Neurodiversity Week 2022
It’s Neurodiversity Week and to mark the occasion, I have done a rare audio recording to share my thoughts on what it means and defining the terms surrounding the topic. I explain what employers can also gain from having neurodivergent employees in their workforce.
Listen, or read below, the remarks I shared as part of Mencap’s celebration over the course of the week…
Transcript
Hi listeners — if you haven’t met me, or perhaps not heard my voice yet, I’m Jack Welch and I am Chair of Mencap’s Voices Council. This week we are supporting Neurodiversity Celebration Week and how neurodiversity can bring benefits to the workplace, which includes Mencap as just one of those employers.
First off, when we talk about neurodiversity, we mean everybody and people that do not have a diagnosed condition, which relates to the brain, are called neurotypicals. Those of us, like myself, which differ from that and brains which happen to be ‘wired differently’ are neurodivergent. This might be autism, ADHD, Dyslexia and learning disabilities — some will have co-occurring conditions too. There is often confusion which surrounds these terms, and they can be easily muddled, but neurodiversity is about bringing together people of all abilities and brains of all variety to work and get on with each other inclusively.
For me, the benefits of having neurodivergent people in the workforce can open up new ways of working and standards to ensure the workplace is more accessible, both physically and culturally. When I say culturally, this is a broad definition when we think about the language that is used, understanding of colleagues and their conditions and being open to make reasonable adjustments. I know that by producing information in a clear and plain format, like easy read, it can make things more efficient and cut out the unnecessary detail that adds countless pages in documents!
By having colleagues from different backgrounds and identities, it can allow everybody to be their real selves and hopefully feel more comfortable among one another. Look how teams in Mencap which have a colleague with a learning disability are able to work more openly and challenge the most experienced people to not just approach tasks in the way it has always been done. It can lead us to reflect more regularly how we can improve and enable more people to have a voice. With the Voices Council, we are always seeking to evolve and adapting to new thinking and not just sticking to the same practice if we can do it better.
To find out more about Neurodiversity Celebration Week at Mencap, keep following the posts on Yammer and elsewhere over the coming days. Thank you.
