliography: https://hbr.org/2017/05/neurodiversity-as-a-competitive-advantage https://theconversation.com/why-employing-autistic-people-makes-good-business-sense-39948 https://incluzy.com/benefits-employing-individuals-autism/ https://www.accenture.com/t20181029T185446Z__w__/us-en/_acnmedia/PDF-89/Accenture-Disability-Inclusion-Research-Report.pdf https://www.globaldisabilityrightsnow.org/tools/universal-design-access-justice