What changes are needed in work cultures to ensure that people
with hidden disability receive the support
and respect they need? Kurt
do you want to start? Sure it works good
what changes are required not always large changes is what I'll start with.
By the way, I've never heard Ruth speak but that was awesome.
Thank you. It was really good.
One of the things that that we encourage workplaces to do is to
ask the person it's really really simple
and you probably all do it anyway,
but just ask whoever it is,
whether they're person with a different ability special ability disability,
whatever just what supports
and workplace supports might you need? So that's one thing in the recruitment process.
There's a bunch of stuff that we could suggest
but to be brief but job descriptions are a huge one particularly
for people on the autism spectrum
because they often take what's in a job description quite literally
and so if you've got a pro forma job description,
which I don't know whether you have
or not and it's got a bunch of mandatory must-haves must have let's just take one excellent written
and verbal communication skills that might exclude almost every single person with Autism
because they We'll take that literally and then go well,
I can't apply because what
what is the what is the benchmark for excellent firstly and I'm not always great at verbal skills.
So I can’t apply whereas if you don't have autism you might fluff your way through that answer.
I guess I think that people want to feel safe to be who they are
and to need what they need at work
and part of that is about authentically seeing it
as a shared goal that your workplace or your manager and you are both aiming at the same end point,
which is achieving what as a business
or as a service you guys need to achieve
but that's a shared goal that you both work together
and both have whatever you need out of it that you achieve together if you if you genuinely
and authentically see that as something that you're doing as a team.
Then I'd actually update what Kurt said from
what do you need to be? What do we need?
As a company or as a team, that's a great Point Ruth.
What do we need? Kurt in our chats
we've talked a lot about the importance of training co-workers to integrate workers with Autism.
What can a co-worker do to make or break a successful work placement?
You can let your conscious and unconscious bias
spew over into the workplace how might that look?
You might get frustrated because the person that you're working with you,
you're in a work situation and Ruth outlined it really well and she likes it when it's planned,
it's clear and she knows what's coming. Last-minute change?
Okay, yep we were going to do that, but actually,
you know what that project’s now been scraped. We're doing this one.
And that person the person with autism might really struggle and you as a manager or as a co-worker
well, how do you how do you help them navigate through that change?
Right some really practical simple things,
and again Ruth alluded to it. Write it down, email slack.
I don't know what whether you use slack it work instant message allow yourself to talk to the person
because they're not aliens.
They are easy to talk to they’re normal human beings.
They just think different and say I'm really struggling with the way that you’re responding to that.
Why are you so abrupt with me
or why are you holding eye contact with me
and ask them questions and and and be able to allow them to respond allow them time to respond.
I manage a number of staff with Autism
and one of the things I've had to learn
because I was I'm trained not specifically just in life to hold eye contact with people.
Right and so look at someone and to engage with them and when they ask me a question,
there's an appropriate amount of time
and then I respond back right I work
and manage people with or work with
and manage people with Autism and I have to get really good at doing this.
I'm going to give you a visual example.
So if Ruth asked me a question often times not always I will respond by looking
away because eye contact is not always great
and I will give 30 seconds a minute in time
for response because times
as again Ruth alluded to she's processing a whole bunch of different things.
And so she might even need to ask me to clarify.
What did you actually say again Kurt? I can't even remember
or I've had situations at work where I've had to let it go
because my staff member didn't allow me the time or didn't respond in a certain amount of time.
It was like five minutes or so and I'm like, I just I just said said in the look,
I'm going to have to get on with work 20 minutes half an hour an hour
later they'll come back to me
and they'll just start the conversation like I was still back there and I'm like,
what are we talking about again? Like honestly have no idea
and so I have to actually say that I can't just be really dismissive
look I don't know what I don't have time
for that or whatever. I have to actually stop engage
and pay attention and ask
and so those are kind of examples of things that you can do to encourage people in the workplace.
I probably what you would do with any colleague I would have guess well,
I would hope. Clearly You've disclosed your disability through the Specialistern
program but have there been jobs where you felt uncomfortable about disclosing disability?
Definitely my previous role
I was in I after getting diagnosed I didn't
disclose and I think if I if I hadn't felt like I needed the program that I used I
might not have disclosed in my current job either
but I'm very glad I did I feel more supported
but there's a lot of fear
and about prejudice and it's hard to be a pioneer who's also
needing extra support that that's a hard combo
and but with the right manager,
it's it's just about giving people what they need in their work and giving them support and stuff.
So it's really helpful. I found that
since I had disclosed quite a number of people told me that they were on the
spectrum that they hadn't told other people at work,
but not being the only one made them feel more safe to to be able to
tell it. One of the things that really helped
me at Westpac was that we have a number of employment action groups.
I'm not sure what the public service like with this.
I'm sure you have something equivalent where if you're behind a particular issue
whether it's lgbtq+ or whether it's disability or whether it's maybe age or women in the workplace.
There's a lot of different things people get behind but whatever that issue is
really senior people who were part of that action group often would
have some sort of event where they gave a talk
and I heard one talk from somebody.
It was part of the women's group where they spoke about their own mental illness
and the support they were getting
and something Pam said that was the similar thing about when they could bring their whole self.
Their authentic whole self to work.
They were so much more effective
and and productive and able to be the best version of themselves for work.
And hearing somebody really senior saying that talking about
that being really honest about their challenges.
It wasn't the same challenge I have
but it was incredibly inspiring and made me feel much better about following that example.
So I think it's important that this stuff comes from the actual people with lived experience.
But I also think if those people are high up
and have an ability to lead
and inspire others then it makes such a difference if that's somebody who can identify
in the workplace. Before we open to questions from all of you,
I just want to give our panelists one last chance to give a final message
to you as our audience what they want you to take home from today. Kurt,
we haven't heard from you for a while, so it would be great for you to open this
discussion. Sure one of the things that we encounter in organizations is good intent,
but poor execution. Often times
we can actually say I think both Jane
and Gail mentioned that the stats
for people with Autism are 46% not sure where they got that number from.
I would probably normally quote you a number somewhere between sixty and ninety five percent.
That's and that's coming across a different.
Depends on which publication you look
at and that's both unemployed underemployed
and wrongly employed and I was talking to someone earlier in the on the floor.
But just to give you a quick example of that if you're someone with Autism
and you're not great with social skills,
you just you just don't like chitchat and you're not good with eye contact.
Please don't put me into a customer service role at Kmart
because I'd suck at it and I'm going to lose my job,
right because I might be rude I might be abrupt.
I might not make eye contact and then and that's it's not because I'm not good at doing something.
It's just you put me into the wrong job
because you haven't kind of like Ruth said tried to find out
what I'm really good at and tried to create a space
for me in your work place where I could be allowed to thrive showing you
what I'm good at but getting back to my point around intent versus execution.
We often get engaged at quite senior levels in organizations,
and then they say awesome.
Let's go and then it's the hiring managers who are on the line
day-to-day who have to manage people with Autism.
We’re not placing a lot of people with Autism the really senior roles.
We'd love to be we just haven't cracked that nut yet.
We're not going to give up but we haven't got there yet.
So if you're hiring manager in the room someone who has staff that work
for you or positions of vacant that you need to do.
The thing I want to kind of say to you is there's several things the management needs of people
with Autism are are not greater than any other staff member
but they are different right the needs that you the skills
that you need to manage them with autism are
different every single hiring manager that we work with myself included.
Is feedback to say I'm a better manager of people across all of my people
because of some of the changes and adaptations
I've made to managing people with Autism specifically
and you often get asked as the the line manager by D&I
or the senior senior people in your organization,
you know, it's an edict to comes down and you kind of like well,
okay, but you're not on the line I'm on the line on this I'm stressed
what happens if I say the wrong thing
or do the wrong thing or what happens to the person fails and they don't succeed in the job.
Well, that isn't that the same
for anyone isn't that just me you everyone isn't that always the way that it is
what happens if they fail you provide them with the supports you provide them with the way to do it.
One of the things that Ruth talked about was the different kinds of support.
She has a mentor and then a buddy. I think you said as well.
So one of the things that we do is we provide a bunch of coaching
for both the manager and the candidate
for a period of 12 months
and that's normally more intense
and I think if you're staying for the training you'll hear a little bit about it,
but it's not only more intense in the first three months
and again Ruth alluded to it because you don't know people you don't know systems.
You don't know the organization. You don't know things work.
So you've got a heightened stress.
People people and that I guess the last thing I'd leave you with is people with Autism are 12 times
more likely to be unemployed than you or I if you are neurotypical
and I'm not even sure I know what that word means anymore.
I used to but I'm less and less convinced that I know what it means.
But if if that's the case, you can't expect someone who is 12 times more likely to be
unemployed to go through exactly the same processes both to get a job
and then once they're in a job.
And expect a different result, right? You just you're fooling yourselves.
You think that's going to happen
and I can give you some case studies with in New South Wales Government
because we've just started a program where you can hear about a little bit more detail of that
and how some of the accommodations that have been made by the
Government have been magical really really good.
I'll be really quick. I just wanted to say two things one is challenge your assumptions about
what you think is necessary both in recruitment
and in people's actual jobs
because things they find hard might not actually be necessary in their role
and it's illustrated by what Kurt was saying about the eye contact
when you are talking to them
and the amount of time they need to respond if it's not actually necessary,
maybe it could change and maybe it would really help someone
and that's everyone not just people on the spectrum or with mental illness,
and the other thing is switch your thinking to focus on your team's strengths
because everybody does better if you're focusing on what they excel at.
Everybody everywhere feels better about themselves
and does a better job and so try it because it's not how we usually approach things.
I work with Charterhouse who are a number three suppliers to
recruitment supplier to New South Wales Government.
Typically a lot of the work we do is temp work
and so speed to market is is critical
and from what you're saying here today that doesn't always align with
people that need different processes to be accommodated
for. Is there a way or best practice that recruiters can support your organization's to
make sure that the pool of candidates we’re putting forward is
as diverse as possible?
I feel I'm a recruiter as well as an employer of people with Autism.
I can't speak for disability and general mental health because it's not my my lot.
So I apologize that I can only speak to my little niche.
My guess is that you're probably not getting many if any people
with Autism who would disclose at least applying
for jobs because their integrity would exclude them from probably even coming
to you because their integrity is generally extremely
high and they're not good self advocates or bullshitters,
right? So and that's that the whole employment process is generally set up for that.
The second thing I'd say is if you're in that fast-paced environment of temp workers again.
Temp employment is not we've found a great thing
for people with Autism because they tend to like stability
and they tend to like to know what's going to be happening for a longer period of time.
In fact, one of our staff members asked if we could guarantee him a job for life.
And I mean, I know no one can do that,
but it's a challenging conversation to have because it wasn't it was being genuine.
There's like I need that. I appreciate that I think
it is difficult. I don't recruit anymore.
I now do D&I for Charterhouse.
But I do recall,
you know, those situations where people were brave enough to disclose
what they required and as a recruiter not knowing
whether you could disclose that or should disclose that to an employer,
you know, either with or without the candidates permission and a lot of that hasn't gone away,
you know, our agency is kind of getting to grips with it.
But we want to you know,
put in place processes that encourages people to be open
and authentic to us as that first way to get into employment.