Firms operating in the health and protection industry should be adopting universal design principles to benefit everyone in their organisations, including neurodivergent individuals.
Improving recruitment processes and demystifying industry and organisation jargon are also vital approaches to making the sector more accessible and transparent.
This is according to professor Amanda Kirby, chairwoman of the neurodiversity charity ADHD Foundation and a former GP, who began working with the Dyspraxia Foundation more than 30 years ago after her son was diagnosed with the condition.
Kirby was speaking to Association of Medical Insurers and Intermediaries (AMII) executive chairman David Middleton for the body’s latest podcast ahead of Neurodiversity Celebration Week which kicks off today.
Asked how employers can become more inclusive and recognise where they may have neurodivergent individuals in their ranks, she told Middleton that adopting universal design principles was critical as no manager can be an expert on all of the conditions that may affect their colleagues.
Kirby explained that universal design principles is based on thinking about the things that you can do for everybody.
“I give an example that if you have an escalator or a lift, you may use that from time to time just because you’re tired and you can’t be bothered to use the stairs, you may not be physically impaired, you may not have challenges in that way but you’ll use those adjustments,” she said.
“And so if we start to bake in our systems inclusive practice, it’s useful for everyone.”
For example, when watching a video people may want to use subtitles in a noisy environment or where they cannot put the sound on.
“So we use technology in lots of different ways and if we use it in a way that we’re slackening the bell curve and including people in it’s going to be more effective,” she added.
Recruitment for everyone
Touching on effective recruitment practices, Kirby added employers can ensure job adverts have meaning for everybody, that they do not use jargon, that they incorporate different types of application processes or tell people at all stages of an interview or application process what is going to happen.
“That’s useful for everybody,” Kirby continued.
“Having a map of the place or a video, and telling people about the car park and how to use the public transport if they’re going to an interview – all of those things we can do for everybody are going to help everyone.”
But Kirby maintained this alteration of processes extends to the way managers communicate and use technology.
“Even in the jobs where the manager is training managers just to have better communication,” Kirby added.
“What I mean by that is using dialogue not monologue.
“So just because I’ve said it, doesn’t mean you’ve understood it, checking for understanding, understanding how to do a sychronous communication in Teams so asking people what their preferences are and that’s going to have better engagement for everybody.
“And then utilising your technology you might already have in your system. I have Office 365 on my laptop. I can use speech to text, text to speech. It’s got immersive reader. It’s got a translator – all tools we’ve already got – letting people know they’re there.
“If you’re in an organisation, avoiding jargon or giving everybody in the organisation a jargon buster. I don’t know any organisation that doesn’t have their own language of metaphors and acronyms.
“So just letting people know from the start of the job and putting them on an intranet, that is something that could be for everybody.”