From Neuro-Exclusive to Neuro-Inclusive: Shifting Workplace Culture

About the Author

Miriam Edelman, MPA, MSSW, is a policy professional, with degrees from Barnard College, Columbia University (BA); Cornell University (MPA); and Columbia University (MSSW). She is a commissioner on the DC Commission on Persons with Disabilities and serves on her religious congregation’s disabilities taskforce. She participates in a national initiative to strengthen disability-related healthcare education. Miriam aims to continue her career in public service. She is especially interested in disabilities, employment, health, District of Columbia autonomy, and civic education.

Although autism covers a wide variety of people and Autistic individuals are different from one another, many Autistic and Neurodivergent employees have immense strengths and are valuable workers. All too often they cannot work to their full potential because workplaces tend to expect Autistic people to conform to neurotypical behavior, which is unrealistic and unfair to Autistic people. As a result, up to 85 percent of Autistic adults are unemployed. Since it is difficult (if not impossible) for Autistic employees to completely adapt, they frequently become burnt out, excluded, fired, or feel pressured to leave. What follows is a look at some of the strengths Autistic employees show, the adverse employment experiences many Autistic individuals face and why, and some of the strategies employers can take to mitigate them.

The purpose here is to acknowledge and validate the experiences of countless Autistic and Neurodivergent employees who may be led to feel their employment difficulties are entirely their fault, while also helping employers understand what may be happening in their work environments so they can effect positive change.

Autistic People Can Have Work-Related Strengths

While all Autistic individuals are unique, they frequently exhibit several work-related strengths. Strengths can include: 

• Possessing excellent memory skills and being precise, attentive to detail, focused, and creative
• Following rules and working on structured programmes
• Being direct, preferring open and honest communication
• Engaging in projects which have a clear sequence from start to finish
• Offering unique and valuable views
• Having a strong sense of right and wrong
• Speaking up about workplace problems

These traits can be invaluable in the right work environment and are often what appeal to the employers who hire them.

Autistic Employees Start Strong But Differences Emerge 

A high point of an Autistic person’s employment is frequently the start. While Autistic employees may behave in ways that are natural for their neurotype, some traits may be unfamiliar to neurotypical coworkers and supervisors and can be misinterpreted. These characteristics may include: 

• Communicating in atypical ways (i.e. a preference for writing over speaking)
• Interpreting instructions literally (sometimes resulting in doing unnecessary or unwanted work)
• Asking clarifying questions
• Making comments that others may not make (i.e. speaking up about workplace issues)
• Expressing discomfort appearing on camera during virtual meetings
• Avoiding eye contact
• Stimming (engaging in repetitive behaviors to promote self-regulation)

Unhelpful Workplaces Responses

Instead of being appreciative of Autistic/Neurodivergent employees, workplaces often try different strategies, but most end up marginalizing them. The following are some of the ways Autistic employees might be negatively treated:

• Discriminating against Autistic employees and/or judging them in negative ways for Autistic traits. For example, instead of welcoming Autistic workers’ clarifying questions that enable them to do their job, workplaces may think that Autistic workers’ questions show that these employees are not independent. They are “penalized for communication differences, sensory needs, or stimming behaviors” and “scolded for behaviors like not wanting to make eye contact or taking a lot of alone time.”
• Making Autistic employees go through training while employers and coworkers do not undergo any training themselves. When there is no effort to understand Autistic traits, differences remain misunderstood.
• Excluding Autistic employees. Exclusion could entail not inviting Autistic employees to meetings that are important for them to advance in their careers, denying work to Autistic employees, removing job responsibilities, or not giving new assignments.
• Subjecting the Autistic employee to verbal mistreatment, including abusive statements. Sentiments can include “Managing you is too much of a burden” and “You might not fit with us.” Coworkers may say or do nice things, while also behaving in harmful ways. As Autistic researcher Becca Lory Hector wrote, “[b]ut the unspoken criteria for who ‘fits’ are often shaped by unchecked bias, ableism, classism, and racism. ‘Fit’ becomes a proxy for comfort. And when comfort is the goal, difference becomes a problem.”
• Creating unreasonable and unrealistic expectations. Workplaces may provide employees with unclear directions or impossible goals, or assign them tasks that do not coincide with their strengths. Then, employers might critique the workers for not meeting expectations, intentionally or unintentionally making the employee appear incompetent. As neurodiversity leader Bridgette Hamstead wrote, “[w]hen they [Neurodivergent employees] inevitably struggle under these conditions, their difficulties are used as justification for termination or demotion.”
• Micromanaging the work of Autistic employees. The work of Autistic people may be managed more closely than that of their colleagues. An example of micromanagement is a supervisor changing the Autistic workers’ acceptable language.
• Providing “overly harsh performance reviews” and giving them non-genuine Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) with neuronormative expectations. Through PIPs, employers try to force Autistic people to conform and let Autistic workers know that their jobs are on the line. Sometimes, workplaces give a PIP to create a paper trail to justify future dismissal. In these cases, employers do not intend to keep the Autistic person as an employee. One study showed that PIPs are often described as “devastating,” “traumatic,” and “catastrophic.” Especially detrimental effects include PTSD, hospitalization, and an attempt to end one’s life. (That attempt was directly linked to a PIP.)

Unfortunately, even when an Autistic employee understands these things are happening and raises the issue with their supervisor, they may find their concerns unfairly dismissed. This “gaslighting” may cause the employees “to feel as though they are imagining the hostility they face.” What they are experiencing, however, is actually workplace bullying, which Autistic employees are more likely to experience. The result of many of these actions results in an Autistic employee being terminated.

How Workplaces Can/Should Work with Autistic People

Fortunately, the preceding scenario is not inevitable. Employers can implement a series of practices to increase the chances for success and employees can self-advocate for the accommodations they need, which may require getting outside support. Here are some of the things that can be done:

• Learning about how to work with Autistic people. Knowing one Autistic individual does not automatically mean understanding how to work with an Autistic colleague or that figuring out a set of solutions for one person will work for everyone. Many resources could help workplaces employ Autistic people successfully. Many guides/articles are listed below the piece, entitled “Tips about Employment for Autistic People.” The Association for Autism and Neurodiversity trains organizations about a variety of topics, including “[i]nclusive [w]orkplace [c]onsiderations.” Training could prevent many unnecessary problems. 

• Providing reasonable accommodations, which is change “that allows a person with a disability who is qualified for the job to perform the essential functions of that job and enjoy equal employment opportunities.” The Americans with Disabilities Act mandates that most employers offer reasonable accommodations using an interactive process. The Job Accommodation Network discusses types of accommodations, but as the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission wrote, “If more than one accommodation is effective, ‘the preference of the individual with a disability should be given primary consideration. However, the employer providing the accommodation has the ultimate discretion to choose between effective accommodations.’” It is important to note that Autistic people are often able to work with little or no formal accommodations. All they need is workplaces to be accepting of different behavior and communication styles. A related note is that if workplaces think that one of their employees is Autistic, it should begin the reasonable accommodations process.

• Accepting Autistic people for who they are and what they bring to workplaces instead of forcing them to conform. Conformity is a type of neuroableism, which is “the specific type of ableism experienced by Neurodivergent people due to systemic oppression in a … society that values neurotypical-ness as the ‘right’ way to be, think and act.”

• Keeping Autistic employees’ autism confidential. Related practices include not forcing an Autistic worker to disclose and not outing the employee.

• Using the communication preferences of Autistic employees. This practice may include written communication and accepting clarifying questions. This method will help Neurodivergent workers do their jobs. 

• Providing clear instructions. Instructions, which can be written, prevent problems that sometimes may be a result of workplaces assuming that their employees would know what to do.

• Providing a mentor and/or buddy who could help Autistic employees. The colleague could provide guidance, answer questions, and more. 

Many of these suggestions relate to universal design and would help all employees. They are akin to curb cuts assisting people with disabilities and people with suitcases and baby strollers.

Call to Action

The challenges outlined are not always resolved easily or quickly, however a commitment to find and implement solutions would be mutually beneficial and prevent such a high number of Autistic people from being unemployed or unnecessarily terminated. It is vital that employers learn about autism, hire Autistic people, treat them properly, and accept them for who they are instead of marginalizing, bullying, and terminating them. All would benefit, as Autistic people can be especially valuable employees.

It is also important for Autistic people, who may be gaslit to think they are the problem, to realize what actually may be occurring and document their experiences in detail. The real issue may be workplaces’ intolerance of Autistic traits.