Autism in the Workplace: Working Together to Build Inclusive Health and Social Care Teams

Inclusivity matters. This replay provides an opportunity to reflect on how we can have more honest conversations in the workplace about the individual needs of practitioners working in health and social care – and what's at stake if we don't. 

Description

Many of us are aware that the traditional ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to work life needs rethinking. With the ongoing surge in adult diagnoses of autism, there's a growing understanding of the many ways that autism can impact a person’s working life – whether that person is us, a colleague, or someone we manage.

In a series of conversations with three expert speakers, this resource focuses on the things we can all do to improve the workplace for everyone in it. How can teams intentionally and proactively adapt to needs expressed by colleagues? If we identify and remove barriers, are we better equipped to navigate our important and challenging work together? What does it look and feel like to be part of an inclusive team?

While autistic people’s needs in the workplace vary greatly, changes around communication styles, adaptability of work environments, support and supervision may all be beneficial to the wider wellbeing of the workplace, for autistic and non-autistic staff members alike. How do we support autistic colleagues who experience sensory overload in the office environment, or who have difficultly ‘task switching’? How do we dismantle barriers to communicating needs with managers – and each other? If autistic masking and camouflaging can amplify burnout and mental health issues, how do we act on that knowledge to strengthen our teams?

Watch or listen to explore these questions and the ways that we can create an autistic- and neurodivergent-informed workplace that is person-centred and inclusive in its approach. Whether you're an autistic or non-autistic team leader, manager, director, or colleague committed to making the working environment more inclusive, this webinar is for you.

These resources will help you:

• Understand how autism might present in the workplace, and appreciate how autism doesn’t ‘look’ one way
• Get to grips with the barriers that autistic people in the workplace might face to maintaining a healthy working life, and feel more confident in finding solutions to those barriers as a team
• Develop a sense for what an inclusive team feels like for everyone, and the benefits of this
• Expand your understanding of what it means to be autism- and neurodivergent-informed, both as an individual and as a workplace
• Develop your understanding of specific characteristics and traits of autism such as masking, task-switching and sensory issues
• Feel more confident in your ability to have honest conversations about needs and strengths in health and social care, as a team and an individual

Further reading