Autism and Workplace Accommodations: Workplaces for Every Kind of Mind

I've had so many jobs over the years — from babysitter to office administrator — and I didn't know until much later that my struggles in certain environments were connected to being autistic. In this episode, I talk about what it means to navigate workplaces that aren't built for neurodivergent minds, and how universal design could change everything. This is about moving from just "accommodating" us to truly including us.

Watch this episode on YouTube.

If you'd like to know more about topics discussed in this episode, check out:

"Workplace Accommodations and Neurodiversity" by Susanne Bruyère and Adrienne Colella (chapter in Neurodiversity and Work: Employment, Identity, and Support Networks for Neurominorities edited by Eric Patton and Alecia Santuzzi)

"Accommodations vs Universal Design" by CultureAlly

"Autistic Adults' Views and Experiences of Requesting and Receiving Workplace Adjustments in the UK" by Jade Davies et al.

Universal Design: Creating Inclusive Environments by Edward Steinfeld and Jordana Maisel

"How Can the Work Environment Be Redesigned to Enhance the Well-Being of Individuals With Autism?" by Michał Tomczak

"Autism and the Right to a Hypersensitivity-Friendly Workspace" by Bouke de Vries

"'It's Like a Ramp for a Person in a Wheelchair': Workplace Accessibility for Employees With Autism" by Michal Waisman-Nitzan et al. 

Theme music: "Everything Feels New" by Evgeny Bardyuzha.

All episodes written and produced by Kristen Hovet.

Send in your questions or thoughts via audio or video recording for a chance to be featured on the show! Email your audio or video clips to otherautism@gmail.com through WeTransfer.

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The views, opinions, and experiences shared by guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the host or production team. The content is intended for informational purposes only and should not be taken as medical or professional advice. Please consult with a qualified healthcare provider before making any decisions related to your health, fitness, or wellness.

Transcript

Kristen Hovet (00:00)

Today I'm talking about neurodiversity, autism, workplace accommodations, and a little bit about universal design. Before I get into that, I'd like to thank the individual who goes by the name “With Gratitude” for buying me seven coffees and Kelsey for buying me one coffee. Thank you both so much for being an important part of The Other Autism podcast’s growth. Listener, if you would also like to buy me a coffee, there's a link in the show notes that says, buy me a coffee. For a donation amounting to the price of a nice cup of coffee or two or three or however many you choose, you can also help keep this podcast going and growing.

Welcome to The Other Autism, the podcast dedicated to exploring late diagnosed autism through the lens of lived experience and the latest in autism research. I wanted to start this episode with a story about my first experiences as an employee, all of which occurred before my own autism diagnosis.

So, my first paid gigs involved babysitting. I babysat for about a decade, all throughout Grades five through 12, and then throughout the first two years of university. But babysitting wasn't all I did. I was hired by a pharmacy at the age of 14 to count pills for prescriptions and keep track of inventory. That same year, I started working as a cashier at a gift shop.

Then at 16, after I got my driver's license, I quit that job at the gift shop and started working back at that pharmacy as a cashier and medicine delivery driver, which is a job I kept till the end of high school. Once I got into university, I worked in retail and also taught ESL or English as a second language during the summers. I worked for a short time too as a medical receptionist. Up to this point, what do you think were my favorite jobs? 

Well, I loved babysitting and I loved delivering medicine the most. Why? Well, as a babysitter, usually caring for one to three kids, I got the opportunity to connect with cool little humans, play games with them, have so much fun with them, and then also control the environment around me. 

As a delivery driver, I could wear sunglasses, be alone with my thoughts, blast music in the car, and meet incredible people at the various places I delivered to. I loved keeping inventory of the medications, ensuring I delivered to the right place at the right time. And I also loved that I wasn't under the bright lights of the pharmacy. An added bonus, when I was delivering medicine, I got the chance to be away from potentially angry or unreasonable customers. While I enjoyed most customer interactions inside the pharmacy, I wasn't a fan of the fact that at any given time, someone who was having a really bad day, could come inside and decide to take their aggression out on the cashiers. As a very sensitive and quiet person, this could affect me for a very long time afterwards.

After university and working those retail and teaching jobs, I finally got my first nine to five full-time job as an administrative assistant and later executive assistant for a real estate development company in downtown Vancouver. I was working in an office environment, and my desk was in an open part of the office. While I was grateful for my job, got along well with and adored my boss, and loved my colleagues, the office environment itself was unknowingly causing me lot of stress and sensory overload. As I mentioned before, I had no clue I was autistic. That finding was about a decade away, and so I often wondered why everyone else seemed so calm, cool, and collected in that environment while I could barely manage.

By the end of my time there, which only amounted to two and a half years, I would go home every day from the office and collapse, often needing to retreat into a dark bedroom and pull the covers over my head. I would often burst into tears once safely inside my own home, filled with frustration and even anger at myself. I had literally no idea why it was so hard for me there. I had no idea what was going on. And while I had these issues too in university, it really, really came out in this job environment.

I mean, at university, I could find different places to study and there were just like different opportunities. And also, my classes weren't nine to five. So, I could go to classes, go back home and rest, go back to classes, you know, and have control over my schedule to a certain degree. In the nine to five job, it was five days a week, nine to five, of just this inability to escape that environment.

Around the same time, I also started dealing with some chronic health issues. So, I would sometimes blame everything on those, thinking maybe I was struggling so much because of my declining health. Unbeknownst to me, I was looking in the wrong direction. Way, way, way off base. I so wish I'd known about autism back then. If I had known about my neurotype, I would have known why working in a standard modern office space was so challenging for me.

In short, I would have understood myself so much better in this regard. And if companies were neurodiversity-affirming and built universal design into all of their choices, including all of their processes and policies, I wouldn't even have had to worry about disclosing my neurotype had I known about it. 

The conversation around autism and workplace accommodations is very important, for one because we know that autistic individuals make up a significant portion of the population. In the U.S. alone, nearly 3% of children are currently identified as autistic based on data from the year 2020. But when we widen the lens to include neurodiversity overall, encompassing ADHD, dyslexia, developmental coordination disorder (which was previously called dyspraxia), Tourette syndrome, and autism, we're talking about at least 20% of the general population. And some estimates put that closer to 25 or even 30%. This means we can assume that approximately one quarter of the general population is somehow neurodivergent. Said another way, approximately one quarter of the population is likely to have trouble functioning optimally in environments built for neurotypicals.

I want to make this very, very clear: all neurodivergent people, not just autistic people, but everyone within that neurodivergent umbrella has significant sensory and neurological differences that can lead to increased anxiety, physical discomfort, and even pain, and a host of other problems unique to their neurotypes when they try to work in environments that are at odds with their bodies and minds. Maximizing the workforce participation of autistic and other neurodivergent individuals is clearly very important.

One way that workplace participation can be increased and supported is through workplace accommodations. Sometimes they're called reasonable accommodations. And in other parts of the world, these are sometimes referred to as workplace adjustments or reasonable workplace adjustments.

Workplace accommodations for neurodivergent people are defined as modifications intended to address and, where possible, remove workplace barriers that they may encounter at any point in the employment process, from recruitment through to employee retention. While there are some very interesting accommodations to be had during the pre-recruitment and recruitment phases of employment, my concentration today will be on the active or already hired employee and their needs.

Accommodations are built into non-discrimination legislation and are considered integral to developing a more receptive and neurodiversity-affirming work setting. But as we'll hear today, the system designed to support inclusion often falls short, creating more stress than support for autistic folks. I'll also suggest that universal design can make up for the shortcomings of accommodations.

What do workplace accommodations for autistic people address? I'm going to put them into four categories following research by Michal Waisman-Nitzan and her team. Number one, the physical and sensory environment. Number two, job performance and job-related communication. Number three, daily workplace routines. And number four, attitudes and interpersonal communication. So, let's break these down further.

First, let's discuss accommodations in the physical and sensory environment. Accommodations in the physical environment are important because most autistic people have sensory processing differences, meaning they experience the sensory world differently than non-autistics. Many autistics experience hypersensitivity to inputs like sound, light, and smell, which can cause significant distress, pain, or functional shutdown.

Employers have a moral and legal duty to ensure that workers are able to avoid these harms. I can give a hypothetical example here. Employers would not set up a bunch of always-on pulsing strobe lights in an office setting. At least we would hope that they would not. That would be absolutely ridiculous. And I think most listeners can understand why — even the non-autistic among you. Pulsing strobe lights would be considered, at the very least, annoying or distracting and, at worst, possibly even disruptive of workers' abilities to see properly or even painful for some after a certain period of exposure. Well, many autistic and other neurodivergent people experience standard fluorescent lights in similar ways that non-autistic or neurotypical people experience pulsing strobe lights. It's distracting. The flickering is literally discernible to most of us. We can see the flickering. It can be experienced as painful and for some is nausea- and or migraine-inducing.

Try to work on hard tasks or complete projects as a knowledge worker with the constant hum and buzz and flickering or worse of these standard workplace fixtures. And unlike non-autistic or neurotypical people, we're physically incapable of relegating these types of interferences to the background of our senses. This is based on actual differences in our brains and our brains’ wiring. So, it's not a matter of choice or willpower. Believe me, if we could tune this out, we definitely would.

Sensory accommodations can include providing a quiet work area, noise blocking or noise canceling headphones, alternative lighting or LED bulbs, or white noise machines. Other accommodations in this category of physical and sensory accommodations include favoring individual offices or workstations over open plan offices; allowing the ability to adjust environmental parameters like noise, light, and room temperature; installing a separate chill-out room that's free of distractions or various other stimuli; and strategically placing workstations in quiet spaces. One accommodation that has become particularly common, especially after the pandemic and widely accepted, is the option of remote or hybrid work options. For me personally, working remotely has been a game changer.

Now let's discuss accommodations pertaining to job performance and job-related communication. This category covers, quote unquote, hidden performance requirements or the hidden curriculum of the workplace and implicit job requirements that can sometimes greatly disadvantage neurodivergent individuals. Many, but not all of us, sometimes have challenges comprehending unspoken or implied rules or expectations. So, we often need these spelled out for us or confirmed in explicit ways.

Job performance accommodations here can include providing clear task instructions, even when not asked for, detailed explanations, and specific and regular feedback. This also includes reducing ambiguity and uncertainty by clearly defining performance goals and what constitutes task completion.

Accommodations around job-based communication include asking one question at a time and giving advanced notice of changes. Another common accommodation is allowing for electronic mediated forms of communication like email or chat whenever possible for those who prefer these media. Many neurodivergent individuals can get quite physically drained from phone calls, in-person meetings, and video-based meetings like Zoom calls. Due to auditory processing differences, the unique cognitive load of video conferencing and the fact that we're processing more at all times, these aspects of our jobs tend to be way more draining for us than they are for neurotypicals. Some of us even experience challenges with speaking or can become non-speaking when we become too exhausted or sensorily overloaded.

Now onto the third category, accommodations related to daily workplace routines. These accommodations aim to foster both consistency and flexibility, addressing a neurodivergent employee's need for predictability and routine. This can involve offering flexible work arrangements like reduced hours or a flexible work schedule. And the accommodation of remote work also fits here, overlapping with the first category. Providing visual schedules and checklists of tasks, or apps for creating such things, is also helpful.

Some might ask why flexibility is important if autistic individuals often need predictability, structure, and routine. Well, predictability doesn't mean rigid schedules or always being at the exact same place at the exact same time each day for the exact same length of time. In fact, strict work schedules can actually create unnecessary stress and sensory or social overwhelm for autistic folks, which can actually make predictability much harder to achieve in practice.

I want to take this a bit further and repeat that predictability does not equal rigidity. Predictability means knowing what to expect. It doesn't mean not having a choice. Flexible work arrangements give autistic people more control over their environment, allowing them to create predictability that works for them. Flexibility also helps an individual manage and plan for sensory and social demands. Many workplaces have unpredictable and uncontrollable sensory realities like noises, smells, temperature, light, and even people walking back and forth can create a visual distraction, as well as social expectations that can be very exhausting for a neurodivergent person. Being able to work remotely or choose in-office hours when fewer fellow employees are around helps reduce that unpredictability and gives the person a more stable, controlled baseline.

For autistic and other neurodivergent people, energy and executive function can vary a lot day to day. Flexibility also allows them to adjust without penalty, maintaining consistent productivity over time rather than burning out from forcing themselves into fixed schedules. Flexibility almost always leads to more productivity and greater employee retention when it comes to neurodivergent employees — I'd say probably for all employees.

Also, having autonomy generates predictability itself. When autistic employees can set their own rhythms, they're able to build routines that make their days feel way more predictable and safe. The stress of navigating imposed structures, such as daily commutes and spontaneous meetings, is replaced with a sense of agency and, as I mentioned, safety. In short, flexibility facilitates the conditions for predictability.

Lastly, let's discuss accommodations pertaining to attitudes and interpersonal communication. This area addresses issues related to social relationships, which autistic adults cite as both one of the best and one of the worst parts of their jobs. Best when they make and sustain great connections with others and worst when they experience chronic misunderstandings and or mistreatment.

One important accommodation here includes implementing neurodiversity and autism training for everyone, including management and leadership, to help avoid misunderstandings and misattributions for different behaviors or communication styles. This involves creating an environment where acceptance and respect for differences are truly valued. Utilizing supports such as workplace advocate, mentor, job coach, or buddy systems can also be helpful.

Where possible, universal design should be implemented into practices, training, and processes because universal design means that diversity and all abilities are kept in mind. Relevant universal design principles here include perceptible information, which entails providing information in different forms or modalities, like visual diagrams corresponding to written text; and flexibility in use, which entails building in options like self-paced training. Universal design becomes very important, in my opinion, when we get into some of the challenges with accommodations.

So why can workplace accommodations be such a challenging or problematic topic? Well, when we discuss accommodations, many employers have this knee-jerk negative response. Many of them often express concern, for example, about the perceived cost. The reality, however, consistently contradicts this common fear. I'm not going to get into too much detail with this point specifically, but I will say that research has shown that providing accommodations leads to significant positive outcomes, including increased employee retention, improved productivity, and better attendance overall. Investing in accommodations is quite literally good business.

And yet barriers persist for autistic and neurodivergent job candidates and workers trying to secure or keep jobs throughout their employee life cycle. And critically, the process of accessing accommodations itself is often broken or severely flawed. In a mixed methods study surveying autistic adults in the UK, Jade Davies and her team found that the burden overwhelmingly falls on the autistic employee. Participants reported they were solely responsible for identifying their own needs, determining which accommodations would actually help, and then making the accommodation requests. This is described as a complex, often unsupported, and emotionally taxing effort of self-advocacy. It just seems unreasonably and unnecessarily difficult for all involved.

The reliance on autism diagnosis disclosure is also fundamentally problematic. It forces autistic workers to choose between maintaining their privacy and accessing the support they need. When accommodations are requested, they are frequently refused, delayed, or implemented inconsistently. Participants cited barriers ranging from practical issues like time or cost, to cultural issues like misunderstandings or outright disbelief from management, such as being perceived as just being difficult.

And the consequences of not seeking accommodations, of just going through it, masking, and hiding challenges are actually severe for autistic folks. This can include distress, burnout, other physical and mental health challenges, and job loss, not to mention the financial loss and reduction in quality of life that often comes with all of these outcomes. It's no wonder some choose to leave traditional employment altogether, especially after they've had to deal with similar situations multiple times. It can really break a person's spirit.

The sources I read for this episode emphasize that for accommodations to be effective, there needs to be a shift away from the traditional reactive disclosure-dependent approach. Under such a reactive approach, the burden falls overwhelmingly on the employee to identify their needs and navigate a complex, unsupported process of self-advocacy. Instead, the recommended approach is proactive, structural change based on the social model of disability, which views environmental and cultural barriers — and not individual differences — as the main restrictions.

To be proactive, organizations should routinely review and update their accessibility policies and procedures, offer accommodations without requiring diagnostic proof, and ensure that systems and supports are already in place before an immediate need arises. And when you think about it, if nearly one quarter of the population is neurodivergent, you really should be interweaving accommodations into every aspect of the workplace and workplace processes. I realize if they were truly interwoven in this way, they would no longer be accommodations.

Then the question becomes, what's the best framework upon which to make this proactive change happen? In my opinion, universal design is the answer here. According to Edward Steinfeld and Jordana Maisel in their book, Universal Design: Creating Inclusive Environments, universal design is defined as, quote, a process that enables and empowers a diverse population by improving human performance, health and wellness, and social participation," end quote.

While the concept of universal design initially involved the design of products and environments, like the built environment, it has become so much more, used as a way to make all processes, procedures, training, curricula, you name it, more inclusive and accessible to all.

While I don't have time in this episode to go into more detail about universal design, I did want to end this section with a quote from the book, Universal Design. I'll let Google help me.

Google (22:48)

An environment can provide different degrees of support. Often people are satisfied with lower levels of performance than what could be achieved. Sometimes they accept barriers for some people but not for others. They may even intentionally create barriers to separate certain people from the larger community or one group from another. As in the case of the residential institution, other goals such as aesthetics or cost sometimes may take precedence over the degree of enablement a built environment, product, or system provides.

Universal design, at its most elemental level, seeks to make our built environment, products, and systems as enabling as possible. In other words, it seeks both to avoid creating barriers in the first place and, through intelligent use of resources, to provide as much facilitation as possible to reach human goals.

Kristen Hovet (23:54)

Thanks, Google. Imagine if every workplace were designed from the start with sensory comfort, flexible schedules, and clear communication as defaults, not afterthoughts. That's not science fiction. It's how we create workplaces where every kind of mind belongs. I wanted to close this episode with a poetry reading from listener Melisa Mauriño. It's called They Talk.

Melisa Mauriño (24:25)

Hello everyone, I am Melisa Mauriño and this is They Talk.

They talk about us, for us. That's how they tag us, give us labels, classify us, to make us tangible, as if we weren't entirely real. Something gets away, something of ours, makes us beings in flight. The wings in our pockets, tiles missing from such a pretty house. It's raining on the bed, the water mattress. I want to jump until I sink. It's an aesthetic of evil.

She thinks she's an expert because one of us slept in her bed once. He has a cousin, a brother, a daughter, an acquaintance, a distant relative, a newspaper clipping. He heard it on a podcast, saw it in a movie. He looked it up on the internet.

They name us with their euphemistic terms of pity. They muzzle us with the snout of a knowledge that frames us. We are a photograph where they contemplate themselves without us. 

I shared a table with a woman who talks about me as if I weren't there, as if I needed her words to exist, as if I weren't capable of speaking my truth without her filter of fiction, without her forced approval, without her will to diminish what she doesn't understand and reduce me to what she knows, what she thinks she knows. And I, annihilated, mute, begin to tremble like an earthquake. My body shakes with the same violence that her words exert on me. And I can only leave, flee the scene that expels me, enter the night like a black cat camouflaged by the darkness, becoming invisible and disappearing.

Kristen Hovet (26:39)

Well, that's all I have for you today. Thank you so much for being here. Until next time, bye.