[Introduction slide: A blue background with the CAI Neurodiverse Solutions logo is shown in the bottom right-hand corner. The three speakers are shown on the screen in separate boxes. The top left-hand box is speaker, Anthony Pacilio | CAI Neurosiverse Solutions. The top right-hand box is speaker, Jenn Feldman (she/her) | Specialisterne USA, and the bottom middle speaker is Jamell G. Mitchell, he/him, his | EY.]
[Name tag: Anthony Pacilio, Vice President, CAI Neurodiverse Solutions, is shown in the bottom left-hand corner.]
00:00:09 - 00:01:10
Anthony Pacilio
Welcome everyone to 2024 in our first LinkedIn Live event of the year, the key to unlocking the full potential of neurodiverse talent. My name's Anthony Pacilio, (former) vice president of Neurodiverse Solutions at CAI. And a little bit about me as I talk to the guests that you're seeing here, I have never done my visual. So I'm going to do my visual. We talked about it just before the show here. So I am a white male, brown hair with some salt and pepper thrown in, distinguished as my friends on the show have said, as a descriptor in rimmed glasses. My responsibilities here though are to help organizations build neurodiversity programs and lead our expansion efforts of CAI Neurodiverse Solutions. A little bit of my expertise lies in managing neurodiversity recruiting efforts, developing candidate pipelines, and ensuring best practices for onboarding support, training, and organizational success.
00:01:11 - 00:02:05
Anthony
Before we begin, I'd like to take a moment to let you know that we're recording this session. It's easy for me to say. For future viewing. So if you have any questions throughout today's discussion, feel free to add it in the chat and we're going to follow up accordingly to the questions after the event. So in today's 30-minute discussion, our guests are going to delve into their roles and how they contribute to the overall personal and professional growth of neurodivergent individuals. You're going to gain insights on, let's see these four main topics, how coaching and mentorship can help achieve career goals, the importance of cultivating a supportive environment that includes ongoing performance management, effective communication strategies with neurodivergent employees, and the benefits of providing neurodiversity awareness training within those organizations.
[Name tag: Jamell Mitchell, Global Neuro-diverse Centers of Excellence Ecosystems Leader, EY, is shown in the bottom left-hand corner.]
00:02:06 - 00:03:27
Anthony
So let's go ahead and introduce our guests, Jamell and Jennifer. So we're going to begin with, Jamell. Jamell Mitchell is from Ernst & Young, and he's responsible for establishing and leveraging relationships that unlock the value that exists within talent in their organizations. He oversees the strategic orchestration of driving awareness, activation, securing talent, and identifying inclusive learning opportunities. He manages teams across the Americas and his work to drive global adoption of inclusive sourcing, scaling and sustaining those efforts. He's developed training procedures, analyzed budget reports, implemented best practices within and outside of space of neurodiversity that impact the environmental, social and governance agenda. And Jamell is often called upon to share EYs journey, like what he's doing here today, at conferences which often challenges organizations to consider cognitive diversity as a competitive advantage to further drive business solutions, which is big. Jamell sits on the board of trustees for Hilltop Preparatory School in Rosemont, Pennsylvania and Landmark College in Putney, Vermont. He's also a certified neurodiversity professional via IBCCES University. My friend, thank you for joining us.
00:03:28 - 00:04:09
Jamell Mitchell
Anthony, thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to be a part of this discussion. To Anthony's point, my name is Jamell Mitchell. I actually am going to model Anthony's descriptive intro by saying that I am an African-American and Hispanic male. I often say that I'm hair follicly challenged, which means that I have no hair. I am a bold gentleman. I'm wearing clear random glasses, which actually are helpful for the blue lights that come through the different PCs that we operate in. I'm wearing a white collared button up shirt, and I'm also wearing a branded EY fleece vest today. So again, very excited about the discussion.
[Name tag: Jennifer Feldman, Inclusion Consultant, Specialisterne USA, is shown in the bottom left-hand corner.]
00:04:10 - 00:05:04
Anthony
Well, thanks for doing that. So I forgot the whole garb thing. So blue CAI three-quarter vest thingy going on as well. Thanks, Jamell. I can't wait to chit-chat with you in a second or two here. So next up, meet Jennifer. I'm going to call you Jenn because I just can't get past the Jennifer thing. Jenn Feldman. Jenn works as an inclusion consultant at Specialisterne USA, and currently works to support businesses in identifying gaps in their newer inclusive recruitment and retention strategies and finds ways to grow those opportunities for newer divergent job seekers and some of the most competitive open roles available. She's a social worker by training and uses social impact focus education along with over a dozen years of experience to support furthering that neuro-inclusive mission. Jenn, great to see you again as always.
00:05:05 - 00:05:44
Jennifer Feldman
Thanks for having me, Anthony. I am really excited to be here. My name, I'm really excited to see all the comments coming in of where everybody's calling from. I am a white woman with brown hair, long about to my chest area. I am wearing tortoise shell and pink glasses. Both of my colleagues wear glasses I had to throw the glasses on when we were doing tech check I realized that I wasn't wearing any glasses. Like Anthony said, I'm really thrilled to be here. I go by she/her pronouns and being part of the neurodivergent community is something that's really important to me. So I'm really excited to have this conversation today.
00:05:45 - 00:06:38
Anthony
Awesome. And thank you both for being here. I know that we all know each other from around the block. This community is small but large, or large but small, either way that you want to put it in there. And I think the perspectives that you're both going to bring today probably will open some eyes, hopefully and probably guide some folks as well. So that's what the intent is here today. I'm going to start off with the very first question, Jenn I'm going to you first. So coaching and mentorship and the benefits to neurodivergent individuals. How does that really support their career development and growth and the actual... How is that beneficial to those individuals?
00:06:39 - 00:07:32
Jennifer
It's a great question and I'm really glad that we're starting here. Because I think a lot of the time for neurodivergent individuals, a lot of the barriers that we're experiencing in our day-to-day work, they're often not talked about, not seen. So for the function of coaching to be the thing that accommodates the neurodivergent individual, it allows for us to really break open what is on scene to have the conversation. Oftentimes with neurodivergent folks, we might have to play things out or role play. Because we are living in such an invalidating environment. So we have to ask questions about, well, how might this go and how might this go? Anxiety sometimes can be pretty protective, and we ask ourselves questions of how is it going to play out for me to be able to advance my career in an environment that wasn't exactly built for my brain?
00:07:33 - 00:08:17
Jennifer
So when we look at the function of coaching, what we want to do is emphasize the importance of a safe and secure and nonjudgmental conversation space. And that's really what coaching allows for. Another thing I want to point out is it's not exclusively for the neurodivergent person. Coaching also needs to be a function that the manager really contributes to. If we only give coaching to a neurodivergent person, you're suggesting that the neurodivergent person needs to change. When really the system itself needs to be looked at in a really zoomed out lens and if managers are contributing to that, we'll be able to navigate it together and openly communicate about some of the things that we need.
00:08:18 - 00:09:34
Jennifer
Mentorship as a functional tool is something that's a little bit different than coaching. Mentorship is a little bit less tactical of the day-to-day and a little bit more of the theoretical. What would your career potentially look like if you had the right situations in front of you with the right support? And this might be a self-serving call-out and I'm the first to admit that. But one of the things that I could pitch is for representation in mentorship conversations, the best neurodivergent relationship from a mentorship perspective is with somebody who is walking a similar path to theirs. So a neurodivergent woman mentoring a neurodivergent woman is very different than a neurotypical person mentoring a neurodivergent person. And that's not to say that there isn't value in that relationship because there absolutely is. If you have the capacity to mentor, you should. And it's so important to be representative if you're in a leadership position and you have the capacity to talk about some of the things that you've struggled with as a neurodivergent person in complex organizations, so that so many other people can learn from that experience.
00:09:35 - 00:10:25
Anthony
So question for you. So I have anxiety disorder and depression. I'm very open about it and all of these things when I go and talk. And mentorship, let's say 10 years ago, and Jamell you can throw in here as well, looks completely in my estimation different than what it looks like today. I think the awareness and I think the different techniques and tips, and I think culturally and globally, we're getting to where I think we have a good or a better place from a mentorship perspective. But do we still have a huge gap there or are we going in the right paces? Either of you guys can answer that.
00:10:26 - 00:11:15
Jennifer
Jamell, I'd be really curious on your thoughts of what you're seeing internally at EY. I think externally what we see with our client partners is that that maturity is growing at a pace that I don't think anybody in the community expected. And I think we've learned from all kinds of communities that have made inroads in this space of LGBTQI plus mentors matching with other LGBTQI plus mentors. The importance of Black leadership and Black leadership and matching that. So we've gained so much traction in the inclusion conversation, but neurodiversity is growing. That being said, I think there's still a really immense level of fear of disclosure. It's something that Anthony, you and I have talked about in personal and professional settings.
00:11:16 - 00:11:46
Jennifer
I have anxiety participating in something like this because I've never done anything like this before. It's not to say that I didn't call up my mentor and say, "Have you ever done a LinkedIn Live? What should I look for? What should I make sure of?" And she said, "It's 30 minutes. Make sure that you stay in the 30 minutes." And she was absolutely right. So when we look at those kinds of conversations, it's that more theoretical and I think that's what we're stepping into and that power is what we're stepping into. Jamell, what do you think of what's happening at EY?
00:11:47 - 00:12:50
Jamell
Well, first of all, I love this discussion and I love the fact that we are talking about both mentorship as well as coaching. Because Jenn you actually hit the nail on the head, meaning you're spot on. It's an appropriate response. They do look very different. And when I take a step back from an EY perspective, we're talking about a massive organization. An organization of coaching 300,000 individuals that are represented within 150 countries. Again, this is a huge organization, and if there is not a tone set at the top that is supportive of both coaching and mentoring, you are ultimately fighting a battle that is almost unheard of. But we are so privileged here at EY to have sponsorship and leadership that is supportive of individual growth, collective growth, and we are continuing to push the movement forward. And when I say the movement, I'm referring to the neurodiversity movement because that's exactly what it is.
00:12:51 - 00:13:35
Jamell
We have leaned in such that coaching is a part of our performance management process. And I want to call out something here because the coaching is not something, to your point, Jenn that is just for a person that identifies as neurodivergent. But it's coaching across the board, whether you're neurodivergent or if you're neurotypical. And being able to have that representation is absolutely positively pivotal to success. Before I could be in a role, sometimes I have to see myself in that role and I see myself where you see yourself by people that are modeling behaviors and that are open about what their distinction is or about how they identify.
00:13:36 - 00:14:10
Jamell
Now, everything is not, I usually say vanilla fields and cherry blossoms, and when we love to have more representation, absolutely, but we are continuing again to find so many individuals that are finding this safe space. Again, within EY, we refer to it as psychologically safety. I've heard it referred to the same in other organizations. But when you find this safe space, you are comfortable to be yourself, you're comfortable to actually make mistakes, and that's where innovation comes and that's where growth and development comes as well.
00:14:11 - 00:14:39
Anthony
So that's a good segue to my question to you, Jamell, so foundation. So EY, you already said is a massive company. I totally get that. How have you built and built that foundation of coaching and mentorship in order for individuals to progress and succeed in their career goals?
00:14:40 - 00:15:41
Jamell
Anthony, again, I love this question, and when I received it, I was really thinking through it because it really has been a bit of a journey that we are continuing. So we are, I like to say trailblazers within the space of neurodiversity. But we don't have the silver bullet. We don't have all the answers. But I'll tell you what we do have. We have leadership that is able to pause and to listen to differing perspectives and opinions, and not just to listen to hear, but listen to act and then respond. I think that's really key. Because if you look at studies, there was a study done by Accenture, quite honestly in 2020, and it represented about 32% of employees that were serviced or referenced. They were challenged in the work environment. They were challenged with feeling included. They were challenged with just the amount of equity.
00:15:42 - 00:16:36
Jamell
The same study that was taken by the actual employers, the disparity was amazingly huge because it doubled in size because the employers felt, oh, this is the best place to work and our employees love everything that we're doing. So it is to say that we have opportunity. Now clearly, that with a study done in 2020 by Accenture, there were a number of employers as well as employees that were surveyed. But there is yet opportunity for us to have more of a level of commonality with both employers and employees being able to understand not just what those differences are, what are those supports and how are we building an environment where there is a level of psychologically safety as well as the ability to have voices heard.
00:16:37 - 00:17:16
Jamell
The last thing that I'll say before I give Jenn the opportunity to jump in here is that we cannot design anything for a population or for a demographic that does not include that population and demographic. So everything that we do as it relates to whether it be neuro inclusion, whether it be advancing the Black and brown agenda, whether it be the Latinx agenda or even professional women's, we include the voices of those that we want to have the impact toward to make sure that that voice is more powerful even than an ally.
00:17:17 - 00:17:22
Anthony
Jenn, thoughts on that? Because I have follow up questions for Jamell in a second.
00:17:23 - 00:17:24
Jennifer
You go right ahead.
00:17:24 - 00:17:57
Anthony
All right. So Jamell, you're talking about supportive environments. Culture can look and feel a little bit different into everyone's organization. But how does EY build and promote that specific environment? I mean, it's got to be bigger than a bread basket for certain. But you have hundreds of thousands of people. How are we getting them on the same path and being able to make sure that we can carry those individuals?
00:17:58 - 00:18:53
Jamell
Anthony, again, another great question. It's continuous work. It doesn't stop with one message from a leader. It doesn't stop with maybe one post or one email that goes out to the masses quite honestly. It is continuous work. It is surveying your leaders. It's surveying your employees. And it's surveying them not just to perform an action, but it is surveying them in order to receive data and then ultimately to make decisions based upon that data in which you receive. So at EY, sometimes we have an annual survey, and then there's another survey that's done bi annually, and then there's a survey that we do sometimes quarterly. And these surveys actually help to inform leadership on directions that we should continue to take and or where we should actually pivot.
00:18:54 - 00:19:45
Jamell
In addition to the surveys that go out to all employees, again, across the entire organization, leaders actually are held to a higher level of expectation as it relates to their mentorship, as it relates to their inclusive behavior. And the leaders also receive feedback. So there's an opportunity to provide upward feedback. There's opportunities to provide feedback about the organization as a whole. And clearly there's opportunities to provide feedback from a manager or a supervisor to their employees and or team members. And it's through the combination of all of these surveys and all of this data that we lean in as an organization to start making decisions as to where and or how we want to impact the data that we receive.
00:19:46 - 00:20:17
Anthony
So follow up to that, get all the surveys, the data, you know what you have to do. The implementation, timeframe, have you seen that go from, okay, we know what we're doing. Now we are focused if we can get the implementation done in X amount of days versus three years ago as we were going through this process, it took us a little bit longer. Are you guys knocking it down a bit?
00:20:18 - 00:20:59
Jamell
I'm going to go to my safe answer and say it depends. I think in some spaces we have made tremendous strides and we have accelerated where we thought we would be in certain pockets, but then in others, it's a learning journey. It is literally changing and continuing to change the culture. And there are a couple of things that we are navigating through. We're navigating through the diversity as it relates to professionals. We are navigating through where and or how individuals are working. So there's this dynamic now that exists that didn't exist three years ago or five years ago, where there is more of an opportunity to work hybrid.
00:21:00 - 00:21:31
Jamell
And in this hybrid work environment, that creates a different level of challenge from teaming and ensuring that folks are included. So it really would depend upon what target we're focusing on, but I can tell you that we understand that we are continuing on this journey. We are not stopping, and we understand the value of what true inclusion looks like within organizations, and we see the beauty of it and we see the benefit to the team members. So that's why we're so committed to it.
00:21:32 - 00:21:34
Anthony
Fantastic. Jenn, did you want to add anything to that?
00:21:35 - 00:22:24
Jennifer
I want to just double click on a few points that Jamell made because I think that they're so important and we're seeing them as trends across all businesses, not exclusively at EY. What we're seeing is what gets measured gets done. And our leader at Specialisterne talks a lot about that. If we don't know where our benchmarks are, if we don't know what we're actually doing, then we can't change policy and procedure to eliminate some of those barriers. The only way that we're going to know that there aren't managing directors that have diagnoses under the neurodivergent umbrella is whether or not they tell us, and top down. And I think that that models for everybody, that there's a possibility that when you disclose, this is what happens. And disclosure can be really scary. So giving that preview and measuring helps us get things done.
00:22:25 - 00:23:22
Jennifer
The other thing I'll echo in what Jamell said was the intersectionality component. We have so many individuals across all of the marginalized communities that we work with, that identify as neurodivergent, because neurodivergence as a spectrum doesn't matter what other populations you're in. It's a way that your brain is wired. So as a result of that, we have to think about the policies and procedures that are in place that actually create barrier without us knowing from all of those identities, not simply the neurodivergent one. And I noticed a comment in the chat around whether or not we're exposing ourselves to other opportunities, other roles that aren't super high-tech and super grocery store high needs roles. One of the challenges is that we haven't measured, because the spectrum is so vast.
00:23:23 - 00:24:05
Jennifer
So doing those kinds of assessments, Specialisterne could even support in doing some of these kinds of assessments in benchmarking where you are and what you do measure and how you approach things in a more neuro-inclusive way. We've got an entire advisory house that focuses on these kinds of efforts. And there's a reason because you don't know what you don't know, and we don't expect you to know it. So relying on those external partners to talk through, okay, we did the assessment, we took the survey, we know that all of these people exist in our business, now what? How do we actually support them? So leaning on those kinds of external partners can be really helpful in creating that structure in that culture of welcoming environments.
00:24:06 - 00:25:10
Jamell
Okay, Anthony would you mind if I jumped in there real quickly and just commented? Jenn, you brought up some really valuable points and some good insight there. And what I will say is that one of the things that we also continue to do, just really from supporting other organizations that are interested in the work that we've done, is we've taken a slightly different spin to say what happens if a person chooses not to disclose whether it's psychological safety or lack thereof, whether it's I just don't want to for whatever reason. Is there opportunity for organizations to still challenge their overall practices? And the answer that we really continue to come to is yes. So whether I disclose or not disclose, there's opportunities from a leadership perspective, from a management perspective to ensure that the environments have a level of consistency to ensure that the environments are embracing different ways that a person may contribute to meetings or to different projects.
00:25:11 - 00:25:44
Jamell
And I think there is opportunity for us to challenge just the status quo and the narrative of, hey, and don't get me wrong, I believe 100,000% of what you just said, because we measure everything. We have metrics for everything. So if you can't measure it, you can't correct it. But I also think that there's opportunity wherein we just need to lean in even stronger about being more inclusive better leaders and having organizations that embrace all types of talent, whether a person discloses or not.
00:25:45 - 00:26:29
Anthony
So let me go here. So we got a couple of minutes left. I want to get to this last question here. And we briefly touched upon it and we talked highs and lows here. But I'm going to go, Jenn I'm going to go with you first, give you a minute to chitchat about it and then I'll go to Jamell. Where do you stand on education and training for an entire organization? We have a lot of, you come in and you're doing it in pockets for colleagues and managers, maybe starting a cohort here or there. We know that it can be challenging. Is it challenging? And what are some of the benefits that you've seen from providing that education and training?
00:26:30 - 00:27:32
Jennifer
So the short answer is yes, all education is valuable. Education helps us come into our own informed. So any decision that you make in an informed way is a good decision. I think about the context of our work at Specialisterne with all of our partners, and I think through the town that I grew up in as a frame of reference. And I grew up in a town where the houses were pretty historical. It was a town on Long Island. There was an old village. We're talking about George Washington, having a house in that town. And the way that they handle the historic houses that are still there is that there's a city ordinance. You're not allowed to knock them down. There's such historical value that gets added to the community by having these houses that, the foundation has cracks in it. Sure. But when you're able to in a slow and measured and patient way fill those cracks, the house can stand for another 100 years and it can have that much more impact on the community.
00:27:33 - 00:28:10
Jennifer
And that's a lot of the way that I think about the work that we do here is that, the EYs and the big firms, they've existed for a long time and they have an incredible amount of impact on our community. Where maybe we have a lot to learn and we're evolving is filling some of those gaps that we just didn't know were there until we knew they were there. Science helps us. Research helps us. Measuring what Jamell is doing at EY helps us. Accenture's report helps us. All of the client partners that we have and the data that we're collecting, it all supports where we fill those gaps. And you're not going to just go to a regular contractor to support you in fixing those gaps. You're going to go to somebody who specializes in restorative efforts of historic houses. So in a lot of ways, you also have to make sure that whoever you're working with, it's going to be somebody who specializes in the nuance of neuro adversity because there is so much nuance.
00:28:31 - 00:28:38
Anthony
So Jamell, I'm going to give you about 30 seconds or 35 seconds to answer that. Your thoughts.
00:28:39 - 00:29:31
Jamell
No problem. Thank you, Anthony. And I agree with everything that Jenn said. The things that I'll add on here is that, one, it's important to identify that there is a need, that's absolute positively important. I think after you build on that need, in order for you to scale, you have to be able to look at how are you providing this education to the masses? To your point, Anthony, when many organizations start, we start with pilots where pilot can be a little bit controlled, that we can have report outs and know where and or how things should change. But when you really want to have massive impact, you have to put infrastructure in place and push it out into the organization as a whole, such that the organization understands it's not just a check the box, but it's a part of the culture. And that starts also with leadership sponsorship there buy-in and that messaging.
00:29:32 - 00:29:37
Anthony
That's awesome. Man, what a way to end the first LinkedIn Live event of 2024.
00:29:38 - 00:29:39
Jamell
Awesome.
[Closing: Learn more at www.CAI.io is shown in the bottom left-hand corner.]
00:29:39 - 00:30:24
Anthony
Yeah. I know it's awesome. I mean, our time today is over and I'd love to thank Jenn and Jamell for joining us and sharing their insight with us. It's been an absolute pleasure chatting with both of you. I'd also like to thank our audience for the attention and participation. I saw some of the comments. And later we're going to be sending everyone that attended a recording of this event to share with your colleagues or your peers. So in the meantime, if you're interested in learning more about CAI Neurodiverse Solutions or know someone that is, visit our website at cai.io and fill out our contact form. Thank you all for joining us today and have a great rest of your day.
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Unlocking the full potential of neurodivergent employees is more than a goal—it is the key for fueling productivity and innovation in the workplace. Watch this on-demand LinkedIn Live Event and learn from 2 speakers who share how a person-first approach fosters a supportive environment and contributes to neurodivergent individuals’ personal and professional growth. If your company is interested in working with CAI Neurodiverse Solutions, contact us today.
