Researcher's work is inspired by his son who was diagnosed with autism at age 3.
As companies strive to foster an inclusive workplace, more and more are including individuals on the autism spectrum, said Tim Vogus, deputy director of Vanderbilt University's Frist Center for Autism and Innovation.
Efforts of organizations to foster an inclusive workplace for neurodivergent employees are ambitious, with technology-oriented companies taking the lead, he said.
"Some of these organizations … I would hold up as really excellent organizations. I think the efforts at SAP and Microsoft are good, ambitious, and growing, but I would say the jury is out—but not out in whether autistic folks can be really effective employees," he said. "I'm not concerned about that, so much as I am about whether people can have actual careers coming in through these initiatives, or they're being placed in jobs that are otherwise difficult to fill."
Increased awareness
Workplace awareness of autism has grown as children grow up with friends who are neurodivergent, or as adults already in the workforce have identified as autistic, Vogus has said.
Individual familiarity and familial connections to autistic and neurodivergent people have led to several entrepreneurial organizations where most of the workforce is autistic. There are also targeted employment programs in larger companies such as JPMorgan Chase and Microsoft.
There are tendencies across the autism spectrum where many individuals have strengths when it comes to structured, analytical processing and others exhibit artistic strengths.
One frequent barrier to organizational understanding of autism is the "double empathy problem," Vogus said.
"People who are autistic were initially and erroneously thought to lack empathy or have what's called 'weak theory of mind,' but what's really going on there is that neurotypical people and neurodivergent people are processing the world in fundamentally different ways," he explained.
"So, a lot of times, what is the biggest barrier to successful employment for autistic folks across a range of professions is that divergent, that double empathy problem where neurotypical and neurodivergent people have trouble taking each other's perspectives," he said.
This is where being clear in social cues and interactions can help. In his research, Vogus has found that employers and managers will oftentimes mischaracterize their autistic employees because they aren't performing a task the way they, the employer or manager, normal would.
He also notes that the healthcare industry has lagged behind others when considering neurodivergence, which may be due to the stereotypical understanding that people have of social interactions and how healthcare is delivered interpersonally.
"I think there is a whole IT infrastructure for the healthcare world that may even be populated with neurodivergent folks who don't feel comfortable to disclose that they're neurodivergent," Vogus said, adding that this is something that's come up in research as well.
Vogus' experience watching his son, who is autistic, grow up and wanting to ensure that he's able to pursue his interests freely and live life the way he wants drives his advocacy and efforts. He has research being reviewed that examines the relationship manager-employee relationship and its influence on employment success.
"One of the things that I think is really promising about neurodiversity in an organization, much like it is with any form of greater diversity in an organization, is that you give different perspectives, different lived experiences, different ways of processing and experiencing the world—that enriches any organization," he said. "It makes them more adaptable, innovative, more flexible, able to do more than they could with a homogenous workforce."
There's still work to be done for workplace inclusivity and Vogus offers a few tips for companies wanting to improve their neurodiversity practices:
- Increase organizational understanding of autism
- Move away from practices that can be seen as exclusionary or discriminatory and embrace new ways of thinking and lived experiences
- Providing clear expectations for job performance, as well as consistent and direct feedback
- Offering "environmental modifications" at work (for example, noise-canceling headphones)
“One of the things that I think is really promising about neurodiversity in an organization, much like it is with any form of greater diversity in an organization, is that you give different perspectives, different lived experiences, different ways of processing and experiencing the world—that enriches any organization.”
Tim Vogus, deputy director, Vanderbilt University Frist Center for Autism and Innovation
Jasmyne Ray is the revenue cycle editor at HealthLeaders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Neurodiversity is often left out in conversations about workplace inclusivity.
Vogus noted that the healthcare industry is behind others when it comes to being inclusive to neurodivergent individuals.
The "double empathy problem" refers to how neurodivergent and neurotypical individuals process the world different ways, which creates a barrier in organizational understanding of autism.