Since the novel coronavirus began its spread throughout the U.S., many folks, including neurodiverse and disabled employees, have been advised to work from home. For many first-time remote employees and managers, there’s been an adjustment period to adapt to group video calls and altered meeting structures. With the spike in remote work, there’s no shortage of tips on how to maximize the productivity and success of remote work. But just like in the office, managers should be proactive about ensuring the working environment is inclusive for all employees.
Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, businesses employing more than 15 people are required to comply by prohibiting discrimination against disabled people. This includes granting reasonable accommodations at all phases of the employment process. Accommodations include allowing remote work, and additional accommodations also can be granted for remote employees. While not all policies or ideas targeting greater accessibility require formal accommodations, there are ways to make remote work accessible and inclusive for all workers, especially neurodiverse folks who are often excluded or shut out from employment. With new interns and employees being onboarded remotely, it’s a perfect time to consider how remote work is inclusive and accessible for neurodiverse workers.
Be Flexible
Flexibility is a key reason people with disabilities thrive working from home, and have been doing so prior to the pandemic – it’s okay to take breaks for self-care, physical therapy, or other access needs we might have.
Grace Hart, who is autistic, recently started a new job during the pandemic, after interning on Capitol Hill. She advises managers to create product-based schedules instead of set daily schedules. “Treat employees like independent consultants that you trust to do a good job, but be there to offer guidance and assistance when needed.”
In the midst of a global pandemic, most work schedules and daily routines are off. For autistic people especially, routine is something we find comforting. It’s important to trust us and our bodies while being supportive.
I first experienced independence in flexibility and establishing a work routine when I was studying for the bar exam at home. Working at home rather than a library allowed me to adjust my sleep schedule or take breaks to recharge. That self-awareness at home helped me feel calm while my colleagues reported feeling burned out physically and emotionally in their library routines.
Like Hart said, I followed a prescribed checklist of tasks. The goals and expectations were clear, so if I was frustrated one afternoon, I’d finish the assignment that evening or the next day. If things were still difficult, there was someone to speak to about study course progress.
Remote work with a supervisor isn’t much different than my bar exam experience - first, you find a rhythm, and adjust. Just this time, it’s important for managers and others to respect the needs for routines and having flexibility within them.
Give Clear Instructions
Hart also advises giving clear and specific instructions that people can easily follow from home. Personally, I always ask for clarification to make sure I am understanding what is expected of me since miscommunication can happen over email or Zoom, and it might be more difficult to ask questions in live-time.
Clear and concise communication has helped me even in office settings, but with remote work, it’s even more valuable. If you lay out your expectations and instructions, you won’t be disappointed in the quality of work and productivity from your remote, neurodiverse employees.
The first time I worked from home regularly was when I was consulting in my own business. I quickly realized I needed hard deadlines as part of having clear instructions. Sometimes, a client would ask for something by the end of the week for instance, and I’d often want more than the vagueness of that instruction - did “end of the week” mean Friday? And did it mean by “end of day” or “close of business”? Whenever I set deadlines on projects I manage, I include “end of day” in my instructions and try to make clear that for me, end of day means it better be there before I wake up the next morning or submitted before midnight, while close of business might mean 5PM in my time zone.
Giving an instruction like “I need a signed agreement in my inbox no later than Friday at 3PM Eastern” is a lot clearer than “Get the client to sign the document before the end of the week” - it minimizes questions, maximizes productivity, and helps my executive functions so I know how high of a priority it is given the rest of my workload and life.
Lay Out the Expectations For Virtual Meetings
This also applies to Zoom meetings, where the social rules and expectations may be different. If you simply send a Zoom link, I’m not sure what to expect because some people are only using audio, and others are also using video but are on mute. I used Zoom before the pandemic to record podcast episodes, and we had policies as well, such as muting your mic if you weren’t speaking.
While laying out expectations is especially helpful for people with disabilities, it actually benefits everyone. As a lawyer, I see and attend virtual meetings and webinars for CLE credits, connection, and for work. Zoom is currently dominating the legal industry, even leading to virtual court proceedings. Judges are calling out lawyers who are improperly attired (i.e, wearing their pajamas), reminding them to show professionalism in a court setting. Had lawyers been made aware that regular court attire, non-bedroom backgrounds, and typical decorum applied to virtual settings, we likely would have all benefited from understanding from the get-go.
Tell us exactly what to expect, so reasonable accommodations can be made and there is no stress or anxiety surrounding an upcoming meeting. The focus should be on the content and substance, not the social rules and etiquette that might otherwise be unwritten.
Provide Alternate Ways to Process Information
A neurodiverse team features different learning styles, and accommodating those means no one gets left behind in what we need to know in terms of schedules, expectations, meetings, or other key information to get the job done.
I like having visual information, so listening in on a long Zoom call can be challenging to focus on for a long period of time, or if you solely talk to me to give instructions, it can be difficult to break down what is important and write it down fast enough so I have the same information visually and to process later.
Providing captions, a transcript, or recording might be incredibly helpful. Also, having a text chat option can help limit anxiety surrounding social situations, so utilizing tools like Slack or Trello can minimize stress in processing and understanding information. But for others with learning disabilities like dyslexia, reading might not be optimal and they do better processing auditory information.
I’ve been attending and speaking at webinars, and something I do for my webinar attendees is I provide PDFs of my slides so they can focus on the auditory information and have all the visuals readily available. I am, however, working on making sure event organizers and others add captioning for those who need additional visual cues.
Remote work is meant to be accessible to as many people as possible, and people with disabilities have been advocating for it as a reasonable accommodation prior to the pandemic. Creating a neurodiverse workforce remotely brings innovation and diversity to the workplace with accessible layouts, increased flexibility, lessened social pressures, and a more inclusive and accepting environment. By ensuring your remote work processes are inclusive now, you’re investing in a long-term strategy to recruit and retain neurodiverse workers in the future, even after restrictions on businesses are lifted.
Haley Moss is a leader on disability inclusion, autism and neurodiversity in the workplace, employment policy, accessibility, and lawyers with disabilities.