Former compliance officer Jason Meyer, president of LeadGood Education, developed these questions to help organizations improve their engagement with neurodiverse workers, which he said make up about 20% of the workforce. Among other things, it will help reduce compliance risk (see story, p. 1).[1] Contact Meyer at jason@leadgoodeducation.com.
Can my organization do better at including and connecting with neurodivergent workers?
Ask yourself these questions about your workplace and your organization:
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Are you satisfied with the performance of all your workers, in terms of their ability to complete projects and assignments consistently and on time?
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Do managers feel that everyone on their team understands instructions “the first time,” and then successfully juggles and prioritizes competing demands?
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Does your organization employ multiple learning and presentation modalities to present important policies and corporate information?
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Have you integrated your processes for identifying and accommodating disabilities with your processes for workplace assessment and training and for monitoring compliance?
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Does your organization have a culture and practice of proactively reducing the cognitive load of employees with impaired working memory?
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Does your organization support personalization of working styles to accommodate those with cognitive and learning differences?
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Are critical information and instructions repeated to the workforce, preferably in multiple ways and from different sources?
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Has your organization incorporated “Universal Design” and other neurodiversity design best practices into your onboarding and your ethics and compliance training?
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Do managers at your organization work to discourage multitasking and avoid the need for employees to frequently switch tasks?
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Have managers and executives received training or mentoring to help them engage with and lead neurodivergent people?