How does an employer make the workplace a healthy environment for an autistic employee?
This is a great question! It recognizes that the accommodations mindset has yet to yield much progress for those with non-physical (also called invisible) disabilities, including neurodivergence. Instead, it asks about accommodations that can be incorporated into the workplace itself, rather than for a single employee.
I myself have been that autistic employee, who has worked with (and without) accommodations in a variety of workplaces in the last couple of decades with few positive outcomes. It’s been my experience that, unlike Braille in an elevator or flashing lights added to a fire alarm, accommodations for those of us with invisible disabilities—including other psychiatric and neurological disorders and chronic pain or fatigue—often fail due to a singling out of the disabled person for special treatment and a lack of understanding from the rest of the staff about why it is needed.
As an example, a cleaning crew used to come to my place of work, a veterinary clinic, twice a week about 30 minutes before we closed, running a vacuum over our gritty, non-slip floor, making the most horrible racket. Other employees didn’t like being interrupted and didn’t like the noise, but were used to working through it.
I tried working through it—once. It drained me so completely in a matter of minutes that the second time the cleaners came in, I simply said “I cannot be in here with this noise, I need to leave right now,” and luckily, my co-workers, who all knew about my autism, were understanding and didn’t object.
That is an accommodation, i.e., allowing the disabled person to do something different, in this case, to leave. But in that scenario, the autistic is still siloed away from others, who have to stay and put up with the racket even though for them it’s “just” an inconvenience, rather than a meltdown-inducing occurrence. Over time, others may resent that the autistic is allowed to leave early, or the autistic may feel guilty about leaving others in the lurch, leading to the eventual abandonment of the accommodation.
At the clinic, however, my coworkers got together not long thereafter and asked the supervisor to have the cleaning crew come in an hour later, after the facility closed and most of us had left. Not just as an accommodation for me, but as a permanent change that would benefit everyone, if to varying degrees. I’d only been there a short time, and yet they decided it was worth altering a routine that had been in place since they opened that would make the workplace better for their autistic coworker—and themselves.
Accommodations for All
As such, I am pleased by the paradigm shift towards including all of the staff and considering the workplace itself in planning and implementing changes to suit a neurodivergent’s needs. With wholesale support, changes are more likely to become permanent. These accommodations can also benefit non-autistics or staff who silently struggle with their own invisible disabilities.
Nearly all autistics need extra “sick” days to recharge. But rather than extending this privilege to the autistic alone, a supervisor should consider giving extra sick days to anyone who needs them, including parents with sick children. Will some people abuse the privilege? Of course. But some people will always abuse workplace privileges, whatever they may be, and it is unfair to punish the rest of the staff, autistic or otherwise, for one or two bad actors.
Moreover, sensory sensitivities aren’t limited to just autistics, and these, too, can be accommodated by modifying the work environment itself. Some examples: to keep kitchen smells from permeating the workplace, put a swinging door on the kitchen that stays closed rather than no door or a door that stays open. This will also lessen noise emanating from a prime socialization area, and make it feel more like a break room, a healthier environment for everyone.
Speaking of sounds, turn off background music and mute TV sounds in waiting and common areas as a rule, not an exception. Everyone can be affected by light temperatures and brightness, and installing light dimmers and providing incandescent lighting options would be an improvement appreciated by many non-autistic employees as well as autistic ones.
Everyone should feel like a stakeholder in any accommodations made, and such accommodations should benefit the rest of the staff as well as the autistic. A goal of making the workplace better for everyone—and not just the neurodivergent—is the most likely path to success.
Christine M. Condo [she/her] (B.A., B.S., M.A.) was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder Level 1 (also known as Asperger’s) in 2015 at the age of 42. Her writing and research focus on dismantling common misconceptions about autism and supporting the burgeoning neurodiversity acceptance movement. Condo has been published in The Washington Post and Autism Parenting Magazine as well as online. She has been interviewed on radio and in multiple podcasts, and presented at autism conferences in Barcelona and London. Condo writes on Medium.com, and maintains a personal blog about her experiences at thisgreatape.com.
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