Neurodiversity in the Workplace with Melanie Francis - OrgDev Episode 77

In this episode of the OrgDev Podcast, we’re joined by Mel Francis, Director of Neurodiversity at Work at Do-IT Solutions, to explore how organisations can move beyond simply accommodating difference to designing workplaces where all kinds of brains can thrive. Mel shares practical strategies for embedding neuroinclusive thinking across the employee lifecycle – from recruitment and onboarding to performance, progression, and everyday management. Drawing on her HR expertise and lived experience as a parent of a neurodivergent son, she challenges outdated stereotypes, highlights the risks of unintentionally excluding talent, and offers simple, low-cost changes that benefit everyone. This is an essential listen for anyone looking to create a truly inclusive culture that values neurodiversity as a strength. 

Follow Melanie's work at www.doitprofiler.com and get in contact via info@doitprofiler.com

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About Us

We’re Dani and Garin – Organisation Development (OD) practitioners who help leaders and people professionals tackle the messiness of organisational life. We focus on building leadership capability, strengthening team effectiveness, and designing practical, systemic development programmes that help you deliver on your team and organisational goals. We also offer coaching to support individual growth and change.

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Transcript

(00:00) Hi and welcome to the org dev podcast. So what if neurode divergence w needs to accommodate but the blueprint for designing better workplaces? What if organizations worked harder to change the narrative around neurodeiversity at work not as a problem to be solved but as a strength to be recognized and designed for? Today we're joined by the brilliant Mel Frances who is committed to making workplaces more human and more effective for all kinds of brains. Mel wants to create a world where we stop seeing inclusion as a bolt-on and start

(00:29) seeing it as a lever for better organizations and workplaces. Mel is a leading figure in newinclusive HR. She's director of neurodeiversity at work at doit solutions. Mel plays a vital role in helping organizations embrace neurodeiverse talent and create truly inclusive workplace cultures.

(00:49) and she supports organizations to embed neuroinclusive practices throughout the employee life cycle from recruitment and on boarding through to performance and progression. Her professional journey into neurodiversity began under the mentorship of Professor Amanda Kirby, a global expert in the field and led her to become a qualified neurodiversity practitioner.

(01:07) Her work is underpinned by deep personal insight. As a proud mom to a neurode divergent son, Mel's lived experience fuels her passion to drive her meaningful change. named one of HR magazine's most influential practitioners just a few weeks ago for 2025 and she's the only one on the list with a core emphasis on neurodiversity in the workplace.

(01:26) Mel is also a chartered fellow of the CIPD as well. So, so welcome Mel. It's absolutely lovely to have you join us today. Oh, thank you so much for inviting me to join you. I'm really looking forward to the conversation. [Music] Welcome Mel.

(01:49) It's lovely to have you with us and I share your deep personal connection to neurodiversity as a also as a a parent of a neurodiverse teenagers. Really looking forward to exploring this with you a bit more. So just to kick us off just tell us a bit more about the work that you do kind of bring it to life for us. Sure. So I as you said Garen, I'm a fellow of the CIPD which means that I've had um you know a long career in HR. So I'm an HR professional.

(02:07) Um I would say the majority of that was as a as a generalist. I was HRBP. I was HR director. I spent some time in specializing in employee relations which I think was really critical actually to my HR career because I feel like that's the red thread that runs through everything that we do which certainly should be.

(02:31) Um and also spent some time specializing in employee recognition which was like the softer side to my years in employee relations if you like. And then following my son's diagnosis, I I wanted to understand his diagnosis. So he was diagnosed with autistic spectrum condition when he was 10 and he's now 17. He's just started his first job. Uh which was another whole other experience which we might go into when we talk about neuroinclusive recruitment for sure. But I wanted to learn about him, his diagnosis.

(03:01) And more I learned about that, the more I realized that we as an HR profession should really be talking about this because this is all of us. This isn't them. How do we get more of them into our business? What do we do with them? How do we manage them? This is about the fact that we all have a brain.

(03:23) And therefore the very nature of neurodiversity is that we are all neurodeiverse because our brains are brilliantly unique, brilliantly different from each other. And therefore that nature of understanding and really harnessing talent is core to to everything that we do within businesses within life actually.

(03:49) So I was really passionate about sharing what I knew and that passion has just grown and grown as I've as I've talked about it more and more. Thank you. And definition really matters, doesn't it? Because we talk about neurode divergence and we make it sound like it's one kind of homogeneous thing and it's really the opposite of that. Yeah. Yeah. It it really is.

(04:06) And I think you know some people that you speak to think neurode divergence or neurodeiversity is autism or it's ADHD. you know, ADHD and autism see, you know, continue to be the two conditions that we talk about the most and they're probably the ones that are being diagnosed the most at the moment. But actually, neurodiversity is the fact that we all have different brains.

(04:33) And so that what at at Do It Solutions, we don't deliver training specifically about ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dyspraxia, whatever the particular condition might be. Now, that's not to invalidate any of the diagnoses that individuals might have, but really we're keen to ensure that people understand that neurodiversity is just about having diverse brains. Our neuros are diverse.

(04:55) And so, that tends to be you the real key narrative that we are speaking about a lot. And also, you know, the language is really changing around this. So already we've talked about neurodiversity, neurode divergence, ADHD, autism. You what are those words and phrases? What do they mean? And what might be some of those words and phrases that prevent people from talking about it? Because they're worried they're going to say the wrong thing. So what we can do collectively is just talk about it.

(05:29) You know, if you're worried that you're going to say the wrong thing, don't worry. I can guarantee someone will correct you if you're getting something wrong. But also the the worst thing you can do is not talk about it because you think you haven't got the right words. You know, it's really important that we just get curious and speak about it.

(05:48) You know, we talked to leaders and we talked to HR teams. They're often thinking about neurodiversity or neurody divergence as something to accommodate to kind of work around. Yes. what shift needs to happen to really move it to something that we're designing with um kind of in a more I guess um positive approach lens.

(06:09) Yeah, I think you know shifting away from like you say something we've got to accommodate is is really critical because you know as I said we all have different brains. So neurodeiversity is all of us and neurodeivergence is already in your team. So, you know, it's not about how do you create a process that's going to enable you to recruit more.

(06:34) What what neurodiversity or neuroincclusion I should say should be about is removing barriers. So, we've just shared on LinkedIn um results from 650 people who took our workplace profiler, the do it workplace profiler, which is a a neurodiversity screening tool. And the most common thing that people said that would be most helpful for them in workplaces is to have notes and agendas in advance of meetings, right? So this is like this that should just be a given anyway, shouldn't it? But also, you know, that costs nothing and that's going to have massive benefits for everyone. This isn't just about, you know, putting a

(07:15) bowl of fidget spinners in the middle of the table and going, "That's it. That's my neurodiversity stuff done. You that it's that's not how this should work. And actually, this is about being neuroinclusive for all of us, not just looking at um you know, individual accommodations, although of course we should be looking at those as well.

(07:36) That's such a simple thing. And it really is, isn't it? It would really make the difference to everybody. Yeah. And the top 10 list was of similar types of things that just go, well, yeah, of course we that's just a given, but it's good to be reminded that those types of things are going to be super helpful and also that they don't cost anything. Yeah.

(08:04) And what are some of the other defaults then that you see in organization life that you'd like to challenge if you could if you could do it? Yeah. Um, really good question. So some of the assumptions that you see are things like you know even today actually I was reading um an article and somebody had referred to neurodiversity and used the analogy with rainman right which which of course like generationally I think we've got a real issue here right and it's because you know conditions like ADHD and autism and were only categorized in the 1980s.

(08:40) So they they only first appeared as a as an actual categorization diagnosis in the 80s. They were created those diagnoses were created by observing boys. And so when you think about definitions for ADHD and autism, if you think about ADHD, let's start there.

(09:07) You might think about the disruptive boy in the classroom who can't sit still, who you know is disrupting the class, etc. And that's because that's what the original diagnosis was based on. And it wasn't until we got into the '9s and research continued that we started to realize that the way in which these traits um kind of materialized in girls was very different.

(09:29) and so started to shift the diagnosis and we started to see um a shift or an increase in the number of girls being diagnosed. Um and it went from something like 10 boys to every one girl being diagnosed. That was a stark difference to and it's still not not equal, but we're seeing probably seven to 10 rather than you know the the stark difference that it was then.

(10:00) And so what that means is that the ways in which we're understanding neurodiversity in in the workplace in particular is is really changing. And so you know moving away from some of those antiquated views of neurodiversity is really important and understanding and increasing awareness of neurodiversity most broadly is also really important for us too.

(10:24) The increase in awareness and the increase in diagnosis is a little bit of a double-edged sword in some ways, isn't it? Yes. Because some of the backlash on social media around that is really quite challenging. Huge. Huge. Yeah. It's funny because, uh, Professor Kirby and I talk about this a lot.

(10:41) Um, you know, there's this notion that suddenly everyone's being diagnosed or suddenly everyone's got ADHD. And there's actually and and we do laugh about this as well. There's a great um there's a comedian called Sarah Pasco who we were watching a sketch from her and she says, "Hi, I'm Sarah. I've got ADHD. I know I've got ADHD because my friend Rebecca told me I've got ADHD because her friend Rebecca has also got ADHD.

(11:09) " And basically ADHD is just like a pyramid scheme. We all kind of tell each other that we've got it. I think it just kind of it's actually you see that playing out massively because you can go on to Tik Tok and go through a kind of diagnosis. So you're coming away going, "Yep, definitely that's me." And that's kind of it's important for us in HR professions to know this stuff because you don't have to have a diagnosis in order to be protected under the Equality Act. And there are some great cases that reinforce that and help us to really

(11:48) understand that. So no formal diagnosis is needed in order to be accommodated and to be protected. So the important thing that we as HR professionals then you understand is that this is increasing. People can self-identify. So they can be you know in that pyramid scheme or on the Tik Tok etc.

(12:13) and then be coming to us and saying, "I got ADHD or I've got ADHD traits. I need accommodations." And what we have to do is to explore that and to look and see what we can do to understand what your challenges are and also understand what your strengths are. Yeah, the diagnosis around all of the neurodiverse conditions are based on deficit models.

(12:41) So what they're looking at is are your challenges bad enough and you have you've been impacted by them long enough so since childhood in order to meet the criteria in order to be diagnosed with the one condition that I am looking at on my list and that again not to invalidate any of those diagnoses but what it's not doing is looking at the entirety of your brain and your strengths and your challenges.

(13:15) because it might be traits that stereotypically sit with other conditions that you haven't been assessed for. So the most powerful thing we can do as HR professionals is even if people are coming to us going I've decided I've got ADHD or I've been diagnosed with a particular condition is to understand that individual's strengths and challenges and then look at that in the context of the workplace of the job and determine what accommodations or adjustments might be helpful and whether they are reasonable in you know, under the um Equality Act requirements. And sometimes they won't be, you know, sometimes it will be a case that we just can't meet the

(13:58) requirements or put those accommodations in place to enable you to perform in a way that is going to meet the requirements for the role. And that's really that's tough. And I think as HR professionals, some of us are getting ourselves into a bit of a um, you know, into a bit of a loop here with they've told me that they've got ADHD, they've told me they need this thing and I I don't really know where to go with it.

(14:23) So, we're just going to keep going until, you know, something happens for some divine intervention or something. I don't know. But there are tools that exist that can really help with this. And the um, we have one at do it solutions.

(14:42) We created the do it profiler which is I referred to earlier which is you really designed to understand firstly neurodyiverse traits um but I think most importantly strengths and challenges and it will give you uh resources relating to those challenges recommendations for accommodations and also it will give you a work with me passport to have be able to prepare for a really good conversation with whoever you need to speak too as well as a well-being report because our brains are not separate from our well-being and our mental health. You know, these are all happening at the same time. So, it's really important that we take into account how we're doing too and how it's

(15:19) how we're feeling and what might be going on at home or at work or in our mood etc. That would all be impactful too. Yeah, it's really interesting, isn't it? Because I guess in the UK where a number of our viewers are, um, it's a protect, as you mentioned, it's a protected characteristic.

(15:38) So by law the employer has an obligation um to the employee as well. And I guess one of the things I'm really liking about what you're saying there is to actually you need to understand the individual as well because often it's not it's not always a singular diagnosis. It may be ADHD, it may be autism sort of um multiple sort of diagnosis as well. was the same.

(15:58) I heard someone say you've if you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person because everyone's got everyone is so unique and different in their own way, aren't they? So, we have to take the time to understand their individual needs. And that is I use that phrase all the time, Gary, because that is really important. You know that you are meeting one person, right? So, what is it about them that we need to understand? And then if we put that in the context of our role in the context of our workplaces uh you know our work environments are shifting and changing and you postcoid I

(16:31) remember there were lots of conversations that we were having about you how lots of people have been super comfortable working from home during COVID and then they were really struggling with coming back to work like the whole sort of social anxiety of getting on buses and having to travel again and and stuff like that.

(16:50) Now, that's really important that we explore that and don't just dismiss it. And it may be that we explore it and say, well, look, you know, this is a I don't know, call center environment and we're going to need to have you in the workplace. So, you know, we can't make a reasonable adjustment that says that you can work from home because of the nature of the work that we're doing.

(17:15) But what we can do is have a look at the timings of your shifts or you know how we can help you to avoid some of those peak times that might be really troubling if possible. You know this isn't always going to be possible and we have to look at reasonableness and it was interesting. I was just I was talking to um an employment lawyer who gave me this really simple matrix which says that if something is of high benefit and low cost then the employment tribunal is really going to have expected you to have implemented that. If it's going to be low benefit and high cost then

(17:52) they're going to be cool about the fact that you didn't implement it. So again, this sort of unraveling of what's reasonable, what can we do, what should we do is really important for us to be able to navigate and also show you're working.

(18:13) Right? As anyone that's ever worked with me will have heard me say, six steps ahead when you're stood in front of the employment tribunal, can you prove that you have done everything you possibly could to support this individual on the way through whatever the situation may be? And that's really critical. and being able to show that you've taken all of anything that you possibly could into account even if you've considered it and discounted it.

(18:44) Show that you've done that and show you're working along the way and then you know hopefully you won't be firstly hopefully you won't ever be in a tribunal but secondly you won't be in a tribunal where you're finding it to be in the favor of the claimment rather than you know for you. Hi we're just pausing this interview for a moment. Have you ever finished an episode of the org dev podcast and wish you had a cheat sheet that summarizes all of the key points? Us too, so we made one. It's called from pod to practice.

(19:10) And each week in our newsletter will share a two-page summary of the latest org dev episode. And it includes key takeaways, a reflection prompt, and one small action you can try. And it's all in a digital format with space at the end to add your own notes and reflections. And it's designed to help you take the learning from the podcast into your day-to-day work.

(19:27) So to get your copy, just sign up to our next step to better newsletter. The links in the show notes or you can visit our website at www.distinction.live to get the latest from pod to practice in your inbox. And let us know what you think. We'd love to get your feedback. A quick check as well because again multiple sources I I read it's one in five people have some potentially some form of neuro diverse need. Is that correct? Yes.

(19:53) So yeah, let's So yes, depends on I'm going to take this kind of it depends where you're pulling the data from, but let's take this as a general census that one in five is neurode divergent. So and what that means is if you look at a stereotypical bell curve in the hump of the bell curve there, you've got 80% of the population who we would call neurotypical.

(20:16) So again tracking in more terminology around this. So neurotypical means that our brains work in a very similar way and the world is very neurotypical. You know, it assumes that we can navigate through what is deemed to be a typical way of life, right? So we can follow instructions. We can get our place ourselves to places on time.

(20:41) We can read, we can write, we can communicate, we can walk. You know, all of these things there in the in the hump. But of course, we know that not all of us are doing that in the same way because we're all different. So there's our neurodeiversity that our neurosures are diverse. Our brains are different. But diverging from that neurotypical are 20% of brains. So it means that our brains are working differently.

(21:08) And I will just really emphasize the word differently because I haven't said better or worse but differently. And so that's neurode divergence. So someone who's neurode divergent might be you know a brilliant it might be a premier footballer right other people might not be able to kick a ball. Some people might be brilliant linguists. Other might be nonverbal.

(21:34) It's you know looking that divergence is you looking at where it's diverging from the neurotypical and what as I said earlier the diagnostic criteria is really looking in a deficit way. So it's only ever really looking at the things that are um diverging in a negative way not where it's diverging in a really positive way.

(22:07) So you've got like fantastic mathematicians, scientists, you know, all of these kind of brilliant brains that would not have a diagnosis of neurode divergence because the the diagnosis don't really cope with the positives way of doing things. But we know that this really plays out. You know I spent eight years as HR director at Oxford University's business school surrounded in Oxford by brilliant brains right so neurode divergence was a really core part and then you know we used to talk about lack of common sense but huge amounts of intelligence and and really this was neurode divergence at its kind

(22:49) of um purest sense but those diagnosis would not have been in place and actually what was really interesting is the ways in which individuals are selected to get places at Oxford and other universities I'm sure was not at all neuroinclusive because it's looking at again can you come in can you articulate can you tell me about you know the brilliant stuff that you're working on that you're researching etc etc well if you couldn't you might not have got a place there And it means that you know we're missing out on some

(23:27) brilliant talent because of the ways in which we're selecting and you can take that and squarely pop that into our workplaces as well and think about the ways in which we're selecting and how we could be more neuroinclusive in doing that too.

(23:44) One of the things when we sort of preparing for it um I thought was really interesting and you you sort of touched on the fact there is very much a deficit orientation in in diagnosis and a lot of that comes from the medical model doesn't it where it is about trying to find and diagnose in that way but if we're thinking about how we build organizations then the social model is often more helpful isn't it because the medical model tells us why people can't do things the social model looks at what we can actually do to create an environment where people might thrive or

(24:08) flourish or at least survive um in workplace. Yeah. And actually what we're also finding is that we need to move more towards skills assessment as well. You know, what are we recruiting for? So, and how can we assess that people are great at that thing? And I think this is going to be even more important actually as we move into or have moved with AI taking far more uh center stage in things like our selection methods.

(24:39) um you know we are going to have to shift to more human um interaction and selection rather than AI models which are invariably increasingly biased. Actually, I was I was absolutely um a gasast the other day when I saw a list which came out in one of the um you newsletters from an HR publication which said here are the top 10 AI models that every HR team needs now. And number two on this list was a an AI hiring tool.

(25:16) It was called it was a US-based tool actually which I think is really critical. We'll talk about that in a second. But it said that the key features of this tool were that they were able to uh select your candidates based on their ability to interact, on their tone of voice, on their um eye movement, etc.

(25:43) Now, what are some of the things that are really tricky, maybe really tricky for some who are neurode divergent? Exactly those things. And then you go, well that's who is checking that our best talent isn't being sifted out by the AI having completed the you the individuals having completed their video interview or whatever.

(26:06) Are we just literally handing those decisions over to AI tools and they're being sifted out at the first opportunity? So I'm in, you know, I'm really concerned about that and it means that our human input is even more critical as we're going through those types of things too. So these are some really important principles, aren't they for you know our audience is kind of OD practitioners and internal external maybe HR practitioners.

(26:30) What are some of the principles that we can can apply to kind of any project or piece of work we're we're kind of involved in? For me, the the key principle is what are the key skills that you're going to need on this project and looking at selecting individuals to add to your team rather than fit. So, you know, we hear a lot, don't we, about team fit.

(26:58) What does team fit really mean? You know, we know it probably means, oh, I've worked with them before. They're a they're a good person. I know they're they're good. They'll probably come down the pub on a Thursday and they laugh at my jokes and they're nice people to be around, right? So great, all good.

(27:18) But we're probably missing a trick when we're not thinking about, oh, actually, they've got these skills that we don't have that, you know, when we do a matrix of what skills and experience we've got in the team, where are we missing and what gaps could we look to fill? because otherwise we're just kind of looking at cookie cutter versions of ourselves and therefore we're not getting that divergence in skills, experience, thought processes, etc. um into the team.

(27:48) So I think that would probably be the key thing that I would encourage people to do is to think about hiring or adding people to your team based on ad skills add rather than team fit. And the other thing I think is about managers. We'll often talk about the role of managers in in these types of things. And for some I think for some people they feel managers feel like increasingly overwhelmed about the number of things they need to think about and take on board.

(28:13) And you know for some of them I guess neurode divergence might just feel like another thing to Yes. What support can we give to managers to equip them? Do you know I think managers have a really tough gig. They really do. you know, they've got to, you know, keep their powers above happy. They've got to keep team members happy.

(28:36) And, you know, I remember when I was managing a team of nine. And hello, if you're watching, team of nine, I love you all. You're all great. But honestly, it was like having nine extra kids. And I don't miss having nine extra kids. You feel very responsible for everybody. Um and we are expected as line managers to know everything about everything and we can't possibly know that.

(29:01) So I think for line managers, you know, let's give you a baseline understanding of what neurodiversity is. Let's also give you the tools so that you can get a sense of who you have in your team, what those skills, those experiences look like, how people prefer to communicate, you know, who doesn't work on a Friday, what the family sit, you know, all of those kind of really important details of individuals within your team so that you can make some good decisions and also uh uh sorry about make good decisions about the workload. and project team creation

(29:41) formation etc. But also that you have good insights into you know you might want to check in with Mel every Friday because she said that Friday she finds really overwhelming or whatever the case may be you know you've got extra details as well. So I think the if we can give managers tools to help with that sort of stuff that's great but also if we can give them information and education in ways that are very quick that doesn't require them to go on a whole day's course on stuff.

(30:13) Um, which is why actually we worked at do it. We worked with um a company called 10 to3 who are a brilliant video training company and we've created a suite of training videos which are about 3 minutes long each. So 10 to three is based on the premise that it's 10 to three. You've got a meeting at 3.

(30:38) What do you need to know in the next 10 minutes? And so we've got a suite of videos on neurodiversity that give managers specifically information about how they can be more neuroincclusive. And that's surely that's enough, right? We don't have to bring them in, sit them down all day to be able to go through the training and um tick a box.

(31:01) We want them to be able to have information and be informed to enable them to be good managers for their team. Just to flip your question on its head a little. So a lot of people don't get a diagnosis until later in life. Yeah. Or at all. Or at all. Absolutely. And so they kind of they go through life. We in particular we do uh see a number of employees that have a sense that their manager might have some neurode divergent needs but won't be diagnosed.

(31:27) It won't be out in the open. And yet often those relationships can be they're stressful anyway for because they're in a difficult context. It's fast-paced in that. What strategies are available for sort of team members that might have a a manager that's uh that's not had a sort of an explicit diagnosis or maybe hasn't shared it with others and how can they get the best out of that relationship because they have to manage the relationship, don't they? Yeah, of course.

(31:49) It's a really great question. So, you're right. You know, this is about 20% of us being neurodeivergent. So, 20% of all of us. So 20% of our managers, of our leaders, of board members, of people within our team. So you're absolutely right. This isn't exclusively just stopping at team level.

(32:11) I think the most important thing is to firstly recognize not everyone is going to have a diagnosis as you've quite rightly said Garen. The other thing from some research that we have done in conjunction with city and guilds. So we've run the neurodiversity index report for the last three years and it has given us some really useful insights into what's going on for neurodyiverse talent within organizations etc and how we can really look at that and take the learnings from it. One of the key stats that's come from that is telling us that 72% of

(32:44) those who are neurode divergent and know they're neurode divergent are not going to tell you and they're not going to tell you because they're worried about the impact that this is going to have on their career and I would really love to say oh don't be silly it's all fine but of course we know that that's not the case and we know from some re uh more recent polling actually that this has just got a bit worse And it's got worse since the introduction of Donald Trump's executive orders around diversity and

(33:16) inclusion. And also since his friend Nigel Farage further reinforced it when he said, "If you work in EDI in one of the councils that I'm now in control of, start looking for a new job because I'm coming for you." I think that was pretty verbatim what he said.

(33:35) And you know that's just made people even more cautious about talking about neurodiversity in the workplace. Certainly disclosing disclosure is not a word I'm particularly fond of because it sounds like you've got to give yourself open yourself up tell very personal details about yourself. What it means is that actually collectively whether you're team manager or team member having a good understanding about just the different ways in which we do things in teams is really key and critical here. So getting to a point so if I am answering your question Garen

(34:10) the the if you are a team member who has a team manager who you think may be neurody divergent and it's causing some difficulties across the team in some way then thinking about how do we come together as a team to recognize differences and to be able to um go through a session that helps us to understand. So for example, different ways in which we communicate.

(34:36) And so we run at do it, we run some sessions to help with that. We use the do it profiler for that to look at different ways in which individuals might be communicating and then talking about that in teams. And of course you have other tools that help that you know other people might be using within teams as well. But obviously I'm going to talk about the neurodiversity based one.

(34:59) But understanding and appreciating difference is really important. And and if we can do that in a team setting, I think that's really valuable regardless of whether you're a team member or a team manager. Another spec fairly specific question. So we spend a lot of our life in in workshops, be it online or face to face and a lot of the people on the in our audience will do as well.

(35:19) What would you say about kind of those team away days, those team offites, those workshops? How can we make those better for everyone? I guess what what are some of the things we should be thinking about when we're designing those? Great question. Unless worse. Great question.

(35:38) So, you know, first of all, let's start off with the with the premise that not all of us are going to love coming to a massive venue with bright lights and someone on a stage. You some of us are not going to love being on the stage. You know, all of these types of things just we are all different, right? That's what the whole basis of neurodiversity is. Our brains are different. And so when you're designing um a team event or some kind of away day or you're delivering training, just have that in mind that you're going to have different ways of communicating, of learning, of taking information in, including the processing time for information. And also, you

(36:16) know, you're going to have different sensory challenges particularly in in neurode divergence that are going to play out. So, think about the lighting, the noise, the way in which you've got your seating set up. How think about having quiet spaces that people can go to or work in as well where places people can go and kind of debrief a bit during the day as well.

(36:50) If you're running stuff online, think about the options for having cameras off. And I know some people are like, "No, definitely if I'm running something online, I need to be able to see your face." Someone the other day was talking about um they had got a speeding fine and they had to do one of these police um sessions and they the the rule was you were not allowed to turn your camera off at all during the I don't know how long it was the hours that you had to be on there because the person needed to see that you were fully engaged and interacting. Now for some that's that's

(37:23) not just difficult that's physically painful. And it wasn't until I'd really understood a bit more actually it was with my son. So you know before I he was diagnosed when he was 10 and before he was diagnosed we we were like in a big family and I was always trying to encourage him to go to you know the family do and you whatever it may be.

(37:49) This was hell on earth for him actually and I didn't realize it until much later. equally things like kids birthday parties were just like and um he told me when he was a bit older he said mom it physically hurts me when my cousin screams it's physically painful and I hadn't appreciated that and why would we if we're not experiencing it ourselves we might not appreciate that so but what we can do if we have knowledge is we can say actually you know what having um you know quiet spaces or thinking about the lighting and things like smells as well.

(38:28) That can be really um uh triggering for some people if you've got like you know perfumes and things going on in rooms and you know that can be really tricky for people too. So think about your environment the ways in which people are presenting. I know um at the CIPD conference last year I was really delighted because they've introduced headphones for the stages that you were going to whereas I think a couple of years before it was like oh god even I was like this is too much you know noise coming at you from

(39:03) six stages and you're trying to sort of tune in to the one that you're at and um it was really tricky. So if you're doing a big event like that, think about the ways in which people are receiving information, what information they're receiving.

(39:21) Can they see screens? Can you give people information in advance or give them options to have information or slides slides in advance too? So at Do It Solutions, when we're running training sessions, we give people the options to receive all of our slides in advance so that they can see them. And some people really like that so that they're a they're prepared.

(39:41) They're able to process information. They know what to expect. So there are lots of different options. And um we've got some information on neuroincclusive events that I can send to you so that you can share it in the show notes if that would be helpful too.

(40:01) Critique this if I'm incorrect, but um about transitions and context shifting as well. So just staying with a topic, you know, letting people go deeper on it and then slowly transitioning into something else because of processing. Yeah, that's that's really important and it's you know that transitioning from we'll talk about transitioning more generally as well.

(40:21) But also press processing information when you're transitioning in meetings etc. is really important. And that you that notion of we're all up to speed because two people in the room are up to speed. So, you know, they're the two people I know, they're the ones I like. Yep, you've got it. Great. Move on. You know, having to be alert to where everybody is.

(40:45) And also be alert to the fact that we're probably going to mask in that meeting because what we don't want to do is to be the only one that says, "Oh, no. I'm not quite ready or I haven't quite got that. So, you're likely going to go, "Yep, yep, I've got it." So, actually having an opportunity for people to check back in or there was a really lovely sort of trend that came up a few years ago that I really liked which said that we're going to have a cooling off period after every meeting. We're going to come to an initial decision, but we're going to have a 24-hour cooling off period where

(41:17) we have a chance to reflect and to come back to say whether we really agree that that's a decision because that processing, I think, is really critical. And of course, that's not always going to be possible, but it's also important to be conscious of that. And just on the theme of transitioning, Garren, while you were talking about it, because yeah, of course, transitioning can also be if you're transitioning to new jobs or you're transitioning to new projects or to new workplaces or new line managers, you know, all of these things, changes

(41:54) can be really tricky for some. So making sure that you are giving sufficient information and also sufficient time and support for transitions to happen whatever those transitions might look like I think is really really important. and you just reminded me of, you know, we're just about to go into a new school year.

(42:21) And I used to be able to put my my calendar by the third week in September when I would get a call from school to say, "Yeah, your son's not really settling." And this was before he was I had any inkling of any neurode divergence. And of course, that all makes perfect sense now. preparing for transition and for change giving enough information showing you know if for example in our OD projects if we're changing departmentally or we're changing location or whatever the case may be giving as much information as you can about the change what it looks like physically giving people opportunities

(42:58) to to look at it to touch it to feel it is going to be really critical too to enable that transition to go really smoothly Actually, that's just good pra that's just good practice, isn't it? From quickly coming to the conclusion this is this is all good, isn't it? Right, isn't it about Yeah, precisely. This isn't about them.

(43:19) This is about all of us because we are all neurodeiverse. You're absolutely right. So, a more general question, what do you enjoy most about the work that you do? Oh gosh, the difference that it makes. What I absolutely love is when people give me feedback that they've learned something new.

(43:46) Actually, I tend to do a bit of a poll at the end saying is is everyone leaving with a new piece of information because that's just like my absolute mission is that people have more information and knowledge about neurodiversity at the end of the session than when they first came in. And I'm delighted to say that everybody has and I consistently reach that um that particular milestone and that really is the thing that keeps me going.

(44:12) You know, when I started talking about this and kind of offering my knowledge out to fellow HR professionals, I had a very selfish aim, which was that by the time my son entered the workplace, this was going to be a much more neuroinclusive place for him. Haven't quite managed that and I'll give you some insights into that.

(44:34) But definitely, you know, I continue to add my voice to this conversation and the more people I can talk to, the more people I can reach through just having these types of conversations means that more people have a higher level of awareness and that's just brilliant.

(44:52) And did you want to say more about your kind of your experience with your son? Um yeah, I think I I so my son decided uh rather belatedly, God love him, after his GCSE is that he would rather not go to college and that he'd like to start an apprenticeship, please, which was just perfect and not just any apprenticeship, an apprentichip in mechanical engineering and and nothing else would be suitable.

(45:12) So the reason why I say God love him is because he decided that at the end of his GCSEs, once the recruitment for all of the big firms who would be recruiting for mechanical engineering apprentices straight out of school at GCSE level had all been done like the year before.

(45:32) So um we had a year I called it his gap year cuz uh you know why not? And we were I was helping him obviously significantly. Why wouldn't you as a mom who is an HR professional? of course you're going to help him to get this stuff done and I I it was a real eye opener cuz I just thought yeah neurodiversity of course we're all talking about it not a problem so what we'll do when you apply for it let's say I'm neurode divergent I never would say I'm autistic because you know as I know now he's not just one thing he's brilliantly neurode divergent so I'm neurode divergent it would really help me if I could have the questions in advance that was the kind of standard

(46:07) request that he had. The number of companies that came back and said no was pretty shocking actually. And so me being me, I, you know, could you explain why you said no to that? Oh, we asked the panel and they weren't comfortable with you having the questions in advance because if they gave them to you, that would be disadvantageous to all the other panel the other candidates. But then give them to everyone, not just to me.

(46:36) give all of the candidates the questions. Oh, we couldn't do that because that wouldn't be the right way to to be able to assess you. Okay. And and do you know what his response was to that? I don't want to go, Mom. I don't want to go. That just, you know, that you can't underestimate the level of anxiety that that had really built up in him to the point where he's like, I just I'm not going to go.

(47:08) So you just doing something really simple like giving everyone the questions in advance is really opening up the ability for people to just feel prepared. None of us like interviews and having to think of stuff on the spot. Well, some of us might, but I certainly haven't met many people that do. But you are interview processes are really geared around that, aren't they? you know, and also the kind of competency based interview way of let's all sit around the table, fire questions at you, listen to your responses that have got to be really quick, and then that will tell me that you're really good at driving, will

(47:49) it? You didn't test my driving. I just told you I'm good at it, but you haven't actually tested what I'm good at. So, you know, I think again, we've got to shift to skills-based assessments. we've got to think about how we're assessing the difference when he was given the questions in advance was really stark.

(48:09) You know, he'd sit there preparing. He was able then to be do you present himself in a way that was cohesive where he wasn't stumbling over stuff. And of course, as an interviewer, your skill is then in having follow-up questions. Giving questions in advance doesn't stop you asking follow-up questions and getting a good sense of the candidate's skills and experience, but it does help the candidate to feel ready in that type of situation.

(48:45) And there are loads of other ways you can help candidates or make your neuroinclusive recruitment process things like you giving information in advance of this is what the process is, here's where it's going to be held, this is how you get here. So, I saw a really good example of someone filming themselves coming from the tube station in London.

(49:04) And when you come up the escalators, this is the exit that you want. When you come out of this exit, turn left. This is the way that you walked the to our office. Here's our office. Our doors around the corner. So, it's just around here. You go through this door, right? Took them 10 minutes to record that. And that can just be used for everyone who's ever going to visit their office.

(49:22) And for some who are neurody divergent, that's like brilliant. Now I can be less nervous about where I'm going and I I know which way I'm going because I've got that video. So tell people what to expect, where to go, and also you the types of assessment that you're going to be carrying out because that was one of the other things that he experienced was please come to this um interview.

(49:50) And when he got there, it was actually an assessment center. And the first part of the assessment center was for him to do a presentation to all of the other candidates and the people that were assessing. And he said, "Mom, I nearly left." And nearly went over and said, "This isn't for me." And I could see why.

(50:12) And you know, the irony of that as well is that that was for an apprentice who was going to be an electrician. And I said if I asked my electrician to do me a bit of a presentation I can ex I can imagine the expletives that would have been coming back. So you thinking about the suitability and the requirements of the assessment are also really key.

(50:38) So um I guess one of the things I'm wondering here is because we can easily say I want to change the culture of my organization to make it more inclusive but culture is like an emergent property if all the rules and explicit and implicit rules within an organization and you know you just picked out one small element of their process which you know can quickly sort of guide the type of candidates they that come into their organization and make it you know exclusive to people um that have that may be neurody divergent. So um how do you look at your organization through fresh eyes? How do

(51:11) you sort of take a step back because not everyone can send their son through a recruitment process to identify all the the problems that are wrong with it. That's a great idea. How because because many people have been with organizations for you're you're institutionalized. You're you're blind to what goes on.

(51:29) How do you make people aware of the water in which they're swimming? Yeah, it's a really good question and I think if if you are the sort of organization that is curious enough to want to look at your processes, your culture through different eyes, then bring people in who can do that for you, right? So, we don't have to be experts in everything, but there are experts who can help you with that stuff.

(51:52) Um, and of course, we at Do It Solutions, we can um help you with looking at a gap analysis. So where are you now? What does best practice look like? And therefore, what might you do to be able to get there? And that's a really straightforward way of looking at the way in which you can move towards neuroinclusivity.

(52:11) And that's not saying that you've got to have it all done overnight, but it does mean you're showing that you want to be able to make a difference. And there are organizations like um the business disability forum. Um the CIPD have got some great resources as well. We uh do it.

(52:35) We share loads of stuff um regularly because of course our whole mission is about increasing awareness of neurodiversity. So there is information out there. It doesn't have to be um something that you bring people in to do. But if you've got someone in the business who is really committed to doing this, then I think it's a really great starting point and moving from there. A lot of the time having a senior buyin is really vital and can really help to get you some traction. And also having a bit of budget behind you as well can can be helpful.

(53:08) So you know speaking to you the key sponsors or to your finance team etc to help to fund some of this stuff. also shows great commitment to actually making stuff move. Yeah. So when you look at the kind of field you're working, what's particularly interesting you at the moment in terms of developments and areas of interest? Yeah.

(53:25) I think the the biggest sort of area of interest at the moment is this this real shift towards looking at neuroinclusivity throughout the employee life cycle. So I think what we're realizing now is that neuroincclusion isn't just about getting your recruitment practices right. It's also about looking at barriers that might exist throughout your employee life cycle.

(53:49) So thinking about your onboarding process, thinking about development, you know, what are the barriers that are stopping people from um developing within your organization and accessing things like additional uh information or additional support and to enable that that development to happen. also conversations around things like performance management that as as we spoke earlier that notion that if someone is neurode divergent you can't possibly have a a formal performance management process if someone's falling short. Well, of course you can, but you have to ensure that you've looked at

(54:27) how we're supporting them or what their particular challenges might be and that you show that you've taken those things into consideration as well. So, I think what I'm really enjoying is the fact that the conversation's really increased and people are talking about neurodiversity a lot more.

(54:46) Um, and what I would encourage people to do is to continue to do that, but also really listen to those people who are um, experts in the space when we're thinking about how we're implementing it in our workplace. Because, you know, somebody who's just talking about autism is really not talking about neurodiversity and in the complete way that we should have a real understanding and appreciation, I would say.

(55:11) So Mel, um, what's the one of the biggest lessons that you've learned along the way that you'd like to share with others? The biggest lesson I've learned is that we all have a brilliantly unique brain, which I know I've said throughout, but I when I look back over my career and particularly when I was dealing with some tricky employee relations cases, I can now recognize that the individuals that I was dealing with at the time may have been neurodeivergent.

(55:41) But what I applied was this is what the policy says. The policy says we must do this next and we must do that next. And actually being much more personable and flexible around those types of ways in which we're supporting is really critical. So I think that's probably my biggest lesson is you know having an open mind to what's going on being curious really curious.

(56:15) So if someone says, "I've got ADHD," for example, asking the question, "What does that tell me about you?" And listening to what they say, actively listening. Also having this catch all question, which I love, which is please let me know what I can do to make this the best possible experience for you. And then using that at any stage of any process that we're doing. So, we're recruiting for this position.

(56:43) Please let us know what we can do to make this the best possible experience for you. We're having a team meeting. Please let us know what we can do to make this the best possible experience. We're having an event. We are having some promotions. We're going to have to go through redundancies. You know, all of these types of things. That question is so valuable at every stage of our employment life cycle and just life. Fabulous.

(57:07) Um and then one question we like to ask is there any partic are there any particular books or podcasts or anything else that you'd recommend to other people? Yeah, good question. So, I would recommend a book that was written by Professor Amanda Kirby and Theo Smith, which is called Neurodiversity at Work. And it's a really brilliant almost handbook of things to think about at each stage of the employment life cycle. And you can just have it as a reference guide to be able to use in workplaces.

(57:39) I wish every HR team, OD team had a copy u for them to look at. So that's a really great book and of course I would recogni uh recommend the ordev podcast for you to be able to listen to all types of different uh experts across the space. Um I can't think of a particular neurodeiversity podcast at the moment. Brilliant.

(58:05) And and then last question from us. Um, if someone's watching this and they're deciding, I really need to really understand better, you know, neurode divergence and build it into my practice. What advice would you give them to sort of start that journey with really strong foundations? So I would um advise them to watch the very short video that I'm going to put in the show notes here which is a two and a half minute video which gives an introduction to neurodeiversity.

(58:38) So that video is called we're all neurodeiverse and the kind of punchline on it if you like is but we're not all neurode divergent and it's a brilliant two and a half minutes that gives you a really good introduction to neurodiversity what it is and what it isn't and then how we might apply that within our workspaces and then take the principles from that and think about the way in which you're supporting team members have real consideration when you're going through the types of activities that you might need to within workplaces and apply

(59:12) those principles of we're all neurodiverse. Well, Mel, I want to say a huge thank you on behalf of Danny and I. It's been so, so useful, incredibly thoughtprovoking, educational, enlightening, and insightful as well. So, so thank you. Danny, what are you taking away from today's conversation? I've really enjoyed it. I think it's been really, really helpful. I think the audience are going to really enjoy listening to it.

(59:35) So I think some of the definition around neurodiversity and neurode divergence has been quite important kind of bringing that to life and explaining that and I think for me you know one of the threads was just treating people as individuals and really seeking to understand the people we're working with and working for and working you know who are working for us and the importance of just knowing the people that that we're with and then just keeping that kind of curiosity and exploration around kind of what does that mean for you? What does that look

(1:00:00) like? How can we how can we support? So yeah, some really practical ideas I think to weaved in there too. Absolutely. And things I'm sort of taking away from it is I love the phrases, what can I do to make this the best possible experience for you and keep asking that at different stages on the way.

(1:00:17) Um I love the fact that a lot of what you're sharing is just good practice that all organizations would benefit from as well. And and finally, just on a sort of a personal note is like um for me like you've made it a really possible to talk about think of all the different podcasts we've ever done. It's probably one I was a little bit nervous about because I was like, I want to get it right.

(1:00:34) I want to get the definitions right, but what you've kind of been able to do is create spaces where people can talk about it and and find their way talking about it as well. So, um, just a personal thank you for that as well. Um, if people want to follow your brilliant work, if you want people to signpost them to the great work that you're doing, what's the best way for people to reach out to you and contact you? Thank you. Best place is to find me on LinkedIn.

(1:00:58) So Melanie Francis, I think it's Melanie Francis, chartered FCIPD on LinkedIn and also doitprofiler.com is the website for our organization. Well, I want to say a huge thank you, Mel, for one of the things we're always impressed with the number of shares every week on this podcast. So if you're watching this podcast and you're thinking, my gosh, I really think someone would benefit from watching this.

(1:01:22) If there's ever been an interview to share, it's this one because I think it'll be tremendously helpful. So, please spread this interview far and wide. U, we're now at 84 countries, Danny. Is that right? 85, I think, last count. So, great. We're at 85 countries.

(1:01:40) So, wherever you are in the world, it is something that is going to be definitely impacting, you know, the people around you as well. So, please take the time to educate yourself on that as well. Um, but please do reach out to Mel. Um, she's a brilliant resource. Is always putting great content out there as well. So, to keep your your journey going as well. But most importantly, a huge thank you, Mel, for your time. And please keep up the amazing work. You're making such a big difference to the world.

(1:01:58) So, thank you. Thank you so much. I've really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you. [Music]