Neurodivergent Mates
Neurodiversity and Safety: Creating Inclusive Workplaces for Diverse Thinkers - Catherine Lee
When moving house recently, Photon John Kev realized just how much neurodiversity impacts every aspect of our lives, including safety-critical situations. Together with Catherine Lee, a seasoned occupational health and safety expert with a nursing background, we venture into the complexities of neurodiversity in the workplace. Catherine's insights, particularly from her research in the aviation industry on ADHD, offer invaluable knowledge on creating safer, more inclusive work environments for neurodivergent individuals.
The workplace is often a minefield for those who experience the world differently, and this episode reveals just how deep these challenges run. From a mother's worry for her autistic and epileptic daughter's well-being at work to my own eye-opening moment with an ADHD colleague's accident, we acknowledge the pressing need for significant change. This isn't just about ticking boxes; it's about cultivating understanding, implementing effective communication strategies, and recognizing the diverse array of strengths that neurodivergent individuals bring to the table.
Finally, we didn't just stop at acknowledging the issue; we looked at solutions that are already transforming workplaces. With a nod to the surprising number of leaders who privately navigate their neurodivergent journeys, we discuss how innovation and AI are already beginning to harness these unique perspectives. Our heartwarming anecdotes and candid discussions promise to resonate with anyone looking to create a more accommodating, safe, and inclusive work culture for all types of thinkers.
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When moving house recently, Photon John Kev realized just how much neurodiversity impacts every aspect of our lives, including safety-critical situations. Together with Catherine Lee, a seasoned occupational health and safety expert with a nursing background, we venture into the complexities of neurodiversity in the workplace. Catherine's insights, particularly from her research in the aviation industry on ADHD, offer invaluable knowledge on creating safer, more inclusive work environments for neurodivergent individuals.
The workplace is often a minefield for those who experience the world differently, and this episode reveals just how deep these challenges run. From a mother's worry for her autistic and epileptic daughter's well-being at work to my own eye-opening moment with an ADHD colleague's accident, we acknowledge the pressing need for significant change. This isn't just about ticking boxes; it's about cultivating understanding, implementing effective communication strategies, and recognizing the diverse array of strengths that neurodivergent individuals bring to the table.
Finally, we didn't just stop at acknowledging the issue; we looked at solutions that are already transforming workplaces. With a nod to the surprising number of leaders who privately navigate their neurodivergent journeys, we discuss how innovation and AI are already beginning to harness these unique perspectives. Our heartwarming anecdotes and candid discussions promise to resonate with anyone looking to create a more accommodating, safe, and inclusive work culture for all types of thinkers.
Please be sure to subscribe, like and follow all our social media platforms.
Click on our Linktree link provided below to access all of our social media platforms:
https://linktr.ee/openheartedapp?fbclid=IwAR3Mk3FNMMbC4_EwZaHwzHNgugWNL4Pnm7dANcrcEMKRKXfYFN5SPGgSGcU
You're listening to Neurodivergent Mates. Hello and welcome to another episode of Neurodivergent Mates. I'm your host, will Wheeler. Join with my main man, photon John Kev. What's going on, brother? Oh, moving house, moving house, moving house, man, moving house. Yeah, no, I've never met someone who says they love moving house. May they. Absolutely not 10 days straight so far 10 days straight and you don't even have a car or anything. Car do you? How'd you move everything then? Movers, ok yeah, and they're not cheap either.
Speaker 2:No, I jumped in and it held some. So it's like a week packing, a day of moving all the big stuff, another day of unpacking, another day of moving all the small stuff, two more days of unpacking and then, like now, we're just organizing cleaners and stuff. Cool, cool, cool cool.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, well I'm doing well, but the thing I'm more concerned about is mate. Were you being safe?
Speaker 2:Safe.
Speaker 1:Were you lifting correctly Were you wearing workplace health and safety procedures.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes, except for a few moments of frustration where I just yeah cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.
Speaker 1:Well, reason why I say is today's episode is going to be not necessarily about moving house and following workplace health and safety procedures, but more about neurodiversity and workplace health and safety with my good friend, Catherine Lee. So let's get her up on stage here. Catherine, how are you today? Just let me get this all sorted. Also, two viewers. We're having a few problems with Catherine's video camera, the. For some reason, the sound wasn't sounding too good, so we've got an awesome picture of her up there instead. Catherine, how are you?
Speaker 3:Hello, will, I'm very well, thank you, and thank you so much for inviting me onto your podcast. It's a great honor.
Speaker 1:No, not a problem at all, I think so. Catherine and I actually connected a while ago. We did, yeah, just through LinkedIn and stuff like that, with chatting, doing the old ADHD thing of forgetting to message back, which was, I suppose, just normal. And then just randomly just met at a neurodiversity event a few weeks ago.
Speaker 3:Yeah, which was wonderful. So it's great to be able to be connected with you and to share our common passion for improving the lives and the circumstances of our neurodivergent kin.
Speaker 1:Totally, totally, totally. But before we get stuck into the podcast today, we'll do just a little bit of housekeeping here. So, for anyone who hasn't listened before, please subscribe, like and follow to all of our social media platforms. We're available on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, X, Twitch, YouTube, LinkedIn. Also, too, please go check us out on all available podcasting platforms. We're on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, you name it. We're on there and please, if you haven't already done so, please rate our show. The more you can interact with it and give us a thumbs up, the better we can start getting more listeners. So, yes, so Fade On Johnny. You like that one today, mate? Oh, he's on mute, I forgot to take him off mute. Hang on Fade On John Keat. Oh, hang on, there we go. I forgot to take him off mute.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't want to listen to you today, mate, but no, it's all good, all good, but let's get stuck into this also too. If you've got any questions during the podcast, please feel free to ask us, and we'd love to throw it to Catherine while she's going. So, catherine, before we start, please tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 3:Oh sure. Well, look, I've got a nursing background originally. Well, I trained as a nurse in the UK, which is where I'm from, and then went into occupational health nursing because I really felt that there were so many people coming into hospitals with conditions and problems that could have been prevented and consuming health resources, and I wanted to take more of a proactive approach and think, look, it's better to keep people fit and healthy and at work and home with their families than trying to patch them up in hospital when something goes wrong. So that's why I went into occupational health nursing in the first place.
Speaker 3:And then I came to Australia and moved more into the occupational health and safety space and worked my way up through various organizations, various industries, and so I've got a postgraduate diploma in our health and safety and I'm doing a Master of Arts research at Griffith University at the moment into how ADHD affects people in safety critical roles within the aviation sector. So, yeah, I mean I've worked in our health and safety now for more than 30 years, both here and in Australia sorry, in Australia and the UK and I now work through my own management consultancy, which is called let's Be Hyper-Anxious, mostly working at that executive management board level. So I'm not the person that comes around and tops up your first-aid kits or does your safety testing and tagging. I'm working more CEOs and boards, basically helping them and advising them on the things they need to do to keep their workers safe and basically trying to keep executive management out of jail.
Speaker 3:So that's what I do. That's my day job.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no, cool, cool, cool. You know, a big thing I thought about when, I suppose, I first met you, and probably when we were speaking a few weeks ago as well. I remember thinking of a story. Well, this is actually a true article. I was reading and there was this article I think a mother had wrote it or something like that and it was about her daughter who was in the workplace, and now her daughter was epileptic and autistic and I think she had had some fits at work and they pretty much said she wasn't allowed to work in the actual office anymore, she had to work from home.
Speaker 1:And I think there was a lot of big problems there, because I think a big thing, when people are working from home it can feel very isolated. So having not been allowed to come into work because she was, I suppose, had a few fits and stuff like that, it had a real big impact on the mother and obviously her daughter as well.
Speaker 1:So, I think when I first heard about the work that you were talking about, that was what really came to mind and I thought oh my god, this is such a big topic. So I think it would be really interesting to maybe go more into depth about what you're doing and why with your work, especially around neurodiversity.
Speaker 3:Yeah, of course. So what happened for me? Well, look, I was quite happy going along working through my management, consultancy and work health and safety and we were through COVID and that was awful, but it brought some benefits as well and I was quite happy to keep doing that. And then, right after we came out of COVID lockdown, I was asked by one of my clients to do an investigation for one of their workers who had a fall at work and they couldn't figure out what had gone wrong. But they said, look, he's fractured his coccyx, which is the tailbone. So quite a nasty incident. But it's on the back end of about four months' worth of changes in his behavior. He used to be such a good worker, an easygoing, well-liked person, and now he's falling out with people and he's taking more risks. There's problems with his safety, behavior, safety with his problems with his general performance, and we can't figure out what's going wrong.
Speaker 3:Now I didn't know this chap because I'd been involved with the client for some time and I'd run some other programs in there. So I went in, I had a chat and the whole thing was caught on CCTV and we could see what happened. Cutting a very long story short, I took him aside and sat down with him and I said what happened for you at that point in time? What happened was that he was working on a conveyor belt and there was product going along the conveyor belt and the product became blocked and started to fall, and so he needed to turn off the conveyor belt. Instead of going up to the top end of the machine to hit the stop button, he went to where the blockage was, to try and put all the things back, all the product back conveyor belt, and he knew he'd done the wrong thing. And then he panicked, turned direction quickly and, of course, his feet went from under him and he fell and fractured his coccyx. And I said to him well, you've done this job. You've been doing this job for seven years. You've cleared blockages on the lines probably hundreds of times. Why did you panic in that moment?
Speaker 3:And then he started telling me what else had been going on in his life and his relationship had broken down and he was couchsurfing and he'd been gambling and got short of money. And I said, well, I said, look, your both have noticed this change in you as well. And so what sparked all of this? And he said oh well, you know that drug and alcohol policy they introduced about four months ago. And I said, yes, and this wasn't a policy that I had anything to do with. Well, he said I knew that if they drug tested me, my ADHD medication would show up, which it would have, you see. And he said, and I thought I was gonna lose my job, so I decided to just give up.
Speaker 3:So there were wrong assumptions made on a number of levels. He assumed that because he was now an adult yes, he'd been taking ADHD medication since his mid-teams, but he was functioning and performing quite well he assumed he didn't need them anymore. He didn't think to consult his doctor. He assumed that he would lose his job if he was drug tested and the stimulant medication that he would have that he was taking would have shown up in a drug test. But there are ways that employers have to manage that. It wasn't communicated to the worker that that was the case, so he'd given up. And then it was only then, in that conversation, that the penny dropped and he realized that oh, it was when I stopped taking the ADHD medication.
Speaker 3:And, of course, over the last few months now, gradually, my whole life has started to unravel to the point where I know he had a performance warning and now this incident where he fractured his coccyx. So he'd never told his employer about his ADHD because he didn't think it was relevant and it probably hadn't really been up until that point. So what that's taught me was now I, honestly, was probably one of no different from many other employers, thinking I could probably count on one hand the number of times I had knowingly dealt with a worker who had any form of neurodivergent functioning. To my knowledge, even though I'd been 30 years in the business and worked with all sorts of different people in all sorts of different backgrounds, I didn't know a lot about ADHD. So I, like any good occupational health and safety consultant, I thought, well, I better go and read something about this because I need to advise my client. So I went looking for resources about the safety implications of ADHD at work and I couldn't find anything.
Speaker 3:I mean there were great resources. There are wonderful neurodiversity advocates, advocacy bodies and educational people who provide great resources for employers about neurodiversity at work. But what I realized is most neurodiversity advocates and educators don't understand strategic health and safety management. They don't know anything about occupation health and safety management systems and risk management. They tend to operate at that lower level, thinking about you know bending needs and keeping your back straight and you know topping up first aid kits and testing and tagging. They don't think about the strategic management of health and safety, which is the level that I work at. But likewise, most occupation health and safety professionals are probably like me. They don't really give much thought to neurodivergent functioning and think of it purely or view it purely through a disability discrimination lens, and so if they become aware that a person has ADHD or autism or any of the other types of neurodivergent functioning, then they just refer them off to HR for reasonable adjustments and of course there's nothing wrong with that, but it's not neurodiv. What I'm encouraging people to think of is that neurodiversity in the workplace is not simply a disability discrimination issue. It is also a work health and safety issue and the problem is managing it within the disability discrimination space, Three-fold.
Speaker 3:First of all, neurodiv is far more prevalent in society than most people realize. I think you know that. We know that about 15 to 20% of the global population is neurodivergent, and that's one in five people. It's 65% of those that are of working age, so that's one in eight people. If we say one conservatively, say one, 10 people in the workforce will have one or more type of neurodivergent functioning. And so, in my experience, most employers design their health and safety management and risk management systems around neurotypical functioning because they just assume that. Well, let's put it like this Most people who are neurodivergent either don't know they're neurodivergent because the diagnosis is simply not being accessible to them, or they know and they don't view themselves as disabled, so they wouldn't think about our Adjustment for Disability Discrimination Act. Or if they do know, they're afraid to disclose their neurodivergence to their employer because they fear discrimination and judgment, and they've got good reason to, so they would be the employer. The worker is very much in a dammed if they do, dammed if they don't situation.
Speaker 3:If they tell the employer that they're neurodivergent, they risk discrimination and judgment. But if they don't tell them, then the employer can't understand how the risks that are inherent in every workplace affect them differently, and maybe they need different roles, right? So this is a big responsibility to put on the worker when it's actually the employer that has the primary duty of care to ensure the health and safety of all workers, and that duty of care can't be delegated to a third party, including the worker.
Speaker 2:So I feel like education plugs really strongly into that too. I had so much trouble with employment in my 20s. But I didn't know, I wasn't educated on what my? Neurodivergence meant for me, and I didn't know how to tell them what was going on, and so I was just on all these behavioral programs and stuff and I didn't know, and I couldn't pull it together.
Speaker 1:But do you know what right Like yeah, you want people like I've been in situations where I'm me and I'm very open about my neurodivergence, right and. But the problem was the employer didn't actually know what to do you know, because of that lack of education, all of that. So, in saying that, how can workplace safety protocols accommodate neurodivergent individuals effectively?
Speaker 2:Sorry, I was trying to read that already wrong.
Speaker 1:Because this is the issue, like you know, I'm just spoken about. I'm just spoken about. You know, how are they able to do it properly? Do you know what I?
Speaker 3:mean. Well, this was what dawned on me, will, when I was trying to advise this employer about the worker that had fallen. I had this massive aha moment myself and, not to be honest, what I learned through that process of looking for resources actually led me to my own diagnosis. So I, you know, I started seeing, learning more about ADHD and the different types of neurodivergence, and then I started seeing these things in myself and thinking, oh goodness, is this just confirmation bias? You know, if it's like you think you want to buy a yellow Audi and all of a sudden you're seeing yellow Audi's everywhere, right? So I thought no, no, no, it can't pass. And I still had this stigma myself. I thought I couldn't possibly have it Like. I'm not like one of those abouts and types. You know, I didn't realize that it affected women differently and that it could affect you into adulthood.
Speaker 3:But I actually started thinking maybe I had an onset dementia, because my memory was so awful and, you know, I was dropping the balls all over the place, right. So it did lead me to my own diagnosis and that was really a profound moment for me because it suddenly my whole life made sense. But it also meant I started looking at my work and work, health and safety differently and that I needed to build a bridge for that, bridge between the gap between employers Don't understand what neurodivergent functioning is and how they have a responsibility to ensure the safety of all workers, not just neurotypical workers, and, I guess, to help them create an environment in which neurodivergent workers feel safe to disclose right. So that's when I kind of came with this. I actually felt like I had a responsibility, to be honest, because I couldn't find anybody else in the world that was working in this space and I thought, well, if nobody else is going to do it, I have to do it, you know?
Speaker 3:So, yeah, so that's where the neurodiverge Safe Work Initiative was born. I guess I developed this as a discrete offering within Lethbridge Piper and Associates and now I've separated it off. It's a separate business and it's really been set up to provide education, resources and tools to assist employers to adapt to their health and safety management systems to accommodate the different ways all workers think, learn, process and retain information, regulate emotion and attention and perceive and respond to risk. So we have I mean, I always think it starts with education right, we have to start not educating the workers so much because neurodivergent workers, if they're aware they're neurodivergent, they're already all over it for themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're the masters of it.
Speaker 3:Right, and you know what? Well, it's surprising. When I do my regular work in our health and safety consulting, I'm talking to executive leadership teams and boards and CEOs, and it's when I often mention the work that I'm doing in the neurodiversity space. It's surprising how often executive leaders say to me oh well, don't tell anyone, but I'm dyslexic. Or don't tell anyone that I had ADHD when I was a kid and I'm going. Well, guess what? You still have it.
Speaker 1:Still have it Exactly.
Speaker 3:And I say to them well, look, why are you telling me, don't tell anyone, why aren't you out there? Be a leader in this space Leadership right.
Speaker 3:If you speak up about this, then you give permission to other workers in the organization to speak up about it, and you know what? You're a successful leader in this organization because of your dyslexia, not despite it. So be proud, wear it proudly. So it's about changing the language that we use. So we're using less language from the medical model of disability. Let's talk less about diagnoses and medical certificates and treating people so they can function normally, and let's focus on this being a normal variation in the human brain. Forget the labels. Focus on how we all think and function differently and we all need different things to perform at our best in work, and that includes safely. We're all different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally totally, yeah, I totally get you on the whole CEOs and upper management who don't disclose or are afraid to. And it's like you know. I've met some who are even been speaking with some of the richest people in the UK, some billionaires from Australia and that who I'm not going to mention their names over the podcast here and I've said to them why don't you speak up about it? Why don't you talk more about it? And they're like look, I don't want to become the poster boy. And I say you're not going to become the poster boy. Think what your organization could do to really get behind this. It's not that we need you to be leading the way.
Speaker 2:It's more. You'll be driving change within your organization and I think I feel like that that not wanting to be the positive boy comes from probably a lot of the discrimination that they faced in the past.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Sorry, you, gay, catherine.
Speaker 3:I was gonna say I do respect that and we have to respect that. We're all. We're all in a different place with it on our journey. But but I think that the if you draw the comparison to what happened with the LGBTQI plus community 40, 50 years ago during the AIDS epidemic, you know it was a thing of shame. People didn't want to come out and admit Gay or transgender or whatever.
Speaker 3:And now, because because that community stood up and they advocated and they championed and they and they legislated and they agitated for change, now we have a much more inclusive society that is accepting that it's okay for people to just love who they love and it doesn't matter whether you're gay, straight by or whatever, and it's much more acceptable in society. But the new and the neurodivergent community is the same in that regard. I think many, many people are still in the closet, hiding in shame because they don't want to admit that they have a dish, as I was, I think. When I first had my diagnosis, the first thing I thought was I am so ashamed, I'm not gonna tell anyone about this and I actually Friends and I said should?
Speaker 3:I'm just wondering whether I should tell people in my professional group about this? And a couple of them said to me I'll be the end of your career if you do so.
Speaker 1:You know, they know.
Speaker 3:Is to. China like yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:Totally totally yeah did you have? Something say can?
Speaker 2:I was gonna say like it's a good example the LGBTQ community, because I'm, I'm both and I've, so I've my 40s now, so I've seen how far things have come since.
Speaker 1:I was yeah.
Speaker 2:I've been experiencing these sort of parallel but not equidistant, you know situations yeah. I'm sort of seeing Now with the neurodivergent community what I saw with the LGBTQ community in the 80s, in the 90s.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, and I think this sort of really flows well into the next question, because I know, for especially neurodiversity Academy, a big thing we were really working on was our values, and one of our values that we really, you know, stick by is safety, you know, and I think this really Roles into the next question really well. So what strategies ensure neurodivergent employees feel safe and supported at work? Because you know, I think for a lot of us who you know opening up, do we feel safe if that's going to be the case?
Speaker 1:do we feel that we're gonna be properly supported and that's why, you know, maybe people aren't so forthcoming about being open about that. But you know, like we said, we're seeing change, but we need to feel safe in these environments for us to work at our maximum.
Speaker 3:So. So look, I'll say this dovetails really well into Some of the key requirements of the work health and safety legislative framework in Australia. So so, in Australia, what I like to say? That there are three cornerstones to the work health and safety legislation in which, whichever jurisdiction you're in, and their self self regulation, risk management and consultation. Consultation is mandatory. Employers must, under every work health and safety legislation. In Australia, employers must, consult with workers about anything that can impact their health and safety at work, which is pretty much everything right now.
Speaker 3:I'm not, I'm not, I'm not saying anything new here. It's in the legislation. There's an international standard and there's risk management codes, practice consultation, codes of practice that require employers To consult with workers from diverse backgrounds. Right, so what I say to employees is consult with your workers first, but make sure you're not just consulting with your favorite people, or it's not just the same person that's allowed to speak up all the time. Cast your net widely and and try and gather feedback and information from as many people in your organization as you can, and it doesn't mean sitting on committees. Certainly, there are work health and safety committees and Consultation forums, and there's, there will always be, a need for that, but there are many, many ways that employers can consult with words, including things like, you know, employee surveys or Suggestion boxes or anything like that. So I think if you're a neurodivergent work in the workplace and you're asked to give feedback about a new work practice or a new uniform or you know a new, a new procedure, and you you know that this is something that's going to trigger your neurodivergent functioning, then there are ways of telling your employer that that new process isn't going to work well for you, without actually saying I had ADHD or Without actually saying I have autism.
Speaker 3:Take, for example I worked with a client and one of their workers who is a process worker and in a Pharmaceutical company, and they were required to wear a full face mask during the production of a New product, new product line that, during two hours, went to chemicals were mixed together. It produced an odorless fume that caused eye, skin and respiratory tract irritation. So to protect workers against this and we're a whole number of controls in the workplace but also workers were required to wear full face mask. Now, all the workers went through the fit testing and the. You know they'd all been, they'd all been trained, they'd all gone through the respiratory testing all of that stuff. They've done their competency assessment. They're all good to go, not one worker.
Speaker 3:Well, when he had to wear it for the two hours during the production process, he just couldn't tolerate it. He was fiddling it, loosening with the straps, pulling it away from his face and actually going into taking it off for a minute, and so he got pinged like he supervised or picking him up and telling him off, and you know he was on the supervisors radar and I get. I was asked to talk to him and he disclosed to me that he was autistic and he just couldn't stand this because obviously, you know, Processing differences are very common in autistic work, in individual to autistic. And so he could wear this mask for the company for long enough to demonstrate competency to wear it for two hours, nearly driving insane.
Speaker 1:So the employer, who was Sorry, can I ask Kev, how would you feel wearing like a mask like that for two hours mate?
Speaker 2:I'm, for me, personally depend on what was made, of how it felt on this in that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that would be interesting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, everyone's experience is different, but I guess if that chap had been consulted and given an opportunity to wear the mask for the full two hours and then be allowed, in an open and inclusive way that doesn't involve blame To say I can't tolerate this mask, you know, and you know I need. I can't stand the feeling of it on my, on my skin. I can't stand the smell of it. I just can't stand having my face enclosed for that length of time. I need to try a different control. Okay so.
Speaker 3:So consultation is key and there are lots of ways for workers to tell their employers what they need without actually telling them they have ADHD or autism if they're, if they're not ready to be open yet about that, because I would never Encourage or force someone to disclose about themselves if they're not ready to. But so consultation is really key and it for employers. The important thing is to listen. Supervisors can take like coaching. Have coaching style conversations instead of performance management and disciplinary style conversations that don't work On neuro divergent people like it doesn't matter how, how precise you are about telling a person who's not performing what you need them to do differently. It doesn't, it won't change the way their brain works, right, so what?
Speaker 1:you have to do is.
Speaker 3:You can find out what are the barriers to them being able to perform well and perform safely, and try and resolve those barriers in a person-centered, strengths based approach rather than a blame.
Speaker 2:Totally totally.
Speaker 1:So are you going, kevin? Then I'll come to accent.
Speaker 2:So if I could just throw it quickly, I think a lot of the time, you know, when neuro divergence isn't there as a, as an understanding between their employer and the employee, a lot of the conversations can be hey, I just need you to stop being who you are, you know. Whereas a neurotypical person might be like, oh okay, I need to modify that behavior than you're a divergent. I find that much more distressing and difficult to implement well, it's yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, you're having to mask then, and then you're getting exhausted because you're trying to put on a facade, type of thing um which and and you know, I even know for myself when I've tried to, especially when I first got into business, I'd wear like business suits and really tried to fit into that corporate world and I was like man, this isn't me. I'm like, you know, comfortable shoes and you know soft, you know dressing loosely and stuff like that. And that was where I really felt I was in my comfort zone there. But before then I couldn't. But in saying that, how can employers raise awareness of neurodiversity to create a safer workplace? So you know we're talking about. You know, people shouldn't be have to feel like they just have to disclose.
Speaker 2:No, what can we put?
Speaker 1:into place, so maybe they don't have to disclose those. Methods are just there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly so. So I mean obviously new diversity awareness training, starting at that executive leadership level, because that's the only way you're going to bring about cultural change in an organization, as if the organization is behind it, yep, and so new diversity awareness training, and then also just bringing in just a universal design of equipment. So, for example, john, you can use a really simple example Most web browsers these days have extensions and plugins to become inclusive. So if they're made available through your IT department, through the employees IT department, whether you use Google or Safari or whatever, and the plugins are there automatically in the background and workers are taught how to use them and that they can use them, then the worker can just. If that you're an ADHD worker and you want to activate the ADHD friendly fonts on your browser, or you want to activate the dyslexic friendly fonts on your browser, or you want to use text to voice software on this PDF document that you're reading, you can just activate that yourself because it's all automatically there in the background. You don't have to out yourself and ask for reasonable adjustments because of your disability. You just turn on what you need, but it's there for everyone. You know, these adjustments, this flexible way of working is there for everyone, and there's an old saying you know, a rising tide lifts all boats. So the more flexible and inclusive your workplace systems and practices are, the better it is for everyone, and we apply that to work, health and safety.
Speaker 3:Why does a work? Why do we rely so much on the written word, on the paper based? I know a lot of employees are going more towards digital now, which is great. If your employer that still has the old paper based policy manual sitting in the lunchroom that requires the workers to read the new policies whenever they're, you know, doing their lunch break, you're a worker with ADHD or dyslexia, how are you going to do that, right? Or if you're a worker with dysgraphia and the only way to report an incident is by filling in a form, how can you do that If you can't get what happened out of your head and down through your hand on paper, right?
Speaker 3:So it's about making all of these systems whether it's you know, safety data sheets, pre-start checklists, safety training, you know, incident reporting, hazard reporting, risk management, consultation procedures, training, competency assessment it all needs to be delivered and accessible in as many different media as possible, and the best way to do that is to consult with your workers. Get them to tell you what they need. Tell me what you need, not because I need to know whether you're autistic or ADHD, but just because I want to know what you need. I want to know how I can get the best performance out of you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's actually really interesting, right, because, like I said, I'm doing stuff for Untat now, right, and I've been putting together some job adverts just recently and it's been interesting because I come from an ADHD dyslexic point of view and make it super simple to read and do all this other stuff. But when I've shown my autistic colleagues they've been like man. We need more information because we need to know what will happen, what will happen during this situation.
Speaker 3:I need every detail.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. And the thing is it's sort of like okay, well, we need to sort of look at it that it's not going to be so overwhelming for someone when they look at it, but there's going to be extra information. So we're looking at different buttons that they might be able to click on to get more info. But you know, I never realised that before until and I think what I'm getting at is we are so different that we can't just go for that one size fits all type of thing that's right.
Speaker 1:So hence why you need to speak to all the employers and find out what works best for them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, or at least encourage them all to have input and create a safe way for them to do that, so that people can provide input anonymously if they want to with you know. Or they can say well, this, you know, I function differently without you know and I might need but, for example, I don't learn personally. I don't learn well in that talk and talk classroom type environment. I've always been crap at that. I learn better when I'm listening and moving my body.
Speaker 3:So for university lectures or if I'm, if I have to read a research paper, for example, I'll I'll have as a PDF. I'll have text to voice, soft text to voice turned on and I'll listen to it while I'm doing the ironing. Or I'll listen to it while I'm for my power walk in the morning, because I can take it in better when I'm moving my body and I'm listening to it. But ask me to sit down and read it hopeless Right. We just everybody learns differently. We all take in and process information differently. So if we want to get the best performance out of our workers and the safest performance for our workers, then we have to create the environment that's best for them to do that.
Speaker 1:You know, right. Like sorry. So the thing that because I've just started with, like with this new company on tap, I've had a lot of onboarding and needing to read a lot of stuff, but I'm lucky that I know what tools to use to be able to help me. You know a lot of people know what they need.
Speaker 1:You know, and that's the hard part as well. So you know, I think going into that we're flowing really well today. How does Taylor communication enhance workplace safety for neurodivergent individuals? Because what I'm sort of getting at here is okay. Let's say someone is dyslexic, for example. They're given all of this reading to do. They can't do it. They start stressing out. Maybe an accident happens because I haven't read something properly. Yeah, that's going to come back on to them, you know how are? We able to look at these types of things.
Speaker 2:Or how does.
Speaker 1:Taylor communication enhance the workplace? I should say yeah.
Speaker 3:So I think, trying to provide information, as I said before, we're trying to provide information, as I said before, in as many different mediums as possible. So we so certainly some people, as you say well, are always going to rely on the written word, and there's nothing wrong with that, we shouldn't remove the written word. But maybe we can deliver the same information in an audio, but even speaking and listening, maybe we can do a video blog. Actually, I was talking to a young work health and safety professional who contacted me about this a little while ago. You've heard about about safe work method statements, right, you know what they are.
Speaker 3:Safe work method statements are required under the legislation that high risk for high risk tasks within the construction industry.
Speaker 3:So you know, demolition work, working with a space trust, working on route, you know, working at house, working in confined spaces, that's all high risk work and legally you have to write, prepare what's called a safe work method statement and it's got to, it's a form, it's got to be done in writing.
Speaker 3:And this young worker was saying to me you know, I've got roofing contractors that turn up and she said there's high prevalence of neurodivergent workers among that group of workers because a lot of them haven't finished grade 10 at school because of their learning differences and they can only go into the manual trades and they end up in construction. But they can't write, they can't put the information down in a safe work method statement. So she told me that she got them to do a video blog and she said it's fantastic because everyone's got their phone. They can all record the video on their phone and the best thing about it is you can see in real time the environment they're working in, the hazards of that environment, the risk assessment that the work is done, the controls that they're going to put in place, and you can actually video them putting the putting the PPE and controls on on in place and, of course, the guys are turning them back this viewing it like a movie star making a movie of myself.
Speaker 1:That's not actually enjoying it.
Speaker 3:And they're enjoying it. But, more importantly, now they are able to comply with the legislation and they're it's ensuring their safety. But the regulator is not happy about it because it's they've got to fill out the form. So why can't we have multiple different ways? So, whether it's in written language, whether it's in video, a video version or an audio version or a simplified version for for someone? I mean, we're not even just talking about people with ADHD and dyslexia, but it could be people with different language barriers, literacy barriers, any number of reasons why somebody isn't good with a written word. So you know what? Right?
Speaker 3:So, you know what?
Speaker 1:right, like I have a feeling that with a video like that, you're releasing a lot of information, right? I couldn't see why, in the future, we wouldn't have, like AI, forms that will be able to take the information from the video and put it into a form automatically.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I don't think that's right. The way the rate that AI is is increasing. I think AI offers a lot of potential for neurodivision workers.
Speaker 1:Totally.
Speaker 3:For exactly that reason.
Speaker 2:Can I just ask Catherine, in this kind of work, how do you get around the red tape side of things? Because I used to work for, say shall we call it a large telco company in Australia and I had lots of suggestions. You know, I didn't know, I kind of was starting to cotton on that. I was autistic at this point, but no diagnosis or anything. But I had a lot of suggestions about how they could maybe do things differently for all the people that I become friends with who all turned out to be neurodivision.
Speaker 2:But, getting anything through that red tape with such a? You know jutting the wall, bureaucracy was really hard.
Speaker 3:So how do you get around that no-transcript? Look, there will always be a need for bureaucracy. It will always be there. Maybe it can work with the talents within our organization. So, for example, if we go back to the newer division, ruth contractors, who are great at making the video blog of their safe method statement that can't write it down, there will be somebody in the workplace whose strength is technical writing and writing things down. So you use the example before of AI. Maybe there's an opportunity to program AI to transform that video blog and to put it into the form that the regulator requires. So you're actually not going around, you're not eliminating the red tape and the bureaucracy, but you're finding either the skills within your own workforce or the technology to turn that video blog into the written form. So you use.
Speaker 3:So while some people have strengths, other people are not so strong and we hopefully balance each other out. I mean, you know there's this evolutionary hypothesis about neurodiversity that says we know about evolution and the brain has evolved over a million years, millions of years, to have individuals who have these 15 to 20% of the population, who have these specialist thinking skills and functioning skills to balance the more general neurotypical thinking skills, and both are necessary. You know what? They're not just necessary in the community, they're necessary in workplaces as well, because neurodiversity brings diversity of thought. You have diverse skills and abilities, so let's not focus on the negative and all the things that these neurodivergent people can't do. Then all these reasonable adjustments that we're going to have to put in place for this worker, and then the next worker is going to want to say it's going to open the floodgates and it's all going to be a pain in the neck, which is the problem with looking at neurodiversity through appealing disability discriminations and let's start looking at the strengths of people.
Speaker 3:So I have dyscalculia as well, so I'm utterly crap at anything to do with numbers and maths. Don't give me anything. I'm a fiance and I were redesigning our master bedroom and putting in some new IKEA wardrobes and the girls are told they needed six metres of wardrobe. Right From IKEA, I ordered 22 metres of wardrobe. Oh my God, you want to find people going right out to the middle of Morton Bay. If I've had my way, I can't. I can't like. I can count from one to ten. I can count from one to a hundred. Don't ask me to do my times tase, but I can't conceptualise in my head the proportions Like how big is ten, how big is six metres? How you know how much? What does this look like? I just can't conceptualise that in my head.
Speaker 1:What about money? What about money? Is it money?
Speaker 3:Oh, they are mixed, okay, okay. And buying up the impulsivity that comes with ADHD and we see that.
Speaker 1:It's like ah stop it, I'll just get 22 metres.
Speaker 2:No, Well thank.
Speaker 1:God, thank God for everything.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, thank God. Thank God for an understanding of the Ikea's return policy, so that was all good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3:So with any. If I worked in employment again, I would say don't give me anything to do with numbers, right, but anything to do with teaching or speaking or the written word, or transforming complex theories into language and concepts that people can understand, I'm good at that. Give me that to do, right. So if somebody wants to make a video of a Safe Work Method statement and they need me to transfer, transform that into the technical, written, safe Work, documented Safe Work Method statement. I can do that.
Speaker 3:Don't ask me to quantify anything, though, because that's not where my strengths are.
Speaker 3:So if it's a society and if it's employers, we can start focusing more on the strengths and rather than you know how, when in employment and in recruitment, we're always told the first thing you need to do is start with a position description, list all the things that you want the person into this position, going into this role, to be able to do.
Speaker 3:The problem with that is nobody's good at anything, right, and so maybe a better approach is to say and this is how I work now, when I recruit some workers or contractors to work with me, I try and identify talent first, identify. I don't work out, I don't know all the things that I need help with in my business. Obviously, bookkeeping is one of them, but I try and identify the talent out there and if I meet someone or someone approached me about where I can see talent there, then I work out where I can fit them into my business. So I've got a square peg fitting into a square hole, rather than trying to fit a square peg into a round hole which is the artificial position description I've created for them which they're never going to be able to fit into everything.
Speaker 2:It's funny how we hear a lot of people from the other side of the world using the exact same language, like square peg, square hole and stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's universal right.
Speaker 2:It's like yeah, it's like we're all identifying as you're a divergent and different, but we're all kind of but you know what? The same way, well, yeah, but you know what else?
Speaker 1:is interesting too. A lot of the problems that we're having here in Australia are the exact same problems that are in the UK, the United, States. Europe non-English speaking countries, so it's interesting that all of those problems are the exact same.
Speaker 3:You're right, and here's the thing, though Like I read and I hear a lot about the new cases that are coming through the employment tribunals in the UK about discrimination against neurodivergent workers, and I think the same will start to happen here in Australia. But we have another factor here that employers need to be concerned about, and that's the whole workers' compensation arena, which they don't have in the UK. So in Australia, if you're injured at work, we know that you can go on company, you can claim workers comp. Now, do you think that applies to neurodegenerities? Do you think it should? Because I tell you now, there is already case precedent in Australia. Well, you can definitely burn out.
Speaker 1:You know, I know for myself as well. You know, with the role that I've just started doing, a lot of the work I've been doing has basically been from home and you know I'm not not having others around me a lot of the time because, especially with my ADHD, I need other people around me sometimes to really to just not just to I don't know just to build that like my depression can go down really quick. So, yeah, totally, I think it definitely could play a big role.
Speaker 3:You know, in Australia with our statutory workers compensation scheme the worker doesn't have to prove that the employer was at fault. At that first level of compensation they only need to prove that they're a worker, that they've sustained an injury and that the injury arose out of and in the course of employment, where employment was a significant contributing factor. It has been determined now that if a person's experience of their neurodivergent deteriorates to the extent that they can now no longer function and perform the work, then that's a compensable injury. But we also know that mental health challenges affect neurodivergent people at a rate of 50% as opposed to 25% in the neurodivisional population. So employers, in my opinion, should be really concerned that if they don't manage the work, health and safety environment in a way that works for neurodivergent workers and the neurodivisional workers ability to function because of the neurodivision deteriorates as a result that they may be able to claim workers compensation for that.
Speaker 3:So that's when you see significant costs for the employer on their work cover premium.
Speaker 2:That would have been awesome when I was at said large telco company. It was a cool center. I really found the topic interesting because it was infrastructure management and delay and stuff, and so I was really interested in that. It was really fast paced environment lots of socializing. My boss was really outgoing and in your face in a nice way, but really in my face.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I was able to do really good at it for a while, but I didn't really understand what I could, what I was actually doing was masking it. So I was in bed for three months. I felt like I had to pretend, call in and pretend that it was something else, rather than just I've really burnt myself out very badly and this one is lasting for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, burnout sucks, burnout sucks. So, going off from that, how can organizations prevent discrimination and promote safety for neurodivergent individuals? So you've sort of spoken a little bit about that, but how could they go a little bit more in depth?
Speaker 3:Well, obviously having a stab establishing anti-discrimination policies that explicitly include neurodivergent functioning. So we tend to think about disability discrimination as only applying to those obvious visible signs of disability. And you know, when workers, for the workers, go to their employer and say I have ADHD and I'm requesting reasonable adjustments under the Disability Discrimination Act, that's a big deal Like for a person to out themselves and to ask for help.
Speaker 3:It's a big deal. Now, what often happens then at that point is the HR will say oh, I need a medical certificate Right Before I can give you any adjustments. I need you to provide a letter from your doctor, or a doctor's report or a medical certificate to prove that you are genuinely disabled and you need these adjustments on genuine disability grounds. Now, that is in itself, an inherently discriminatory practice, if you think about it, because for most neurodivergent people, adults in particular, diagnosis has been inaccessible to them. You know how long do people have to wait for an ADHD diagnosis or an autism diagnosis to find a specialist that's able to diagnose them?
Speaker 3:So, and if you think about it, going back to my LGBTQI personality, if a person, a member of that community, goes to HR and requests to take some carers leave so they can stay home and care for their same sex partner, do we ask that person to provide proof that they're gay? Of course we don't. That would be discriminatory, wouldn't it Right? Do we ask a new mum returning to the workplace who wants to continue breastfeeding? Do we ask that mum to provide and she's asking for flexible work arrangements? Do we ask her to provide proof that she's still breastfeeding? No, we don't. So why do we ask neurodivergent workers to prove that they're neurodivergent before we offer them reasonable adjustments? So that is an inherently discriminatory practice. Why can't we just accept a person who identifies as neurodivergent without questioning the disability and whether they need adjustments? Because what they need is a set of requirements and the employer's got an obligation to provide that.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:But is that you never thought of it that way?
Speaker 2:No, not I'm saying I disagree. I just that, just never occurred to me. Bit of a mind blow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it's almost sort of like. You know, it's almost like if we think about mental health right, sometimes like some people just really need serious help straight away.
Speaker 1:But to be able to get that help you've got to do like all of these tests, to be able to get like a health plan and all of this stuff Like I've known people who you know, the doctor put them through all this testing and then it's like look in the time that person could have been getting testing. They could have you know, worst case scenario killed themselves. Do you know what?
Speaker 2:I mean, why aren't we just going? Okay, you need this.
Speaker 1:Let's get you to this help.
Speaker 3:Because you know what? People who are neurodivergent sorry, people who are neurodivisional don't fake being neurodivergent. It's just to get what they want in workplace, right. People don't fake being neurodivergent. It's neurodivergent people who try and fake being neurotypical to fit in like that square peg in the square. Then we're masking right, so it's.
Speaker 3:You always just need to accept that for a person to step forward and ask for help in it to function at work with a neurodivergence, that's a massive deal and it's not a step they would have taken lightly or easily. I coach people around this every day. You know, in my coaching practice it's the biggest thing that people ask me to help them find the words, to help them have the conversation with the employer, to ask for what they do, because they don't know what words to use, right. So then, when they have the guts to have the conversation and they find the words, the last thing they want and is for their employer to turn around and say well, I can't make any adjustments to you until you give me a medical certificate, and they can't get a medical certificate to prove it right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what? If someone asked me, go get your proof of your dyslexia diagnosis, I was diagnosed when I was like 10, I think. And let's say, if my parents weren't around anymore I wouldn't even know the first place to look. I don't even know if my mother still has all of that information, maybe she should have.
Speaker 2:I don't know if issuing us papers is the right path to go down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally, totally.
Speaker 3:It's important to have anti-discrimination policies that explicitly include neurodiversity because when we look at the anti-discrimination legislation in Australia it's different from the disability discrimination right. Disability discrimination act is there to protect people with disabilities. Right Now, many neurodivergent people don't identify or don't think of themselves as having a disability. I don't right, many don't. But the anti-discrimination legislation protects specific minority groups from a whole range of discriminatory practices. But you know, for neurodivergent people to classify, to be accepted under the anti-discrimination legislation, we have to. It can only be under the category of having an infirmity or an impairment. So neurodivergence is a natural variation in the human brain. So why is it an impairment? So my, this is a go. This is probably going above my pay grade. I actually think that neurodivergence needs its own classification under the anti-discrimination legislation. So just as the LGBT plus community is recognized under the anti-discrimination legislation, so too should the neurodivergent community. Because you know what our identity as a new, our identity as a neurodivergent person, is different from any disability I might experience. The disability is determined by the environment. I'm in.
Speaker 1:Totally, totally, totally Nice, nice, nice, awesome stuff there. Thank you so much for coming on, catherine, it's been so informative.
Speaker 1:I think we've had a lot of people checking it out. I can see up on the slide there. We've had a lot of people watching, so thank you so much for coming on. I think you've opened our minds to a lot of different things which employers can definitely maybe think more about. But you know, if people do want to connect with you or find out a little bit more about the work you're doing, where's the best place for them to find you?
Speaker 3:Well, so I'm on LinkedIn, so certainly reach out and connect with me on LinkedIn, but all you can check out our website, which is the neurodiverse safe work initiative, and we're on Facebook and Instagram as well, so check us out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nice, nice. Thank you so much, Photon John. Did you have anything else before I close it out?
Speaker 2:Catherine, you defined things extremely well. You've said a few things today that really made me think differently, and particularly, like you used, to neurodivergent functioning a lot which sounds simple, but that really made me think about it differently, and I know that that's term. I'll use with your typical people, because I feel like that's something they could understand a little bit. It's a functioning thing, but yeah thank you I thought that was really great. I'm glad it's been a great privilege.
Speaker 3:Well, I was delighted when you asked me to come on podcast and I hope your audience is around it Not a problem.
Speaker 1:I think it's an important topic. I think when I saw you speak, there was so many aha moments and, I think, so many relatable moments as well, and to be able to put that into a podcast, I think, is very going to be very valuable to a lot of people. So I really hope we can maybe change the minds of a few people through this. So, no, thank you for coming on. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:You're welcome, thanks for having me Now for anyone who hasn't done so, if you haven't already done so, please subscribe, like and follow to all of our social media platforms. Please check us out on all of our podcasting platforms. Please like, share, rate us, do whatever you can to help with the podcast there. My name is Will Wheeler. Join with my cohost, Photon John, and this is the Neurodivergent Mates podcast. Until next time.