Why seeking adjustments at work matters for neurodivergent people even when they are ‘coping’
Our experience is that neurodivergent people are under-represented at the senior levels of large organisations especially. Client organisations tell us that they see great diversity in terms of gender, class, ethnicity and neurodiversity at the junior levels of their organisation but that as seniority increases the diversity of the group declines.
For neurodivergent people this tells us that the senior levels of large organisations are either not survivable for them or they are not being seen as appropriate for these jobs.
This is why we encourage even neurodivergent people at the start of their careers or early in their working life to start thinking about how they are managing and what would help them.
Often neurodivergent people are camouflaging and seeking to fit in with the workplace around them as they may have experienced this as the best way to succeed at school and society up to that point. Maybe they have never had a successful experience of truly being themselves and asking for what they need.
Why bother to seek adaptations at work?
If camouflaging and operating within existing structures in all cases is how we are operating, this can have powerful negative impacts later on. The impact on our mental health of camouflaging is becoming more known.
The other impact of accepting the status quo as it is and seeking to work as hard as possible to fit in is that as well as putting additional pressure on ourselves we are not starting to experiment with the self-advocacy skills and self-discovery we might need to start to adapt our working environment and practices to suit how we work. Our clients report profound effects in feeling accepted at work, less stressed and more able to get their work done when they are on this path.
Often we see junior team members leave to join another company when their workplace feels intolerable. A new company may be 5% better or a slightly more motivating environment and this can feel like enough for now.
However, as our careers progress, and especially for those that go on to have children or significant family responsibilities such as caring for an older family member, this can exponentially increase the executive functioning, time and other demands on us just at the time that our work is more demanding and requiring more of these same skills.
This is where many of our clients have come to a crunch point and find themselves chronically stressed and stretched and notice that they are struggling with their mental or physical health.
As a result, some either leave the workplace all together, start their own business, continue to struggle at great cost to their wellbeing or avoid taking on further responsibility at work limiting their progression to more senior levels of the organisation.
Experiment now: benefit now and later
We encourage our clients to start experimenting with tweaks in their working environment and style now even if they are “coping” and are early on in our careers while also building a more extensive support network.
This can include, reflecting on the questions like those below:
What would need to change about your job if you were able to contribute the most you can to the organisation without changing who you are?
If you were free of stress and the need to camouflage what would be different about your working life?
Given the answers to those questions, what adaptations would be helpful for you in the workplace and what would be the positive impact for the employer? For one of our clients, having more support with administration meant he could fit more business development meetings with clients in and win more business. It could also be that if you have more support you could meet deadlines more effectively. It might be that a colleague could help you to get started with a big project or check in with you about it if you struggle with getting started early.
For some of us, particularly ADHDers, future discounting means it is hard to value potential benefits in the future. This is why it might help to think about how you can improve you situation at work now while knowing this is a valuable skill to develop for later in your career.
Addressing the adaptations list
For sure, addressing the adaptions list you may have in mind may seem scary. It may seem impossible even. However, if you are able to experiment with even small steps, or to share some of these thoughts with others you work with, this could help you increase your capacity and ability to access support and be more ready for the future.
You may find it helpful to consider learning about non-violent communication for discussions with your boss to help you articulate your needs in a a way that is more likely to help with support.
Even if you are not ready yet to have discussions with your workplace, you could start thinking about your support network and how best you can access help.
There are many executive coaching providers, training courses for communication skills and support and productivity groups that you could seek to access. Externalising your thinking and experiences to a supportive and non-judgmental person can be a great way to see things more clearly.
If you are able to, seeking adaptations such as those that can be supported by Access to Work could be a further support for you.
It’s all learning
We encourage clients to reflect on these areas and their experiments in relation to these as developing their learning.
Rather than judging whether all efforts have been successful, it can help to think of all efforts as building a muscle of self-advocacy and care that is useful for the future. It may be that our clients are successful in their efforts and they are not met with the support and understanding that is needed. This may still mean a change in organisation or job is needed but the learning and skills they have will continue to be useful in any case.