Neuro-Divergence In The Workplace – with Sam Warner Build Better Brands

On this episode of Build Better Brands, Danielle Clarke is joined by Sam Warner, The Autistic Interpreter, who helps business owners attract and keep talented neuro-divergent employees.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
I discovered that I thought the grass was greener elsewhere, but it actually isn’t. The same systemic problems were cropping up everywhere in my previous roles and I lost my get-up-and-go so I got-up-and-went! I now help attracting the right people for diversity of thought at work because diversity of thought is really healthy for a business. If you’ve got a team of “yes men or women” who agree with everything the boss says and they all have the same interests and hobbies, and they all get along famously, there’s no diversity of thought there at all, no one’s going to challenge anything, come up with awkward questions and potentially you might not have innovation and invention going on because everybody’s towing the line. This was a side-hustle I started in 2008 and I quickly realised I preferred it to my main job.The job interview is such an outdated way of assessing potential new staff, it doesn’t work for anybody, but especially not for neuro-divergent people, because it’s actually showing people under stress not under pressure. To test people under pressure you need to give them a timed test of some kind, it’s a more accurate way of checking they can hit a deadline, or cope with something that comes in last minute. How do you know if someone’s a “good fit” if they haven’t met the team? How many times have you seen in a job advert “salary negotiable or TBC”, why would you even apply for that job if you don’t know you can pay your mortgage? What I earned previously has nothing to do with this job, you’re just trying to find out if you can pay me less, I not interested in working for you f that’s what you want from me as an employee – maximum work for minimum money.To me, the term neuro-divergent means that you were wired up differently in the uterus. It’s formed as you’re forming. It’s a different way of connecting all those synapses and connections in the brain. People who are neuro-divergent see the world through a different lens, they interpret the world differently and often it’s a bit confusing.The biggest challenges businesses bring up include ‘conflict’, which is a misunderstanding of how to use language. Some people aren’t prepared for someone who has a lot of questions, they think that their knowledge and ability is being questioned or their ego has been bruised or they’re embarrassed. But that’s actually a reflection on them and their abilities and their way of receiving a question. Another is about the expectation of the speed of taking something new and running with it. Quiet often people give instructions, but they don’t give you all of the instructions, there’s an assumption made about some things instead of making sure there’s a baseline that we’re all OK with and then giving the instructions. 
BEST MOMENTS
‘Many companies believe they’re doing the right thing by telling individual staff members to ask for what they want, which is really hard when you don’t know what you’re allowed to ask for. You don’t want to be the diva that gets special treatment because that never goes well, you actually want a list of reasonable adjustments that anyone in the company can access, such as wearing headphones.’
‘If I go on your website and I don’t see any reference to diversity, equity and inclusion, I’m not going to feel 100% confident that you have a reasonable list of adjustments, or that I could ring up or email before the interview and say “I just want to let you know I’m autistic so I’m very sensitive to things like temperature and I struggle when people sit in front of a window and all I can see is a silhouette because I need to see you facial expressions to understand a little bit extra on top of the words you’re using. Can I