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Episode 134
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Practice Management and Business Skills
Unlocking Potential: Neurodiversity Inclusion in the Legal Profession
Law as stated: 14 October 2024
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This episode was published and is accurate as at this date.
Kate Hardiman, Senior Trainer and Consultant with Diversity Australia, joins David to explore what neurodiversity inclusion looks like in the legal profession. Kate discusses how law firms can optimise the retention and career progression of neurodivergent employees, by addressing key areas such as workplace design, operative processes, and recruitment and development.
Practice Management and Business Skills| What area(s) of law does this episode consider? | Neurodiversity inclusion in the workplace. |
| Why is this topic relevant? | Neurodiversity is an often overlooked but critical component of fostering true inclusion in the workplace. The need for neuroinclusive workspaces is particularly pertinent to the legal profession, where traditional work environments, rigid processes, and hierarchical structures can inadvertently disadvantage neurodivergent lawyers and support staff. By rethinking how law firms structure their workplaces and career pathways, firms can not only unlock untapped potential but also promote well-being and job satisfaction among their diverse teams. Consequently, adopting a comprehensive neuroinclusion strategy is essential for long-term retention, reducing turnover, and fostering a more inclusive, adaptable legal workforce. |
| What are the main points? |
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| What are the practical takeaways? |
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| Show notes | Thomson Reuters (2023), Tech & the Law Report 2022. |
| 00:00:00 | DT: | Hello and welcome to Hearsay the Legal Podcast, a CPD podcast that allows Australian lawyers to earn their CPD points on the go and at a time that suits them. I’m your host, David Turner. Hearsay the Legal Podcast is proudly supported by Lext Australia. Lext’s mission is to improve user experiences in the law and legal services, and Hearsay the Legal Podcast is how we’re improving the experience of CPD. In this episode of Hearsay, we explore what neuroinclusion looks like in practice and how it can be applied to optimise retention and career progression for neurodivergent individuals in the legal industry. Neurodiversity is often overlooked, but it’s a critical component of fostering real, true inclusion in the workplace. The need for neuroinclusive workspaces is especially pertinent to the legal profession, where traditional work environments, rigid processes, and hierarchical structures can inadvertently disadvantage neurodivergent lawyers. But, by rethinking how law firms structure their workplaces and career pathways, firms can unlock untapped potential, and they can also promote wellbeing and job satisfaction for their diverse teams. Consequently, adopting a comprehensive neuroinclusion strategy is essential for long term retention, reducing turnover, and fostering a more inclusive and adaptable legal workforce. Joining us in the recording room today to talk about this topic is Kate Hardiman, senior trainer and consultant with Diversity Australia, the leading national and international diversity inclusion professional services firm specialising in DAI related consulting and training. With a passion for helping organisations embrace neurodiversity, Kate heads up Diversity Australia’s leading and supporting neurodiversity in the workplace program. Kate, thank you so much for joining me today on Hearsay. |
| 00:01:57 | KH: | Thank you, David. It’s wonderful to have been invited to speak with you about neurodiversity because it’s something that I’m really passionate about. |
| 00:02:04 | DT: | Fantastic. Well, before we get into the topic for today – neuroinclusion in legal workplaces in Australia – tell us a little bit about how you got into working in this space. |
| 00:02:14 | KH: | Sure. My journey into the world of diversity, equity, and inclusion – well, I guess with a specialisation in the neurodiversity space – wasn’t necessarily a straightforward one. It really started with my own personal experiences. So, over the course of my career, like many people, and in particular women, I was on the receiving end of challenges like gender discrimination, sexual harassment, and burnout – things like that – but what really hit home was my own lived experience of neurodivergence both in my personal and professional life, and these experiences gave me a bit of a wake up call because I realised that we spend so much of our lives in workplaces and for the sake of our own wellbeing, they needed to be spaces where people feel that they truly belong and that they’re valued for who they are. So, that’s what inspired me to become a facilitator and a consultant and speaker in this space. I wanted to help organisations not only understand the importance of inclusivity, but also see the benefits both for their people and their bottom line. So, working with Diversity Australia felt like a natural step because it felt like our missions just really aligned; helping businesses and teams grow through genuine inclusivity, particularly in how we support neurodivergent folk, and I find it really, really rewarding to see the changes that happen when people feel understood and valued and empowered at work. |
| 00:03:58 | DT: | Brilliant. Well, excited to talk about how some of our listeners can implement some of those strategies in their firms and workplaces, but I guess the right place to start is to really define what we’re talking about here. Let’s define neurodiversity and what we mean by a neurodivergent condition. I suppose when we use that term, it describes a range of possible conditions, behaviours, symptoms… but in your experience, tell us a bit about some of the most common behaviours or traits or symptoms that might affect a neurodivergent employee in their day to day work. |
| 00:04:27 | KH: | Sure. I think firstly, It’s important to note that language is really important in this space, so I wanted to clarify a bit of language here. So, in the neurodivergent community, the word ‘symptom’ for example, can be a bit controversial, a little bit problematic. The main reason is that the word ‘symptom’ can suggest that neurodivergence is a medical deficit or a disorder that needs to be cured and fixed, and that’s very much coming from what’s known as the ‘medical model’ of disability. So, there are two lenses through which, as a society, we can see disability; the medical model, which is the one that medical professions around the world are trained in, and it’s very much a deficits model. And then there’s the social model of disability. So when we talk about symptoms, that’s very much coming from the medical model and it doesn’t really align with how a lot of neurodivergent folk view themselves. So a lot of people in the community prefer terms like ‘traits’ or ‘characteristics’ because those words frame neurodivergence as a difference instead of a deficit. And so when we stop seeing things as a deficit and we start seeing them as difference, it opens up the floodgates of what’s possible for people and organisations. It’s a bit of a head set shift. It’s flipping the script. So, using more natural, or neutral, or what we call ‘neuroaffirming’ language – it fits better with the idea that neurodivergent folk don’t need to be treated, but instead they’re just looking for understanding and to be accommodated so that they can bring their best. So, in a nutshell, the preference is to move away from clinical – and often it can be stigmatising – language. It has these negative connotations that imply something’s wrong, and using language that really emphasises someone’s diversity and their strength and their individuality. In terms of your question, some of the more common traits or characteristics that might affect neurodivergent employees include things like difficulty with focus and attention. This is particularly the case for people with ADHD. We can have people who have sensory sensitivities to things like smell and light and sound, which are really common in autism. A lot of people also experience challenges with time management and organisation, and communication styles can be different too. So, some people can struggle with social cues or business conventions. Things that are normal for neurotypicals like eye contact and shaking hands or making small talk, they’re particularly difficult for some neurodivergent people. A lot of nonverbal communication relies on how people use those conventions and those business norms. Some prefer really clear, direct communication. So, all of those traits that I’ve described can make a traditional 9 to 5 work environment a bit tricky for neurodivergent people but the good news is that with the right support and the right adjustments, neurodivergent employees can thrive in their roles. |
| 00:07:45 | DT: | Fantastic. And I really like that idea of describing it not as a condition to be treated, but as a difference – and a difference that when accommodated, when making some reasonable accommodations, can let every employee in your organisation do their best work. TIP: So Kate’s just given us an important reminder here. When we talk about neurodiversity, we’re talking about differences in brain function, not inferior or superior variations in brain function. The term ‘neurodiversity’ was introduced by an Australian sociologist actually, Judy Singer, in the late 1990s to refer to the identification of a range of naturally occurring differences in how people’s brains function, influencing how they perceive and engage with the world. So, the label of ‘neurotypical’ is simply used to collectively describe individuals whose brain function generally aligns with that of the majority of people, and the term ‘neurodivergent’ collectively refers to individuals whose brain function is generally less common and aligns with a minority of people, but it doesn’t necessarily refer to a particular diagnosed medical condition or disability. Currently, it’s estimated that neurodivergent individuals make up between 10-20% of the global population, and this statistic encompasses a range of neurodivergent brain types such as autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, and dyslexia. Now in this episode, we’ll be talking about a few different ways, some practical ways, that our listeners can support neurodiversity in the workplace to accommodate some of those traits and characteristics you just described, Kate, but to start us off, let’s talk about the workplace environment, maybe the physical workplace environment – although for a lot of us we’re working remotely – and the role that that plays in supporting – or the opposite, really – in complicating the work of a neurodivergent individual. |
| 00:09:30 | KH: | Yeah, the physical workspace environment plays a huge role in supporting people who are neurodivergent. I mentioned before that things like lighting and noise and even the office layout can either support or get in the way of their productivity. So for instance, I know that open plan offices can be really overwhelming for someone who’s sensitive to noise or distractions and things like bright fluorescent lighting is an absolute nightmare for someone with sensory sensitivities. And on the flip side, If you can make small adjustments for people like offering access to quiet workspaces and making your lighting adjustable in different parts of the office and the ability to work remotely when they need to can make a huge difference. So we’re really encouraging firms to think about how they can be creating the spaces that reduce these unnecessary stresses, and they’re going to allow people to work in a way that suits their needs best. |
| 00:10:31 | DT: | And there are ways to implement that that are really proportionate and quite easy to implement without changing the layout of the office or taking those large steps, isn’t it? |
| 00:10:40 | KH: | Look, a lot of those accommodations and adjustments and tweaks are really either cost effective or cost neutral – they don’t actually cost any money. So, a lot of organisations are normalising the use of noise cancelling headphones. For example, if they’re not configured in a way that allows people to go into private quiet rooms, if that’s not how their office is set up, just the ability to say “feel free to bring in your own noise cancelling headphones” – you’ll find a lot of neurodivergent folk have their own anyway – and just making that a normal thing that you see in the office is a great thing. So there’s lots of free or relatively low cost ways that you can tweak an environment to make it much more neurodivergent friendly. |
| 00:11:24 | DT: | Yeah. Even just having a process in place to allow staff to book internal meeting rooms for a quote unquote solo meeting rather than needing to book it for an external meeting – just to normalise that is a great way to provide that quiet working space without changing anything about the layout of your office. |
| 00:11:40 | KH: | It’s exactly right. It’s just being thoughtful about it, and when the organisations are doing that, we’re seeing the productivity of people go up. It’s a win-win for everyone. |
| 00:11:48 | DT: | You mentioned noise cancelling headphones is a really simple way of accommodating neurodivergent folk with some of the traits and characteristics that they might bring to the workplace. Technology is a big part of how we can support neurodiversity in our workplaces. Tell me a bit more about the kinds of technologies that we can use to do that. |
| 00:12:06 | KH: | Yeah. In this space, we call them ‘assistive technologies’, and there are so many assistive technologies out there now that neurodivergent employees can access and they can be a huge game changer for people. So for example, things like text to speech software, can really help people with dyslexia do their work more efficiently and effectively. Project management tools can help people with ADHD because they let people break down tasks and stay organised and stay on timeframes. We talked about noise cancelling headphones – they can be great for people who are sensitive to sound and in very busy open plan office environments, and speech to text tools and AI, like chat GPT, can really help people draft documents more effectively. And I know of a few firms out there that have made a whole range of these technology options available and set them up on their intranet, and people just go in and self-serve from the range of things that’s made available without actually having to have a conversation about it. And this is great for people who haven’t yet disclosed their neurodivergent condition to their workplace – the ability to just go in, say, “look, that could work for me, going to download that extension onto my laptop” – with IT approval of course, we always have that question about what IT will allow. But I’d really like to see a time when that’s happening in all organisations as the norm. |
| 00:13:38 | DT: | It’s so interesting you mentioned speech to text and text to speech technologies as a particular way that firms can support neurodiversity. An observation that I’ve made is that even over the past 12 to 18 months, we’ve seen an explosion of speech as a kind of dominant form of user interface in a lot of different applications as the artificial intelligence technologies that support timely, efficient, and effective TTS and speech to text has just gotten remarkably better. Even on the Hearsay website, we have virtual simulations for some of our episodes that have a speech to text input and a text to speech output. So, that’s becoming an increasingly popular user interface paradigm for everyone, whether or not that’s as a means of supporting neurodiversity. What do you think that shift in how we interact with technology and moving to that more speech based approach will do for the neurodivergent individuals in our organisations? |
| 00:14:40 | KH: | I think it’s going to be liberating. It already is, and I have really personal experience of this. One of my sisters was diagnosed with autism and ADHD a couple of years ago. She works for a global engineering firm and when she disclosed, she was able to get access to a whole range of assistive technologies. I’d like to see a day when you don’t have to disclose to get access to those things, but that’s the way it is, and what happened while she was able to download a number of software products and extensions, including their speech to text and text to speech options and her productivity – well, she was saying she estimated it went up by 20% to 30% because she really struggled with processing really text heavy documentation. She’s a visual learner and what she found when she was able to download this extension, number one; it clarified her focus for documents. So, it was sort of highlighting just paragraphs and blocking out the rest of the document, which helped her focus, and then the ability for it to spit out the speech, turn the text into speech, she could turn it up to one and a half to two times speed of normal speech. And it helped her absorb documentation so much more effectively. She just found it incredibly liberating. And I think we’re already finding this for the neurodivergent community broadly – that when we just make these simple, amazing tech advances available to people, they find their own way of using it, and it amplifies their productivity. So, I am seeing a huge embrace of all of this, and I just feel like companies are just a little bit behind the times, but once they start allowing access to these things, we’re going to see the productivity of people who are neurodivergent lifted. |
| 00:16:33 | DT: | And a bit like you were saying with the physical environment, as these user interfaces, speech based tools become more mainstream, are seen as less of an assistive technology and more of a widespread consumer or business technology, it’s really easy, cost effective or cost neutral to make them available to all of your staff without them having to identify themselves or disclose a diagnosis. It’s as simple as informing your organisation, your teams, your employees, that “these tools are available, they have a speech input option, they have a text to speech output option, and you’re welcome to use those.” I think there’s so many of these tools already available in a lot of the technology stacks our listeners are already using. |
| 00:17:17 | KH: | Yeah, there’s endless amounts of them now, and I think it’s just a matter for organisations in terms of management and the IT departments looking at what they can allow access to in terms of their systems. I get a lot of people saying, “yes, we’d like to do that, but IT says no.” So, I’d like to see the teams coming together and looking at that through the lens of productivity shifts for neurodivergent folks. And look, when we’re talking about these sorts of adjustments, we’re not just talking about things that are going to improve the productivity of neurodivergent people. We’re talking about things that can improve that for everyone regardless of their neurotype, does that make sense? So we all work differently. We all have different preferences. We all have different communication styles, regardless of whether we’re neurotypical or neurodivergent. So why aren’t we making these things available for everyone to self-select and be able to craft, you know, really be able to tally the way that we’re working more effectively? |
| 00:18:13 | DT: | That’s so true. I don’t know many people who work better in an open plan office than they do in a quiet space alone with their thoughts. |
| 00:18:22 | KH: | Yeah, although I did have a conversation with someone with ADHD yesterday who said they crave an environment like that. That sort of defies the stereotype of someone needing a quiet space. She does her best work in a cafe. She said she needs that bit of chaos where she can focus on her work, then look at the coffee, then look at what someone else is doing and come back, that helps her regulate her nervous system. So, there’s a saying in the community that is “if you’ve met one neurodivergent person, you’ve met one neurodivergent person,” because they’re all so incredibly different, just like neurotypical folks. TIP: So as we’ve just mentioned, getting access to the right technology to do your best work is a perennial problem in law firms that impacts all employees, regardless of their neurotype. According to Thomson Reuters Tech & the Law Report 2022, more than four in five or 81% of private practice lawyers want more efficient processes in their firms and more than three quarters of all those lawyers want better automation solutions in their workplaces. But despite the desire for more efficient practices and automation, one in five legal professionals feel that their firm or practice lacks innovation, while nearly three in five view their firms as only moderately innovative. And innovation and adoption of technology is apparently so important to legal professionals that nearly one in three lawyers, 29% of them, felt that they would be willing to leave their law firm for a more innovative one if they felt that their firm lacked innovation. |
| ??:??:?? | DT: | Alright. We’ve talked about the physical environment, we’ve talked about technologies; both assistive technologies and the existing B2B software stack that we can use more effectively. Let’s talk about work processes now. So what are some operational adjustments that we can make to support neurodiversity? |
| 00:20:07 | KH: | One of the most common and really successful operational adjustments we’re seeing workplaces offer is flexible working hours or remote work options because, in simple terms, I guess they let the work happen in an environment and at the times where neurodivergent people feel they’re most productive. So, I’m seeing that is the number one thing that people are asking. “I’ve got a project to do. I need to do some really focused work. That would be better done by me in my own environment that I’ve set up to be perfect for my productivity, and my energy cycles are best 11am to 7pm. Can I negotiate to work those times because that allows me to really punch out work in a way that’s optimised for me.” Another adjustment they’re making is providing really clear written instructions to follow verbal ones around tasks and also breaking tasks down, particularly complex tasks, into smaller, more manageable steps and then having mini deadlines for each of those steps instead of one great big overarching deadline for tasks or projects. We know that this really fires up the ADHD brain in particular, and it helps them stay on task. So I’d really encourage managers to be saying, “I’m not just going to give a task. I’m going to give a task that’s broken into bite sized chunks and we’re going to put a deadline to each of those chunks,” because that’s how the ADHD brain will be able to stay on task better. I also really encourage regular check-ins for two way feedback, so manager to direct report. It really works well because it’s going to help the employee feel supported at all points, and it’s going to help them understand the expectations that might otherwise be vague, because neurodivergent folk can have a challenge around working memory. So, it’s really important for feedback to be regular, and we’re consistently seeing that the small changes that I just talked about there, they’re really improving how neurodivergent folk experience their work day. |
| 00:22:27 | DT: | And again, I’m thinking about how, one; achievable and modest some of these changes are to implement, and also; how they can benefit anyone in the organisation, whether that individual is neurodivergent or neurotypical. Talking about flexible work, I suppose a lot of organisations, big and small, already have flexible work policies. Even quite large organisations with a more traditional approach to working in the office will have a flexible work policy for employees who are parents, employees who have care responsibilities, and it’s a matter of opening up those processes to neurodivergent employees or to any employees so that they can work at the hours, places and times that work for them. But I suppose a lot of other organisations have had a natural experiment with working in different locations and at different hours in the last three years and have probably moved to a more fluid, less ‘nine to five, in the office’ format for work anyway, and that’s, I imagine, been hugely beneficial to neurodivergent employees in those offices. |
| 00:23:36 | KH: | It’s been a revolution. COVID, for all of the badness that it was – and we’re still recovering, particularly those of us in Victoria – but what it showed, particularly for neurodivergent people, was how productive that work from home environment can be. It’s been an interesting experiment. I saw it myself as a manager. I was the manager of a team of 14 people during COVID, and I could see how much more productive each of those were being able to work from home, particularly the neurodivergent folk. I could see their productivity lift. And that was one of the reasons why it switched me on to when we provide the right setup for people, or we give them the ability to tailor it to themselves and the unique ways that they work, we optimise people. We tap into this productivity and potential that remains otherwise potentially a bit dormant. So, I think being able to get out of the way of people and being able to give them a lot more control over how they set themselves up to work is a win-win for business and the employee. |
| 00:24:47 | DT: | And I suppose when it comes to the other tips you mentioned around breaking up large tasks into smaller tasks, large deadlines into smaller ones, I think any project management professional would say that’s not just a desirable thing to do, but kind of an essential thing to do to make sure that you deliver projects on time, on budget, and within scope. I think there are so many project management tools available for all of us. We should be using them for good practice, even without thinking about neuroinclusion, but it’s a great way to foster neuroinclusion. If you need one more reason to do good project management, there it is. And then regular feedback – again, the management literature tells us everyone should be getting regular feedback; regular improvement feedback and regular reinforcement feedback, far more regularly than we do it. And again, if you need one more good reason to have a good feedback process and policy in place, neuroinclusion is right there. So again, really achievable, modest adjustments to your business that pay dividends in all kinds of ways, including neuroinclusion. |
| 00:25:53 | KH: | Couldn’t have said it better myself, David. |
| 00:25:57 | DT: | Now, let’s talk about one other business process that we should think about, which is the external HR processes that larger organisations might have, where there might be annual performance reviews or remuneration reviews conducted by an external HR team rather than by a person’s direct manager, and potentially even formal complaints processes. Are there adjustments that firms should think about making to those sorts of processes? |
| 00:26:22 | KH: | Definitely are. I think it’s really important for HR teams to understand that neurodivergent people might process feedback differently. It’s important to give everyone clear feedback, right? I had a conversation yesterday where we were talking about communicating to neurodivergent people. And there’s a saying about communication that goes something like “the most dangerous thing about communication is assuming there has been some,” because so often we in our own heads think we’re very clear about what we’re saying and what we’re asking people to do, but often it’s not landing that way, and I’ve had so many people say that to me recently. So, it’s really important as the people who are giving feedback or giving instruction, that we’re making sure it’s very clear, it’s very specific, It’s very focused on the outcomes. It articulates what the outcomes are that are expected because otherwise it can be vague, and particularly with neurodivergent people, if something isn’t absolutely clear, then it’s going to be a real challenge for people. So, I’d encourage HR to keep in mind how neurodivergent employees tend to communicate differently to neurotypical people. So, some might need more time to absorb feedback, for example, or some prefer written feedback first so that they can process it privately and in a way that helps them best regulate their emotions, because feedback around performance management, for example, can be quite triggering with – there’s a thing called RSD or rejection sensitive dysphoria – and we know that that’s a very visceral reaction and emotional upset to even the perception of criticism or rejection, and we know that people who are neurodivergent can experience this. So we want to make sure, any feedback we’re giving, that we’ve already asked our employees how they like to receive feedback because they will tell you. TIP: Now Kate has just mentioned rejection sensitive dysphoria or RSD. RSD is characterised as a heightened emotional response often experienced by people with ADHD. It’s not officially recognised in diagnostic manuals like the DSM-5, but RSD is thought to develop through early experiences of rejection faced by neurodivergent individuals who might be encouraged to conform to societal norms imposed on neurotypical individuals. In the workplace, RSD can be experienced by employees regardless of whether there are any intentions of rejection present in the interaction and regardless of how significant or serious the situation might seem to others. RSD might be experienced in the form of overwhelming self criticism following what otherwise might be considered constructive feedback, avoidance of social situations due to the fear of judgement, and reluctance to advocate for necessary accommodations out of concern for being viewed as different or difficult. In terms of handling complaints, HR just need to be focused on making sure that they’re doing what they can do to create a supportive culture that’s all about encouraging really open and honest and non-judgmental conversations – normalising them to be open and honest because neurodivergent people need to feel safe to speak up about their concerns without having to worry about the stigma or “is it going to come back to bite me?” That’s what we need HR to be focused on. |
| 00:29:54 | DT: | Is there a challenge with human resources teams managing these processes? Because, if we’re talking about a feedback conversation between, say, an employee and their direct manager – as you said, if you’ve met one neurodivergent person, you’ve met one neurodivergent person – that direct manager works with them five days out of seven, they understand them and their personality and their particular needs fairly well, and can adjust the way they communicate and the process to accommodate that, but a member of the human resources team who sees that team member once a year, once every six months, doesn’t have that context. So, how do you overcome that challenge of not having that familiarity with that person’s unique needs? Is it a matter of bringing more of those processes within the team, within the aegis of a direct manager or a more direct manager? Or is there something else that the human resources team can do? |
| 00:30:46 | KH: | I see the optimum process being the combination of the individual and the manager. As you point out rightly, that manager knows that person way more intimately than the HR person. That person who is working with them during the week, someone who’s onboarded them, someone who’s guided them through however long they’ve been with the organisation. This is all about personalisation. So when we talk about that, what’s optimum is having the person that knows that person the best guiding the performance management process, and that’s generally their line manager. So, I would always like to see some of that control coming into the team itself, and then I think HR professionals or the business partners have an opportunity to guide the process. But when it comes to developing performance management plans, when it comes to developing professional development plans, like training, that needs to come from the person who knows the individual the best, and that’s generally the line manager. |
| 00:31:50 | DT: | Just before we move off the topic of feedback as well – I suppose, again, a really simple thing that managers can implement that improves the feedback process for everyone I think – neurodivergent or neurotypical – is having a simple feedback framework, something like the SBI model of feedback; Situation, Behaviour, and Impact. Describe the situation that you’re giving feedback about – positive or negative – describe the behaviour that the person demonstrated, and the impact that that behaviour had in that situation. It’s not about inherent characteristics. It’s really clear. It’s really actionable, specific, the things that you’ve been describing that help neurodivergent people to take on feedback, but I think benefit any team member. |
| 00:32:30 | KH: | We’re seeing it almost at every point in this podcast, aren’t we? We’re looking at these strategies that I’m talking about and we’re just seeing the relevance and the benefit for everybody. Isn’t it interesting that it’s almost going to be a case where, through looking at things through a neurodivergent lens, we’re going to be improving workplaces for everyone. So, I feel like that’s quite amazing, that the neurodivergent community is almost going to revolutionise work environments and work cultures for everyone for the better. |
| 00:33:01 | DT: | Yeah, the tip of the spear for a more personalised work experience. Now, you mentioned that direct managers are well placed to handle some of these processes because they’ve been responsible for onboarding their teams. We’ve been talking a lot about how we can adjust our work processes, our physical environment, our technology, to accommodate neurodivergence in our teams. But often, we might not get to that point because our hiring processes, the way we advertise and select for roles, the way we interview, might be selecting-out neurodivergent individuals unwittingly. Let’s talk about both the recruitment process, in terms of how we hire external people for new roles, and how we select internal employees for leadership roles, and how we can rethink that process in a way that’s more neuroinclusive. |
| 00:33:53 | KH: | Yeah, well, firstly, to your point about DEI, I’m really happy that I’m seeing progressive organisations starting to really embed language around neurodiversity into their broader DEI strategies. You’re right, neuroinclusion needs to start right at the recruitment stage. So, that’s going to include how an organisation languages things like their careers page on their website and their job ads and their position descriptions. So I’d be encouraging them, because we need to look at this from a perspective of; how are we neuroinclusive across all of the stages of the employee life cycle? And by life cycle, I mean, we’ve got onboarding, we’ve got performance management, we’ve got professional development, and we’ve got retention. So, how are we signaling to the external world in the recruitment process that we’re a neuroinclusive organisation? So, that could be as simple as adding a paragraph that says something like “we’re a neuro inclusive employer, and we encourage applicants to share with us any additional requirements they might need during the recruitment process.” So, what can we do to make this the best possible experience for you? And then I’m thinking of the actual recruitment or the interview process. What we’re seeing is really progressive organisations offering alternative interview formats. They’re allowing Individuals to provide written responses instead of forcing them to go through a face to face or a traditional interview process, because some people struggle with social interactions and those sort of traditional interview scenarios – they’re not going to be likely to perform at their best in those particular situations. When we’re looking at career development, we’re seeing things like mentoring programs work really well for neurodivergent employees. So that’s pairing them with someone more senior in the firm who can take them under their wing and be a bit of a trusted guide along the way. In terms of training plans, they need to be really tailored to the individual, rather than this sort of a one size fits all model that you might have with a group, say, of graduates. We talked about this before, it’s about getting to know each person’s strengths and their challenges – so getting to know them well enough, getting curious – so that managers in conjunction with HR, developing their really tailored professional development plans. So we call that a strengths based approach that firms can take to help their neurodivergent folk flourish in their careers, because ultimately that’s the goal here, right? Highly productive, satisfied, engaged, loyal employees, because everybody wins. |
| 00:36:49 | DT: | That point about alternate interview formats or even alternatives to interviews altogether is an interesting one to me. I can imagine some of our listeners thinking “oh, well, how can I hire someone for a professional role in a law firm if they can’t speak with me in an interview and speak to me confidently?” But I suppose what I would say to that is, we kind of use the interview as this universal tool for every role to make every hiring decision when the skills required to excel in an interview aren’t needed for every role in our organisation. That might be true if you’re hiring someone who’s going to be negotiating on behalf of clients, appearing in court, needs to be a compelling oral advocate, then sure, you’d expect them to demonstrate that skill in an interview but if you’re hiring someone for a role that doesn’t need those skills, the interview is a bit of a square peg in a round hole for assessing their suitability for that role. Why do they need that skill for a role in the finance team, for example? A different tool might be better suited to assessing their capability for that role than the interview, which tends to favour people who are very good at talking about themselves and their accomplishments at length to strangers. |
| 00:38:02 | KH: | And you’re right. It’s not appropriate for every role because you are testing skills in certain areas and the traditional interview is going to flush that out but so often we put people through these processes that are nerve wracking for anybody. And often it’s a performance. It’s about, how does this person perform? Can they perform on the fly? Can they speak off the top of their head? Is that necessary? Is determining whether or not a person can do that relevant to the role? And if it isn’t, can we be more compassionate and say, “hey, let’s put forward an assessment task,” because at the end of the day, we want to see how well they do this particular thing. And if they can demonstrate their ability to do that really effectively in another way, can we offer it? It’s a great question for organisations to start to ask themselves. |
| 00:38:49 | DT: | Yeah, absolutely. And we’ve all had that experience of hiring someone who’s great in the interview, and maybe the skill of spruiking themselves in the interview doesn’t translate well to the role itself. It’s a pretty consistent theme for us today, isn’t it, Kate? There’s a whole range of business benefits that come with implementing these neurodivergent friendly strategies. If you’re hiring for a role where you do want to test a particular technical skill – a take home assessment, or a review of their portfolio, or even a whiteboarding exercise in place of the traditional behavioural based interview question can be a much more effective means of testing someone’s suitability for a role. |
| 00:39:30 | KH: | Yeah, and I think we always tend to look for the social fit as well, the cultural fit by these interview methods. Whereas we’re not necessarily testing for ability as well in those scenarios. So, yeah, I love the idea because we know that neurodivergent folk are often very visual people. They love working with whiteboards, and they love sticky notes, and they love charts, and infographs, and checklists and templates. So if you’re focusing on, you know, what are the outputs from this particular role, and how can this person demonstrate those skills most effectively and their ability to produce those outputs? Let’s give them other tools to work with, to demonstrate those, rather than forcing them to physically sit in a seat for an hour – which is another issue for neurodivergent folk, just being able to sit still – let’s get them up at a whiteboard and let’s see what happens because I guarantee you’ll end up seeing things in that process that you won’t see come out at a traditional interview. |
| 00:40:31 | DT: | Absolutely. Let’s talk about this kind of running theme that we’ve had today. There are so many benefits that basically every strategy or accommodation we’ve described today can offer for neurodivergent employees, neurodivergent applicants, but also for the business as a whole and neurotypical employees and applicants too. On the other hand, neurodivergence isn’t visible. It’s not always visible. It’s not always something that an employee or an applicant wants to disclose. You’ve said that it can be regrettable sometimes that employees withhold assistive technology or access to flexible work behind a policy that those things be disclosed, which someone doesn’t necessarily want to do, and these techniques tend to work best when they’re tailored to the individual employee. In a perfect world, what’s the right approach that an employee should be taking when it comes to disclosing neurodivergence, getting access to technology and policies and processes, and adopting some of these accommodations or changes to the current business process? Because on the one hand, we know that these strategies work best when they are tailored to someone’s individual needs. On the other hand, we don’t always want to have to make our employees disclose these things if they don’t want to. |
| 00:41:47 | KH: | Yeah. Disclosure is a really tricky thing. So a lot of neurodivergent employees don’t disclose their condition because they have so many questions and concerns about it. It’s a huge decision for someone to disclose and it can take people a long time to make that decision. I know that’s the case for so many people in my family, so many friends, so many former colleagues, have had that huge conversation in their head for a long time because they’re thinking about things like, “how much information should I provide when I disclose? Who’s the best person to disclose to? Is it my manager? Is it someone from HR? When’s the best time to do it? How do I actually have that conversation? I’m afraid of saying something wrong. Will my employer keep the information confidential? Is it going to come back to bite me? Is it going to be career limiting?” So much of that goes on in someone’s head for a long period of time before they actually get to that decision point, and we know research is telling us only 3 to 4% of neurodivergent folk in Australia have disclosed to their employers. And unfortunately, the same research is showing that those who have shared that information, more than 50% of them regret doing it. Now that’s a terrible statistic, isn’t it? It’s a shocking statistic and it shows that their fears of stigma and being treated differently are really well founded. I had a woman ring me the other day. She’d worked for an organisation for 21 years. She recently disclosed her neurodivergence. She’d been on six weeks sick leave and they were performance managing her out of the organisation. So, the impact of not disclosing is that it’s leading to stress and even burnout because they’re not getting access to the things that they need to succeed, because some organisations make it compulsory or they sit their accommodations behind a stage gate of disclosure with a formal official piece of documentation, that people either have because they’ve been through the diagnosis process, or they don’t have. And so for the business, that means people are off sick, they’re on leave, and when that’s happening, they’re not fully tapping into the strengths of their neurodivergent staff either. So, I think firms need to be focusing on how they can make people feel comfortable to disclose in the first place. It’s all about psychological safety, because when people feel comfortable being who they are, and then they can ask for support, they’re going to perform better and that’s going to benefit the employee and it’s going to benefit the firm. So I see that as an absolute no brainer. |
| 00:44:47 | DT: | Yeah. It seems like in a perfect world, we could snap our fingers and get rid of the stigma and the bias and the other perceptions around neurodivergence that managers and employees might have following disclosure. So, there’s no issue with talking about these traits and characteristics openly, but until that time, as we’ve been saying today, that there are so many things we can implement and make available to all staff, regardless of whether or not they have a diagnosis that they’re prepared to disclose, things like; better and more comprehensive project management policies, feedback frameworks, broad access to flexible work, broad access to assistive technologies like speech to text, broad access to different workspaces within the office – so many of these things we can make available to our workforce more generally. No one needs to disclose something that they’re uncomfortable disclosing or that they feel they might regret disclosing later, and a handful of those accommodations, like what you were suggesting, Kate, with the recruitment process, that you invite people to disclose if they have a special need in that process, that can be left as a last resort, the last 10% of those accommodations, if you like. Does that ring true for you? |
| 00:46:05 | KH: | Yeah, I think so. Look, there are just so many things that organisations can do that are just slight tweaks to processes. We’re setting up invisible barriers along the way for people. We’ve never had to look at how neurotypicals have created the environments that we work in for the neurotypical mind. So when we start to put this lens on around neurodivergence, we start to see the flaws in the way that we’ve set things up, and we haven’t therefore set people up for success because they’re having to crash into these invisible barriers. So, we need to start to get creative. We need to start to get real with – what have we set up in the way that we run our processes, our systems? What are the assumptions that we’ve made in all of this? And start to unpack things a little and reset them in a way that’s going to work for everybody. |
| 00:47:01 | DT: | Kate, we’re nearly out of time today. Before you go though, as you said, you’ve walked this path, so many people who have – if we had a young professional listening to this episode or a law student soon to leave university and join the profession who is neurodivergent and is looking for some advice about how to navigate the legal profession, the business world, getting their first professional job and advancing in their professional career – what advice would you give to them? |
| 00:47:29 | KH: | My advice to them would be to tune into and embrace your strengths. I think most neurodivergent folk, whether they’re diagnosed or they just self-identify – and a lot of people do – a lot of neurodivergent people know that they’re neurodivergent, they haven’t needed to go and get a diagnosis but they know what their strengths are. Superpowers isn’t everyone’s favourite term for it, but in terms of strengths, neurodivergent folk know what they are. I really encourage them to find ways to work with those strengths that suit their needs. So, the legal profession can be a really demanding profession, but you don’t need to fit into traditional moulds to be successful. So I’d encourage those graduates, those new to the law sector to look out for firms that are open to flexibility and they’re signaling that they understand and appreciate neurodivergence, and don’t be afraid to ask for accommodations that you need to do your best work. I’d also encourage them to look at finding a mentor, someone who understands and appreciates neurodiversity. And that can be a really valuable asset for you while you’re navigating your career. You have unique talents and the right workplace is going to recognise and support that. |
| 00:48:52 | DT: | Absolutely. Well, Kate, thank you so much for joining us today on Hearsay. I’ve really enjoyed our conversation. A lot of great tips that I hope our listeners will take into their own organisations. |
| 00:49:02 | KH: | It’s been a pleasure, David. Thanks. |
| 00:49:13 | DT: | As always, you’ve been listening to Hearsay the Legal Podcast. I’d like to thank my guest today, Kate Hardiman, for coming on the show. Now, if you want to learn more about making your firm more inclusive, you could check out a recent episode that we did with Karen Tindall from The Behavioural Insights Team. That one’s episode 125, and it’s called From Research to Practice: Applying Behavioural Science to Prevent Sexism and Sexual Harassment in the Workplace. If you’re an Australian legal practitioner, you can claim one continuing professional development point for listening to this episode. As you know, whether an activity entitles you to claim a CPD unit is self assessed in most states in Australia, but we suggest this episode entitles you to claim a practice management and business skills point. For more information on claiming and tracking your points on Hearsay, please head to our website. Hearsay the Legal Podcast is brought to you by Lext, a legal technology company that makes the law easier to access and easier to practice, including your CPD. Finally, before you go, I’d like to ask you a favour. If you like Hearsay the Legal Podcast, please leave us a Google review. It helps other listeners to find us and that keeps us in business. Thanks for listening and I’ll see you on the next episode of Hearsay. |
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