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A panel discussion - Strengths and Strategies for Neurodiverse Workforces
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Imagine working in an environment where your neurodiversity is not only recognised, but celebrated. That's the world we're envisioning in this special panel episode of Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors, where Jeff is joined by three experts in the field of neurodiversity:
Dr Jasmine Virhia is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Behavioural Science at The Inclusion Initiative, a research centre at The London School of Economics and Political Science.
Angela Pretner-Smith is MD of This is Milk and Founder of Neve Learning; a platform helps training providers and large organisations manage and deliver professional learning in a way that includes neurodiversity and is aligned with a future-focused education framework. Angela identifies as autistic and has dyspraxia.
Dan Maudsley is Senior Producer at the BBC who was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult and writes about his challenges as a neurodiverse employee.
Our panellists explore what neurodiversity may look like in the workplace; how it may present itself and how you, as a leader, can embrace the skills and opportunities that come with it. Jasmine highlights the benefits that neurodivergent staff can bring to your team such as the ability to hyper-focus, or the ability to identify creative solutions to business problems that someone else may not necessarily come up with.
Dan reveals the struggles he faced as an adult before his diagnosis and how the discovery of his ADHD changed his life at work and at home. “It was a real moment of clarity. I was suddenly able to do things I never, ever, thought I would be able to do.
Angela takes us through the variety of ways in which all people (not just neurodivergent people) learn. What accommodations can we make to maximise people’s ability to learn and how can we reduce stress that some may feel in trying to learn?
The traditional recruitment process for many workplaces doesn’t necessarily cater to neurodiverse applicants; interviews can cause stress and are often not an effective way of determining how well a neurodivergent person might perform in the job role. Jasmine offers some fantastic advice about how we could tweak the process to be more inclusive.“If you have an understanding of how their autism manifests for them in the workplace, you'll have a better idea of how you can really assess their skills in an equitable way, rather than judging them against other candidates or a skill set that actually isn't really measuring what they need to do”.
A common thread that runs through the advice from all our panellists is that adapting workplace culture to support neurodivergent people will benefit everybody. “These people that are underrepresented will perform to a level where they can excel; they're more likely to collaborate, they're more likely to communicate and they're more likely to show up with authenticity”.
Hosted by Jeff Dewing
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