[Navy blue CAI Neurodiverse Solutions logo appears on screen with white background, with www.cai.io below in black.]
[Title slide. A blue banner at the top of the slide features the "National Association of Counties" logo along with text that reads: "County Tech Xchange". White background with text center in the middle of the screen that reads: "Hiring Neurodiverse Talent in the Public Sector - Breaking Down the Barriers". Along with text below that reads "November 30, 2023". The name "Rita Reynolds" appears in the top right corner of the screen, alongside a photo of a talking head, indicating the speaker. "National Association of Counties" logo along with text that reads: "County Tecg Xchange" is also displayed in the bottom left of the slide. The bottom right corner displays "@NACotweets | www.NACo.org". ]
00:00:06 - 00:01:10
Rita Reynolds
Well, good afternoon, everyone. Happy to see you today. It is Thursday, November 30th, the last day of November in 2023. I am Rita Reynolds, the Chief Information Officer here at NACo, and we're happy to see all of you. I'm sure we'll continue to have folks joining. We have a great registration list of close to 100. So we'll wait a minute, maybe 30 seconds or so before we get started. But you are in the fireside chat for Hiring Neurodiverse Talent in the Public Sector - Breaking Down the Barriers. And as I said earlier, it's a topic around hiring that is really important for us to be exposed to and to understand. And we have some great presenters today who are going to talk about their experiences in that area. So we'll wait just a minute, folks are still coming in and as we go along today, we'll encourage you as well to post questions in the comments.
00:01:11 - 00:01:14
Rita
So what I would like to do is just take a minute.
[Slide 2. Slide title is "Zoom Housekeeping". A list of guidelines is positioned in the center-left portion of the slide, detailing: "Be sure to mute yourself," "Be sure to use the chat to ask questions," "If we can call on you to ask your question, please turn on your video," and "Once you enter the meeting, click the three dots, and click 'Rename' (be sure to add your county / organization)." On the center-right portion, there's a rectangular image of a Zoom call screen with multiples participants, professionally dressed, displayed in a grid format. The number "2" in the bottom right corner indicates the slide number.]
00:01:15 - 00:02:12
Rita
As I said, you are here in the Hiring Neurodiverse Talent for the public sector and we're using Zoom today. We want to make sure as you come in to please be sure to mute yourself and, Victoria, that top one, do not admit that. Can you take a look and see who that might be that has all the L's? We do keep a track of who's registering and attending, so be sure to make sure you stay muted. Make sure as well if you have questions, we would encourage you to put in the chat your question, and we may call on you if time permits. And we would encourage you to turn on your video. Also, once you're in the meeting, it would be really helpful as well. If you can right mouse, click on those 3 little dots next to your name and just add what county or state you're from, that would help us out as well.
00:02:13 - 00:02:16
Rita
So with all of that aside, what I'd like to do is.
[Slide 3. Slide title is "Speakers". In the center of the slide, three circular profile images are aligned horizontally, each representing a speaker. Beneath each image, text is provided: on the left, "Anthony Pacilio" with "VP of Neurodiverse Solutions" and "CAI"; in the middle, "Dr. Hala Annabi" with "Assoc Professor Information School," and "University of Wash."; and on the right, "Shannon Smith" with "Chief of Staff," "Information Technology," "Dept," and "King County, Wash." The number "3" in the bottom right corner indicates the slide number.]
00:02:17 - 00:02:58
Rita
Just introduce our speakers and then I'm going to unshare my screen and we'll jump in today's fireside chat with these individuals. We are privileged to have Anthony Pacilio, the Vice President of Neurodiverse Solutions here that's with CAI, and this is really how we were introduced to the topic. We have Dr. Hala Annabi, Associate Professor of the Information School at the University of Washington. And finally, not the least, we have Shannon Smith, who is the Chief of Staff of Information Technology in King County, Washington. So as I stated earlier, I'm going to stop sharing my screen.
[The name "Rita Reynolds" is displayed at the bottom left corner of the screen, alongside a photo of a talking head, indicating the speaker.]
00:02:59 - 00:03:20
Rita
And what we will do is we'll just kick it off and I would like to give each participant an opportunity to acknowledge they're here. Anthony, we'll start with you. And if you wouldn't mind, if you could just share a little bit about your background, that would be great.
[The name and title "Anthony Pacilio, Vice President CAI Neurodiverse Solutions" appears in the bottom left corner of the screen, alongside a photo of a talking head, indicating the speaker.]
00:03:21 - 00:04:14
Anthony Pacilio
Sure, sure. Thank you, Rita. And thank you to NACo for having us today. My name's Anthony Pacilio. I am the Vice President of CAI Neurodiverse Solutions. A little bit about me. I'm neurodivergent myself, so I have extreme social anxiety disorder, I have depression. We're going to get into what neurodiversity is in a moment or 2, but really my job is two-fold here. I'm the brand and media ambassador at CAI Neurodiverse Solutions, but I also help companies, clients, organizations, build neurodiversity at work programs. I've been doing this for a long time, previous life at a financial institution starting their Autism at Work program, and now it has just kind of morphed into what we do today and trying to help those who are underserved, underemployed, unemployed in the Neurodiverse community. So thank you, Rita. I appreciate it.
00:04:15 - 00:04:17
Rita
All right, Hala.
[The name and title "Hala Annabi, She/Her, UW Associate Prof." appears in the bottom left corner of the screen, alongside a photo of a talking head, indicating the speaker.]
00:04:18 - 00:05:27
Dr. Hala Annabi
Hello everyone. I'm so glad to be here and have this conversation. As I was introduced earlier, my name is Hala Annabi. I'm an associate professor at the University of Washington at the Information School, and my focus has been for the last 25 years on how do we create organizations of all kinds. My focus has been predominantly on IT and engineering, but my work focuses on how do we create structures and culture that are inclusive, that promote learning, promote innovation, promote the ongoing development and ongoing development, and the ability to excel for employees of all backgrounds. So I work specifically on how to create organizations that support women and women of color in the technology space. And since 2016, I've focused on autistic women initially and now more broadly neurodivergent people in the workplace. And I look at it as there are great talents that come in different ways that need to interact and see the world in different ways.
00:05:28 - 00:06:33
Hala
How do organizations change their processes to break down barriers and create the right supports that will allow different people to bring their talents in healthy ways so that organizations and society can benefit? So that's simply what I do, and I do it in both the public and private sector. The first 5 years of the neurodiversity work has focused on the private sector 'cause that's where we saw most of the programs and the initiatives, and over the last 2 years have been working on defining the best practices and the elements that support neurodiversity hiring and really more broadly inclusion in the public sector. And I focus particularly on the federal government right now, and part of what I do is not just produce research, but we develop... Actually Anthony and I wrote the Autism Network Work Playbook in 2018 that helps organizations learn best practices from leading organizations. And we're about to publish the playbook for the federal government in about a month and a half.
00:06:34 - 00:07:39
Rita
Well, that sounds great and interesting. I'm sure the listeners here as well would like to see that. So, Hala, maybe keep us updated when that's ready. So what we're going to do now, we have 3 sections, each has a question, and I'm going to present the question, but then ask each of you to just share a bit in terms of what the response of that question means to you. And then if there are questions from the audience, please feel free to raise your hand or post a question in the chat. The first one, and it really is focused on barriers because we have seen that there are barriers in the world, whether it's public or private sector, with hiring neurodiverse individuals. And to be clear in case folks, and feel free Anthony or Hala or Shannon to correct or add to the definition, but for those who maybe aren't familiar with the Neurodiverse term, it really is referring to individuals that are on the spectrum.
00:07:40 - 00:08:27
Rita
Years ago it was referred to as autism or Asperger's, variations thereof, and now the global term that's used is neurodiverse. So there are barriers, as I said. The first one that I'd love to hear from our panelists, overcoming misconceptions of hiring neurodivergent individuals. Could you all talk a little bit to that in terms of what you've seen? And first of all, the examples of the barrier there of overcoming misconceptions. What are those misconceptions, but then how you have accomplished or worked towards overcoming them. So we'll start with Anthony, then Hala and Shannon and then we'll change it up the next question.
00:08:28 - 00:09:46
Anthony
Yeah, no, absolutely. And thanks for asking that. And I think for neurodiversity and defining that a little bit more broad, it's variation in the brain function and how you're thinking and it might be a little bit differently. And now that terminology encompasses a whole bunch of different things. Autism being one of them. Now it's dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, all the dyses. It is social anxiety disorder, it's PTSD, it's depression. So if you're looking to look at the holistic view of neurodiversity, everybody listening in today, potentially will know somebody or be a parent guardian or caregiver of somebody who may in fact or friend may be neurodivergent. And neurodivergent is kind of the singular form of neurodiversity. So we all think a little bit differently. So we all may be a bit neurodivergent, but I think the shift in employment over the past, Hala and I have been doing this a while, probably let's go back 10 years, it is moving, but probably not as quickly as we all want it to move.
00:09:47 - 00:10:48
Anthony
And I think one of the misconceptions is socially, that disabilities have been a deficit to some or to organizations, and honestly, we can throw metrics and numbers and all that other good stuff out at you and productivity to prove that is not even remotely the case. So as everyone listens in today, we're going to be able to, the 3 of us and 4 of us including Rita, we're going to be able to kind of dispel a lot of these things as we go through it. I think people think, "Well, there's a big risk and bringing a neurodiversity at work program to my company." Well, what is that risk? Are you thinking that it's going to cost more to hire somebody who is neurodivergent than somebody who is neurotypical? Potentially, no, because honestly, if I'm neurotypical, I might need some different things to do my job.
00:10:49 - 00:11:41
Anthony
Maybe I need a different Excel program or a different Adobe Acrobat program, but maybe if I'm neurodivergent, I need noise-canceling headphones because maybe I have sensory issues, but I don't need all the other stuff. So offsetting what somebody needs versus what brings being able to bring their whole authentic selves to work. I think that's a misconception all in itself. I think changing the work environment, well, what do you got to change the work environment for? Okay, maybe you might not want to put somebody who has sensory issues next to an auditorium or a loud workstation or something to that effect. Okay, that's a simple potentially movement of a desk. And I think one of the other pieces is we think about jobs, right. The jobs itself.
00:11:42 - 00:12:28
Anthony
We're not saying that somebody who's neurodivergent can't do X, Y, Z job. We're actually saying that potentially they could be just as productive if not more productive because neurodivergent individuals tend to be loyal, they tend to be on time. They tend to be really steadfast and detail oriented and have great pattern recognition skills. And that's not everybody. We're not putting everybody in one big box, but some of these different criterion factors can actually help your return on your investment, meaning your profitability in other ways as well. So I could talk forever on this. I know, Hala, you have some thoughts and considerations on this too.
00:12:29 - 00:13:39
Hala
Yeah, thank you for that. I want to follow up on maybe or begin answering this question by saying it's really important to recognize that the neurodiversity employment movement is not just about hiring more, although that's an important dimension of the movement because many neurodivergent people, because how they might communicate or show up socially does not conform to very normative expectations of how we expect people to interact, which are not relevant to the job. They're mostly social and are loaded with bias. But I also want to highlight that, every organization already has neurodivergent people, whether an autistic person or an ADHDer, a person with anxiety, a person that is dyslexic. Some organizations are aware of the neurodivergent people that they have internally. Many are not, because many neurodivergent people, like many with disability, especially invisible disability, do not disclose for fear of discrimination or fear of folks not legitimizing their expertise.
00:13:40 - 00:14:40
Hala
So we have a context where we already have neurodivergent people that are putting a lot of extra energy unnecessarily and trying to mask or emulate what we think of as dominant neurotypical expectations. So neurodiversity hiring is both about recognizing how do we support our neurodivergent individuals within our companies to thrive so we can retain them so that they can contribute in healthy ways and we can have the best inclusive and equitable environment as well as hiring them. So I want to highlight both, and just to give you a taste of what we are talking about, research suggests that one in 5 individuals in our population are neurodivergent and their interests and their capacities are so diverse. While one autistic person might be hypersensitive to noise, another one might be hyperseeking of noise. So understanding that there are so many variations in neurodiversity is really important.
00:14:41 - 00:15:55
Hala
The other piece to understand and really leverage is while we might have misconception about, "Well, I don't know how to work with neurodivergent people, what kind of learning will I have to do? What kind of work structure or environment will I have to make?" It's important to recognize that much of what we're talking about in terms of changing the work environment, and I'll talk about it a little bit later, is good managerial practices that we often forget. For example, being explicit about job expectations and being explicit about timelines and having that is the most important accommodation for let's say autistic people and ADHDers. That's basic managerial practices after a meeting document exactly what the takeaways are. That's not an added component necessarily. So we can create a common understanding. So much of what we're talking about is really, how do we create a culture and a set of processes that enable us to identify, hire, support, promote employees that have great talents and support them during the workplace so that they can leverage that talent to benefit our organization in ways that are healthy to them rather than unhealthy to them.
00:15:56 - 00:16:59
Hala
It's about flexibility and customizability, which are, and I will talk about that in a second at the essence of all of the HR trends that we're seeing right now. So if you look at the McKinsey report, the Gartner report about what is happening in organizations in terms of HR and talent management, all of the trends and necessary things and barriers align directly with neuroinclusion. This is the last empirical fact I will give you. When we implement neurodiversity practices in organizations, we find that neurotypical people say their managers become better and their work becomes better and they are more satisfied as well because all of these practices are good for the entire organization and the team. So understanding that neuroinclusion is for the benefit of the organization and it's creating a healthy culture of support is what we're aiming towards. And I'll give it to Shannon to maybe give some more context.
[The name "Shannon Smith - King County" appears in the bottom left corner of the screen, alongside a photo of a talking head, indicating the speaker.]
00:17:00 - 00:18:19
Shannon Smith
Thank you, Hala. So my name is Shannon Smith. I am with King County IT department, which includes Seattle and the state of Washington. I also oversee the equity inclusion and belonging, not only for my department, but for the technology services we provide for the county. It's really important to talk about this from a professional perspective, but I also bring a personal perspective. I have a daughter who is neurodivergent and I did get her permission to tell her story. She was okay with everything except sharing her name, so hopefully I won't slip up. She's a wonderful human being who is on the autism spectrum, has ADHD, has sensory processing issues, has anxiety issues. It's quite the alphabet soup. She is currently taking a gap year. She just finished high school and she's getting trained in Cisco networks to be a certified network engineer. And I'm so personally proud of her, but I'm also really excited because her teacher sees the value that these neurodiverse individuals bring to this type of program.
00:18:20 - 00:19:31
Shannon
He says that he always loves when he can get kids in this space who are neurodiverse because they have very creative solutioning when it comes to complex technology problems because their brains don't connect in the same way, they come at it from a very different perspective. And that's something we're always seeking in the IT world, having those different abilities to look at problems with a fresh perspective. We're constantly talking about, how do we expand the mindset so that we can truly meet the business needs for the counties that we serve. The thing that I have seen in our hiring practices is we look at our staff augmentation rosters and some of our best practices from an HR and hybrid work perspective is that we do have neurodiverse individuals and they may or may not have self-identified. It's very easy to make jokes about engineers being introverts, but it goes beyond that.
00:19:32 - 00:20:37
Shannon
What I have seen is that people immediately in their minds go to supportive employees as part of a function of the department of HR, and it is not necessarily where you need to go in this space. So to Hala's point, when you can lift all boats with the same supports, it's much easier. So it's really important for us as hiring managers in the county space and really every space you want to move away from that kind of association that these people are not as capable just because they need supports that accommodations. Not everyone is great at kind of advocating for the accommodations they need, but having them available is helpful and lean away from that judgment of, "This is too expensive, this is too hard. I'm going to have to learn a bunch of stuff," and lean into, "This is different. And that's good because now I'm going to get new ideas." Thanks, Rita.
00:20:38 - 00:21:22
Rita
Yeah, absolutely. And thank you all 3 of you for sharing. Really the goal here is to talk about some of the misconceptions and ways in which a different strategy can be used. And to that point, the second barrier has to do with what I would say the hiring practices that we have in the counties generally. And it's the, I know there are standards, but let's just say lack of standards and the early ecosystem maturity level when it comes to the mechanisms that you use for interviewing and hiring neurodiverse individuals. So, Hala, we'll go to you first then Shannon, and then Anthony.
00:21:23 - 00:22:30
Hala
Thank you for that. Rita. So I think we're 10, 15 years into neurodiversity hiring in the private sector in the US there are some public organizations that are already testing the waters, but we know, and I can speak better to the federal space than to the local state space, looking at neurodiversity hiring specifically, it's new, and we only have a couple of agencies that have created neurodiversity hiring programs. So one of the things that I've been doing over the last couple of years is understanding these mechanisms and understanding the misconceptions and the barriers. Because there aren't structured processes, there aren't a defined set of, whether it's talent sourcing agencies or outsourcing agencies for augmented work. So I get usually a few questions. So I wanted to break down this answer in a few questions. One is, it legal to particularly target and hire a group like a neurodivergent person?
00:22:31 - 00:23:49
Hala
And I would say it's legal and it's also expected, if you think of the Rehabilitation Act, and particularly Section 501 specifies that within traditional processes, hiring processes, competitive employment, it's our responsibility, particularly as federal and public agencies, to make sure that we break down all of the barriers. And neurodiversity hiring programs is about breaking down barriers and creating not necessarily just accommodations. It's really enabling candidates to successfully show their talents in relation to the job. That's what neurodiversity hiring programs are about, is trying to strip away the traditional barriers that are based in what we call normative expectations based on neurotypical preferences so that neurodivergent people can show their talents, and whether it's the ADA requirements to change these processes or more innovative ways of trying to create success enablers for all candidates, that's the base of it. So for direct hiring, it's really important to think about how to break down and modify our interview structures so that we can get talent.
00:23:50 - 00:24:49
Hala
And that's the same conversation just to highlight that's happening across many industries about what are we doing in the interview process, in the way we ask questions, in the way that we do these panels that ask for things that don't necessarily align with the job requirements. So that's step one. And what we know and what we're establishing in the neurodiversity employment is here are some best practices we've learned that you can implement, but you have to challenge your processes. The other thing that I get asked is like, "Well, do I really need to do this?" Well, there are requirements and there are expectations, so the executive order from Joe Biden around really trying to create better employment opportunities for disabled people in general, in the federal government, we're hoping to have 12% of the federal employees be those with disability and 2% of that targeted disability like neurodiversity.
00:24:50 - 00:26:01
Hala
So those are our aspirations to create an equitable employment opportunity in the public space. That's what executive orders are about. That's what the model employer in the public space is all about, which is what the federal government is aiming towards. And there are a number of functions within the federal space already that help with noncompetitive employment, specifically targeting disabled individuals including autism and others. For example, schedule A, some direct hire programs, student hiring programs, veteran hiring programs. Those are mechanisms that already exist in the federal government that can be leveraged to support neurodiversity employment, which will be temporary for a couple of years, and then they will transfer to full-time employment. But that's for the recognition of the federal government that we have some standards in the way we do job applications that keep neurodivergent people out unintentionally, and we're trying to break those unintentional and intentional barriers so that we can provide equal opportunity.
00:26:02 - 00:27:01
Hala
But very importantly, and why the federal government is investing in neurodiversity programs and such initiatives is to meet the talent gaps, especially in the space of IT, especially in some of the creative and innovative engineering spaces, as well as support roles, all the way from services to more specialized research groups. To meet that gap, we need to create the right processes. So whether it's through direct hire or through contracting and sourcing, we have to figure out ways to do it. And the federal government has started creating those spaces. So actually the first 2 chapters of the federal playbook just talks about all of these mechanisms and why it's important. So we'll share it with you and then you'll have to contextualize it in the context of the county as well. There's also a really important... I'm going to add this because I think it's important.
00:27:02 - 00:27:59
Hala
There's an important health and wellness and economic impact. One of the things that becomes very disengaging for our friends and family members who are neurodivergent that are incredibly capable, that can't be engaged in employment, not only is that a financial burden, it's also a health outcome. Their health deteriorates. And so it's our responsibility as public organizations is to create all of the opportunities. And since for many public agencies across states, just like the federal government, the federal government is the largest employer. So if they can't be the model employer, if we can't be as public institutions, the model employers in our states, in my opinion, we're not really meeting the aspirations of what we can be. Right. And so I'll stop there and give it to Shannon to talk specifically about, well, how could you do it on a county level?
00:28:00 - 00:29:18
Shannon
Thank you. So I think there's a common theme here, right. We want to normalize this. This should be normal. And where we can tackle this from a county is my IT department is frequently pushing human resources to think beyond what they have with their traditional hiring practices. So when we have a robust set of HR policies that incorporate not just ADA accommodations, but kind of expand beyond that, then it becomes much more straightforward, because I have in my backyard, I have Amazon, I have Microsoft, I have Facebook, I have Google. There is no way we can match what they can offer in terms of pay. What we can offer is the fact that this is an inclusive environment that is really focused on our unserved and underserved residents, and therefore our unserved and underserved employees. So that's really critical to have those conversations ongoing and to push that envelope.
00:29:19 - 00:30:26
Shannon
The thing that we also think about is our very processes make it really challenging for people to be successful. So we tend to have several rounds of interviews with 5 people on a panel, all firing questions at someone. We tend to ask people to take their resume and decant the entire thing again into our system and answer questions. It is so ingrained in our culture that that's the way we hire people and it doesn't allow people to be successful. So just even looking at the processes that say, "This is a mitch match... Miss mitch. Mismatch," in my defense, it's still early here, "to the skills and competencies we're seeking. So I think we have a really great opportunity here to think about not just what this looks like in our hiring processes, but also in our staff augmentation.
00:30:27 - 00:31:07
Shannon
A lot of us have contract workers, long-term temporary workers. Many of those contracts have allocations for minority and women-owned businesses. We don't have a similar sort of mandate or requirement in the neurodiverse space, but here's an opportunity. This is where these public-private partnerships can really help us think about this and get us some really talented individuals in who wouldn't necessarily rise to the top in our more traditional processes. And I think that's where I will transition to Anthony because he has some ideas about this too.
00:31:08 - 00:31:58
Anthony
Sure, sure. Thank you. Thank you, Hala, as well. I think taking the first step to do all this is what we're doing today, right. Having this conversation, educating everybody, making sure people understand what it may take to build these processes internally. So we talked a lot about, okay, you have a whole bunch of folks that are doing some traditional interview processes and have been doing it the same way for 50 years or 75 years, and we might need to give an elbow over here or elbow over there to kind of shake things up a little bit. And I think you don't know what you don't know, right.
00:31:59 - 00:32:31
Anthony
So we've been doing this at CAI Neurodiverse Solutions for a bit now, quite a few years. And I think it's about educating, it's about training and building the support model internally first. So before you start having people come in and the neurodivergent individuals sitting down doing the jobs, which they're going to be great at, we want to make sure that the education process, your managers are trained on what neurodiversity is, might have a concept of what it is, but there's probably some other things that go along with that.
00:32:33 - 00:33:37
Anthony
So we want to make sure everybody's prepared. What does the environment look like? And I'm not talking about soil, I'm talking about what does the work environment look like? Is it remote, hybrid, on-site, if it's going to be, and our focus mostly is looking at kind of that contractor to permanent kind of employee model, which works well. We like the whole tribe mentality, bringing in multiple people instead of just onesie, choosing different departments. Because here's what tends to happen sometimes, and just like neurotypical people, if you hire somebody and they don't work out and you're like, "Oh, but this is a program," you're like, you're soured on the program. "Oh, it didn't work. It was too much. I don't want to do it anymore." That's not what we really aspire to do. We want to make sure that we're starting with success factors right out of the gate, and that's why we have team leads are there to support individuals.
00:33:38 - 00:34:39
Anthony
But I think it's important to know government, counties, federal, it's just been to Hala's point and to Shannon's point, a different way of doing it for so long and changing those ways is going to take time. We can't just come in today and go, "Hey, listen, we're going to do a program. Shannon, you're going to be the head of that program and, Hala, you're going to be co-champion of this and it is going to work on splendidly." We have to have buy-in. We have to understand what that, you know, there's unions involved, what are all the little pieces outside of just what private sectors don't have to do that is maybe specialized in the public sector. So we're going to help people figure that out. And if I could say one thing about today and taking something away, all 3 of us want you to go back after hearing us for an hour and asking all the questions.
00:34:40 - 00:35:40
Anthony
We want you to go back and really think, "What is my department doing? What have we focused on? Where can we do something different? Where can we bring in somebody who thinks a little bit differently?" You don't want everybody to think exactly like you because that's not how you progress. That is not how you move forward. I think what we're trying to do today is give everyone the opportunity to listen, learn, think, and then your call to action is, "Go to Shannon after." Just kidding. No, don't go to Shannon after. But go in and think about where change could really be impacted. And I think that the return on investment that we talked about earlier is also for those individuals that are coming in. You're going to give somebody the opportunity that possibly they've never had the opportunity to work because of the things that Hala and Shannon described.
00:35:41 - 00:35:59
Anthony
You're going to see somebody who may now get their first apartment or their driver's license because they found a new found confidence in themselves. There's more to this than just putting a butt in the seat and doing the job. There is more about the human aspect of this as well. So I'll stop there.
00:36:00 - 00:36:47
Rita
No, this is excellent. And I do want to take from the chat the question, but let me ask this question first. As you're talking and I think about hiring practices in general, we like to do the phone interview and then maybe an in-person interview with one person, but a lot of times we like to do an interview with an applicant with a panel, and is that a practice or something that, and it really gets to the last question a little bit, but potentially what you change in your HR policy is a panel always a good thing to do with those that are neurodivergent. So if someone want to take that question and then I'll read the question a little bit more, that's in the chat.
00:36:48 - 00:37:40
Anthony
Yeah. Hala and I are probably going to be in agreement on this one, that panel interviews tend to be, that would be the outlier of what we would really like to have happen, right. So think about it this way. I have ADHD, I'm in a interview and I have anxiety as well, which is absolutely true. Now I got 5 people in front of me asking rapid-fire questions and maybe I have delayed processing. Doesn't mean I don't know the answer, it might take me a second or 2 to formulate before it comes out my mouth. But you're thinking on the other side, "Oh, Anthony has no idea how to answer this question." Although I'm about to answer it. But the next person is going, "Hey, well, you know what? To two-fold on that question. What do you think about, blah, blah, blah, and how do you do that?" Now I'm out, right.
00:37:41 - 00:38:42
Anthony
I couldn't get past the first one, the second one's coming at me. Here's a lot of what we do and it's a little bit different throughout the industry, we're throwing those panel interviews away. We're throwing those 6 interviews that you need to get a job away. Rethink your hiring process about, if you could have one, 2, maybe 3 people to make a decision on somebody about their skills and aptitude, let's take other things out of that, right. You've gotten rid of the panel, by the third interview, if you don't have the person who has the wherewithal to make the decision whether to hire somebody or not, your process may need to be rethought. Is that word, rethought? I don't know, I'm making up stuff as we go along at this point. So the short answer to that is I'm not a big fan panel interviews, they're just not going to go well. And how many neurotypical people love those as well? Probably not many.
00:38:43 - 00:39:00
Rita
Good point. Well, let's tie that into the last question, and Shannon, we'll start with you. Actually, we'll come back to the question that's in the chat after this barrier. How do we change the culture to be more inclusive?
00:39:01 - 00:40:36
Shannon
So again, we've heard... We're already thinking about this in a lot of other disability spaces, so we're already talking about universal design. We're talking about different ways for residents to access government services. It is not unimaginable to expand that to include accommodations for neurodiversity. So kind of tagging into some of the conversations we're having around the interview process. If we know that people may have auditory processing issues, providing the questions in the chat or in advance, which is getting harder now that AI can help generate all the answers, we've got to find that balance where we're giving people multiple channels to respond so that they can be successful. But there are a lot of kind of cultural things that are actually pretty straightforward, right. We've talked about rehiring, refactoring the hiring process, but you're also looking at technology delivery. So when we're thinking about how we build it, how we implement it, how we maintain it's not just the support, you know, the employees who can help us call out the factors that allow us to make sure it's helping our residents, but also our employees.
00:40:37 - 00:41:28
Shannon
We've talked about you can assume that everyone needs those accommodations. If you have people working in the office, are there quiet spaces? Are there noise-canceling headphones available? Is there flexibility in working from home when they're overwhelmed? Is there a generous policy where I know from my daughter some days she has been masking for so long, she's completely overwhelmed and she needs a day off. She doesn't have to explain why, right. You don't have to have a doctor's note. You just normalize the idea that you need a day to rest and recover. You need to embrace supportive models, not just in hiring and working, but also in advancement.
00:41:29 - 00:42:20
Shannon
That's really the one I want to dig into, because once you have someone who has identified needing these supports, then there's an assumption that they are unable to be successful at higher levels of employment, that they can't move into those more senior positions if they haven't been hired into that senior position. And that's just simply not true. If you normalize those accommodations that everyone can take advantage of it the same way we do for things like visual, auditory inputs, mobility inputs, then you don't have to have those conversations and reinvent the wheel over and over again. I guess I will pass it to Hala 'cause I'm sure you have thoughts about that as well.
00:42:21 - 00:43:23
Hala
Sure. Thank you. And you're absolutely right is normalizing what environments, and I will actually say, I want to reframe accommodations because accommodations also is very legalistic and it's a compliance and really thinking about it broadly as what will enable success. And this is every manager's role is to enable the success of their employees. Is it around flexibility of work hours? Is it around where the person works? Is it around how the person and when the person makes their contribution? So rethinking about those, what is it in our organization that enables success? And I want to say that there is a systematic way we think about how do we intentionally begin to develop a neuroinclusive culture. The first, and I'm going to actually share a document that we created a few months ago with you all that has 6 particular steps, and I'm going to say them very quickly.
00:43:24 - 00:44:48
Hala
The first one is it's really important for you to understand and ground and articulate as an organization and as a leadership group, why is neuroinclusion important? And grounding in the fact that empirically different ways of thinking, not just based on lived experience, but based on how the brain tackles problems, processes, information, and engages in problem solving produces more effective teams, that's empirical work that just came out recently. So when you have a neurodiverse team, neurotypical as well as neurodiversion people tackling problems, you're more likely to solve problems faster and be more effective. So if that's the core of what we try to do in our organizations, grounding it in why this is important and grounding it in the core cultural values of inclusion in your organization is step one. Step 2, making clear how your executive sponsors and all of your leaders are publicly articulating that neuroinclusion is important. Inclusion is important, but for a variety of identities, including neurodivergent identities. Making sure that you understand what your current neurodivergent people are telling you about what changes need to happen.
00:44:49 - 00:45:48
Hala
So you already have neurodivergent people in your organization, they're your best assets to identify areas for improvement, but also to identify the strengths, what makes your organization work, why they're with you. So that partnership becomes really important. It's one thing to also say, "We want to do this and we're really committed," versus the how. So training and not just the one-time training, continuous training, feedback and assessment is what grounds these practices and what helps us identify where in our processes, which is point 6, where in our processes and culture and our ways of being and working, do we have barriers to exclusion? I'll give you a simple example, especially for those in the IT space, agile methods, and a lot of the scrum meetings are very distracting and destructive to an autistic person who can get overwhelmed and might not have as much time to process information.
00:45:49 - 00:46:26
Hala
So can you provide space for people to speak and give feedback in meetings? Can you give people a heads-up of what they should come prepared to discuss? And can you also allow people to provide that information and feedback after the meeting? And how systematic are you about that? And not just for the neurodivergent person, for everybody, because again, as Shannon said, it's about normalizing these processes. Just like an introvert, a neurotypical introvert needs time to process and not be overwhelmed. A person with delayed processing might need the same thing. So I'm going to share this document.
00:46:27 - 00:47:22
Hala
It's a holistic, I would say what we are trying to do building your inclusive culture is to challenge our assumptions about what is quality work, what is expected of behaviors, and how do we create the environment for each individual. Shannon talked about it as universal design. I talk about it as customizability and flexibility in an engaging and in a dialogue with your employees to design and focus on outcomes. So I will stop here. I could talk about this forever. I added in the chat a short brief about how to create inclusive culture that hopefully will be helpful. It's part of the neurodiversity growth and engagement series that we published recently.
00:47:23 - 00:47:27
Rita
Excellent. All right, Anthony, just a few minutes here and then a couple of questions.
00:47:28 - 00:49:00
Anthony
Sure, sure. And I think Hala made some great points, and I would probably reiterate some of those. I also think from a culture perspective, things just don't happen overnight. Obviously being neurodivergent, to me, it's obviously personal, right. It's about me. And if I choose to disclose that I'm neurodivergent, that's great. I would love for everybody to disclose. Typically, it makes things much better. People know what you need from an accommodation standpoint, but just as a human being, there's empathy that kind of flows out from that cultural perspective. I also think we don't want people that are on the call today to go, "Hey, I think Sally's neurodiversion or Bob's neurodiversion," go ask him per se, right? That's their personal piece. But we want the awareness. We want the acceptance to be inside you, right. Take a step back. So if you saw somebody who, and I'm quirky as heck, like, I do some weird stuff with my hands and all this good stuff, and maybe before you were looking at me and going, "That just seems weird."
00:49:01 - 00:50:10
Anthony
But now that you've come here, we've talked about it, you take a step back and you're like, "All right, I can understand." That's the biggest thing to come out of this today as well, is the understanding piece. So you're going to get the cultural shift as we educate, as we train, as we do all of those things that we've talked about today, I think the continuous training, as Hala explained, is fantastic. And that should never stop. And that shouldn't just be for neurodiversity as well. That should be for everything going across all sectors. But I think once we start recognizing behaviors and we ask the simple question, "Hey, how you doing today?" And mean it, a lot of things come out of that, right. I can't tell you from early childhood, it was challenging for me to where I am today. I'm more comfortable in my skin, but I still cope.
00:50:11 - 00:50:55
Anthony
I still mask. I don't want to be able to have to do that every time and I'm really better at it. But the people around me here at CAI Neurodiverse Solutions know who I am. They give me the space that I need when I need that space. And it's just like going into the counties, right. You got so many people who might just need a second to themselves to decompress. You're going to start to realize that and understand that. But if we can bring neurodiversity into the workplace and make it so that it's just the norm, it should be built into the DNA of how you recruit, train and retain your employees. That's it. So I'll stop. Sorry, Rita, I can go forever.
00:50:56 - 00:51:41
Rita
No, that's fine. I really appreciate the openness and transparency with which all of you are presenting and sharing, and I would imagine that there are those of us on this call as well that have similar experiences or know individuals, whether it's family or otherwise. So the one question about what HR policy should folks look at to support neurodiverse hiring and does that eventually evolve into a universal design that would benefit neurotypical individuals as well? So is there any one policy on... Hala, I see you shaking your head, so, Hala or Shannon, you want to take that one?
00:51:42 - 00:52:52
Hala
Well, I'll start. I think an example that we know of is flexible work arrangements, flex time for people to be outcome focused, but provide some flexibility around what the work hours look like. How many days do people come in as well as virtual work. So having really intentional conversations and giving access to everyone in the team for flex arrangements has been an incredibly effective neuroinclusive policy that helps everyone in the organization and creates some real productivity. So that's an example. One of the things I will say is when we talk about neuroinclusive change, it's a system change. And it's not about, and I'm not saying this is really complex. It's complex, it's nuanced, but it's about creating an environment where we're rethinking where the barriers are for all people and implementing... Some changes can be big, some changes can be really minor in just the way that we identify talent, think about how we interact with one another.
00:52:53 - 00:53:41
Hala
So I can give specific examples, but holistically creating space for people to come as they are and building psychological safety where there's good intent, there's support for learning and there's constructive feedback about how to continue to create teams that understand the communication and the needs of one another. And building that trust is the essence of neuroinclusion. So if I would give you 2 examples, it's flexible work arrangements and then really real intentionality in training all managers on neuroinclusive practices and developing psychological safety. Those would be the only ones that I would just, if I had to start with only a few.
00:53:42 - 00:54:08
Shannon
So it's a little challenging for me to think of a specific HR policy at King County because my brain goes in 15 different directions, maybe 16. But I think Hala has given a lot of good examples, like, what we're doing at the government level is not dissimilar to what we would do at the county level when we talk about flexible work arrangements, that sort of thing.
00:54:09 - 00:55:46
Shannon
I think another interesting place to look if you are a county employee, and particularly in the IT space, is around how do we manage grievances or disciplinary or medical separation where there is a process where if someone has misinterpreted what you said because you are not responding maybe in a neurotypical way, what is the HR policy around that to allow you to kind of, you know, innocent till proven guilty. Like, how do you kind of have that conversation? Particularly if you don't want to speak to your medical condition, your neurodiverse condition, it could be a common... There's a Venn diagram there. And if you have not spoken about how you are coming to work and then you're put into this situation where you don't understand the HR process, it's really worth looking at those HR policies. When you talk about critical success factors, I think you said, and the outcomes, it's not even about getting to the truth. How do we allow people to have that space within the policy to explain where they are, whether or not they choose to reveal their neurodiverse kind of thinking?
00:55:47 - 00:55:53
Rita
And that makes complete sense. So, Anthony, close us out. Any additional thoughts here?
00:55:54 - 00:57:09
Anthony
No, I think we're moving in the right direction. Having this conversation is kind of the start. I know Hala is very intimately involved in trying to make progress, especially in the great state of Washington as well. If you don't know what you don't know, you can rely on other people to help you, so Hala, myself at CAI Neurodiverse solutions, I think it's more of a point of reaching out to us to have an initial conversation and be like, "Hey, our county is struggling to do this. We don't know where to start and begin." So set us both down and we'll take a moment or 2, or an hour, to kind of go through what that looks like and how it could be possible. But I asked again, the call to action is to think about where in your space that this may work and it should be everywhere, but take a moment out and give it a week or so and talk around the office at the water cooler if you got one of those things and they're still using them or a coffee pot, and have that conversation.
00:57:10 - 00:57:15
Rita
Well, I tell you with artificial intelligence, I have a robot that will deliver my coffee to me now.
00:57:16 - 00:57:17
Anthony
And there you have it people.
00:57:18 - 00:58:05
Rita
That's right. Okay. So we really could continue this conversation, and I jokingly mentioned artificial intelligence, but the reality is there are impacts coming if they're not already here to every area of local government because of artificial intelligence and the innovation there. And I think we need to be cognizant of it, especially in the hiring and recruitment process. New York actually passed some, I don't want to say a legislation, but at the state level, some rules that local government must follow in letting those who are applying know whether AI is being used in the review of their resumes and the hiring process. But that's probably a different presentation.
00:58:06 - 00:59:08
Rita
So I just want to thank all 3 of you for sharing today and for the resources, if there's additional resource links that you want to send along to us at NACo, we'll make sure to include those in the follow-up email. Again, any last questions? And, Hala, thank you. "How can you afford not to do this?" Meet the talent gap, representation and equity and meeting the evolving needs of our employees and evolution of the needs is really important, for sure. I think that's a challenge we all face. And when you have... How many generations we have in the workplace? Is it 4 or 5 now? So just being accepting and open to change, which is sometimes not the easiest. So thank you again and take care everyone. Say hello to December, which starts tomorrow. Take care.
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Local governments have been impacted by the workforce crisis, yet they have not fully leveraged the potential of neurodiverse talent. Watch this on-demand webinar and learn from our 3 guests who discuss overcoming misconceptions of hiring neurodivergent individuals, procurement evaluation criteria for vendors that provide neurodiversity employment programs, and shifting government culture to be more inclusive. See how neurodiversity employment programs an provide an alternative solution to the government workforce crisis. If your organization is interested in working with CAI Neurodiverse Solutions, contact us today.
