ADHD & Autism at Work: Masking, Burnout and What Employers Still Get Wrong

0:00Around the time a child is 12, if they've got ADHD, they will have received 20 ,000 more negative comments, 20 ,000, than their peers, their friends. And I think then adults grow up and go out into the world of work and they lack confidence and they struggle and they can't advocate for themselves and they can't go, hold on, I'm struggling or can you help me please? They go, yeah, yeah, that's fine, that's fine. And they're kind of suffering in silence and they're masking, but also they're the coping ones. And then maybe if you're a woman and you hit perimenopause, bam, or you're a guy and you've been working flat out the whole time and then you get to a certain age and you're like, I can't keep going.

0:39Welcome to The Hidden 20%, our neurodiversity charity on a mission to rewrite the future for people who think differently. together with you and an eclectic range of brilliant guests we can break the cycle of silence by smashing outdated stereotypes exposing the myths and sharing the most up-to-date truths about what it really means to be just different not deficient the best way you can help is really simple subscribe so you never miss an episode and if you can donate to our charity through the link below So, enough preamble. I'm Ben, your host. Let's get into today's episode.

1:26So Hester, welcome back. Thanks. And thanks for bringing your husband. Well, you know, thought you had to come along for the ride. So we've got ADHD-er in the room. Yeah. And two all-DHDs. Yes. Correct? Absolutely, yeah. This is going to be good. And so I was saying to you guys, we've never done an episode on neurodivergence in the workplace. And you guys have like the glitterati of amazing companies that you've been in and worked with. We like to think so. Yeah. Red Bull. Yeah. Who else have you had? We're long-term partners with TUI. We've done stuff with Marks and Spencers, British Airways, Royal Caribbean.

2:11NHS. I mean, the list goes on. And we've done really well, actually, looking back, hasn't it? Yeah. And six years. Yeah. Six years of perfectly autistic, so yeah. What is the number one thing that we, myself included, need to understand about neurodivergence in the workplace? That's quite a big question. Yeah. One thing. We're going big. Yeah. I think it's around employers understanding that neurodivergence isn't a problem that needs fixing or managing. It's something that needs to be understood more. and actually seen as a benefit, something that's going to kind of benefit the company in so many different ways.

2:47And I think that's the starting point. And it's about awareness, understanding, rather than just jumping to adjustments. That's kind of the big thing. It's not, don't see it as a negative. It's actually a positive. And let's kind of understand it more. Hester, what would you say? Yeah, I think it's understanding that everybody's different because I think quite often it's the whole, oh, we've got an ADHD-er. Okay, well, we know that ADHD looks like X, Y, and Z, and actually it doesn't. or we've got autistic ADHD as huge overlap. So, oh, this is what it does because we once had Jack in accounting who was autistic and this is what worked for him.

3:21And I think it's understanding that it looks different in everybody. There are some common traits, aren't there? Some commonalities, 100%. But like Kelly said, it's actually, it's a benefit rather than a difference that we should be scared of. It's kind of, you know, like you said, switching away from those stereotypes. Yes. Or this is somebody with ADHD, that's what they look like and sound like and what they can and can't do. Here's somebody who's autistic. Oh, we'll stick them in that corner because they don't like people, do they? Well, no, that's not the case. Ask them the question. What do you like?

3:50What don't you like? How do you balance that, though, with massive organizations doing things at scale, policies, etc., and then it being about the individual and each individual being different anyway, but also neurodivergence portraying or manifesting in different ways as well. Like how do you talk with employers and employees about that? I mean, I was going to say quite often we do like company-wide pieces of work and this is often how it happens. And I have to say we're really proud everybody that's worked with us has come to us. We haven't had email going, hi, you know, neurodiversity, we think you should be talking about this.

4:30They've come to us and gone, we've either identified a problem or we've identified someone that needs support. So we do like a company-wide piece of work, whether that's a series of workshops, training, webinars, whatever that looks like. And then because I'm a certified ADHD coach, Kelly's a certified mediator, we kind of then are able to then take it down to the individual. So quite often what happens is you will have done a piece of work with a company or I'll have done something with an organization. And then people within that go, hold on a minute, I massively identified with Kelly's story.

5:00I really identified with what you said there. they might not know that they're neurodivergent themselves and i wasn't diagnosed with adhd until i was 43 i'm now 48 you were diagnosed as 44 first at 44 and then adhd so you can have people who are in roles that are struggling massively but don't know why especially when kelly shares his story about his journey etc what it looks like people go hold on a minute like that's me and we always say it's a Pandora's box. So don't get us in as a tick box exercise, as a one-hour workshop, because it's Neurodiversity Celebration Week and oh, tick, we're done.

5:38Actually, what are you going to do next? And I think the most successful organisations that we work with, it's a journey, isn't it? And it's an ongoing piece of work rather than a one-off done, thank you. Yeah, it's not this year's kind of trendy campaign. Yeah, we should. We've done three other kind of diversities. we'll do neurodiversity this year. And then it's done, everybody will be happy. It's almost like the organisations that understand it's a long journey, and actually they need to put things in place, not just kind of a sort of one-hour kind of workshop. It's ongoing. But it's making them kind of understand that it's a benefit and there are strengths.

6:12Why would we do this? We've had some companies say, well, why would we do this just for that one person? You say, but you've got a company that's got 10 ,000 people. Rough estimate is 20 % of the population, and that's probably a lot bigger than that. We're proving that that's bollocks. So you've got more than one person in your company. So you're not doing... And actually, thinking about it, if you're putting together a neurodivergent-friendly environment and you're adopting these principles, it's going to benefit everybody. Yeah, there is a win-win here, right? It's like the right thing to do.

6:42It's like we always say, isn't it? Our children are autistic and ADHD. But if you had one child that was autistic or ADHD and one that wasn't, you don't go, oh, Billy, we're going to treat you this way and Susie, we're going to treat you that way. You just parent them in a neurodivergent-friendly way and it benefits everybody. I've had 30 full-time jobs. I've never been fired from any of them. I have to caveat that. But I didn't know that I was neurodivergent. And you've worked in the corporate world for a really long time, not knowing your autistic ADHD, but knowing you struggle with certain things.

7:09So like Kelly said, by putting these neurodivergent-friendly principles in place, benefits everybody. It's just the right thing to do. It levels the playing field. It's not a, oh, you, we think we should treat you this way. Like you're wearing glasses right now. You don't have a benefit over us, do you? It's just leveled the playing field. So now you can see properly. That's how it is. What type of companies or people are coming to you saying, hey, we need your help? Yeah. Yeah. It's a mix, isn't it? It's a mix of those. It's HR, it's departments within HR, it's ED &I, it's kind of employee resource groups, which most large companies have got now.

7:42Yes. And they'll come and go, look, we really need some support. We need some help. We need to create a bit of awareness. Because I think internally, normally if they're ERGs, they're neurodivergent themselves. They're really passionate. ERG being employee resource groups. And they're normally kind of voluntary alongside their day job. They'll have set up a network internally around neurodiversity or it might be around something else. And they're almost leading the charge for neurodiversity. And the company said, yep, we'll let you set this up. But sometimes it's left to them to do themselves with minimal resource, minimal kind of support or budget.

8:14And above and beyond their normal roles. Yeah. But they want to do it because they're passionate. They're neurodivergent or their children are or their partner. So, well, we are going to do this. so we'll get approached by them a lot to say what can you do this is this is what we're trying to achieve this is the problem what sort of things can you offer has anyone like quantified the economic benefit of this is better for business if you support and take this seriously and allow all of your employees to thrive rather than just some of them yeah has there been any work to like I think there has.

8:50But I think even if you think about the cost of like absenteeism through burnout, which we'll probably cover at some point today anyway, but like kind of almost the hidden cost of being neurodivergent in the workplace and maybe either not supported or undiagnosed, what that looks like when it comes to sick days, absenteeism or presenteeism. So you're in at work, but my God, you're not performing. You're not really doing much. You are there physically. Actually, you're completely burnt out and you're just sitting there going, I just got to get through the day. I just got to get through this. So, you know, there are studies and I cannot think of the top of my head.

9:26There are studies in terms of how much it costs business in general for like mental health sickness. And there's also things like, you know, think of recruitment. Yeah. The cost that companies have to pay for bringing people in. Yeah. Actually, if they can't retain those individuals, they just leave after three months, six months because it doesn't work. Then they have to do the whole thing again. So cost, time, energy. If you can kind of take that away as much as possible by adopting these principles to help everybody, then surely it's a win-win. There's no downside to it because you're not saying we're investing more.

9:55You're just saying we're doing things slightly differently. Yeah. Yeah. And so burnout, absenteeism, what else is going on in terms of if you're not supporting this, what are the problems that employers and employees, I guess, are facing? Well, I guess you've got masking. Do you want to explain that? Yeah. And I guess masking, as we know, is basically you're hiding your condition, right? So you're almost pretending to be somebody else. You're trying to fit into this environment, particularly in the workplace, that doesn't suit you. It wasn't built for you. So you're not going to be as productive as you should be.

10:26you're not going to be as effective you're not going to be as happy yep so you've got masking which then leads on to things like you know burnout depression anxiety all these all sorts of other other things that come out of that so i think companies are seeing that and they're not getting their individuals of their real selves and then they're questioning well why aren't you performing why don't you just and they put it down to poor performance or bad attitude or bad behavior and it's not it's just you're trying so hard to fit in with the barriers that are created that very narrow yes and you know if you're neurotypical you can fit into those narrow kind of barriers and there's no impact if you're neurodivergent you get all these feelings of anxiety and you're trying to fit in and that's where you know the wheels start to come off and that's where you get people who you know lose their jobs or move on to another job because they kind of suddenly reach that peak and those that understand internally they know when they're getting to that point of burnout and that right i need to move before i'm found out yes so they move on or they try and find another job internally.

11:22I mean, I did that. I worked for... Because you're speaking from experience. Yeah, I worked for, you know, one of the companies I worked for years ago was PepsiCo. And I think over the course of six years, I had six or seven jobs internally because it was a kind of FMCG company. You'd work calendar years and you'd have kind of campaigns. And I worked out that January to December, I'd work ever so hard, like harder than anybody else, but I didn't know it back then. And at the end of December, I just felt I can't do this again. I can't start January where the clock starts at zero again. You have to hit targets and do those things.

11:51So I would then engineer a way of getting to another role. Unfortunately for me, that ended up most occasions being promoted into a role, which was great. And they'll give that another year and they'll try and get promoted. But this is what you can do in big organisations, right? And this is it. And they don't spot it. And we're all like, oh, this is amazing. Aren't we, Brad O 'Kelly? He's getting promoted again. And this is amazing. And almost then you get to that level and then you're like, okay, I don't actually know if I can keep doing it. But you didn't know why you felt that way, did you?

12:18No. I just knew that I got to the stage of thinking the wheels are going to come off. I've hidden so much stuff about myself and what I've done and what not. I haven't managed to do it. They're going to find out. So if I can almost jump ship, get into a new role, start from scratch. Oh, you're great. You're amazing. And, you know, I did some stuff really, really well. Other stuff I just found really challenging. And I used to look around and think, God, you know, everybody must be feeling this way. But they're really much better at hiding it. And what did you therefore need or what could you have had as an employee from your employer that could have helped?

12:49I think probably the first thing would have been awareness. I mean, I didn't know myself that I was neurodivergent, autistic and ADHD. So if I'd known, I could have probably understood myself a bit better. What are my triggers? What works? What doesn't? And then I could have shared that with them. but i think if the organization back then knew about neurodiversity they talked about it you know consistently and constantly what is it you know created this safe space maybe back then i would have looked and gone hold on me that that could be me i'm struggling in that maybe i need to look at neurodiversity but i didn't i just kind of struggled on thinking well they're all feeling the same way but we just don't talk about it but if they you know if somebody had said this could be what it is let's talk about it we're having workshops we're doing training and i'd be gone forward to my line manager or HR and said, you know, you've talked about this as a business.

13:36I feel that it's a safe space to open up. I think, I didn't know, but I think that could be me. Yes. And then that's when we could have gone down that road of going, okay, what does that actually mean? Yeah. So you struggle in this area. Could it be because of this? Yeah, it could be. Yeah. What can we do to help me? And the important thing is if you help me, it's going to help you. Yes. Yes. You know, even silly things like if I'm not very good at meeting deadlines. This isn't me, by the way, I was giving you an example. Yeah, just qualifying that. Yeah, just qualifying that. Just so you know any future comments, we're really good at that.

14:04So if I'm not very good at meeting deadlines, it's like, okay, if we can put something in place to help that, then my line manager is going to benefit because he or she isn't going to be chasing me. And maybe they're chasing me because their boss is chasing them. Sure. So it has this kind of positive domino effect. Yeah. So it's not just about what can I get out of it. It's actually I'm giving something back as well. Because you're getting a far happier, healthier, productive member of your team that's doing the work you want them to do. Rather than saying it's bad performance or whatever it is, we'll get you out, bring someone in again.

14:33But you might have been really, really good at your job. Yeah. Just a couple of things that tripped you up along the way. And Hester, what would have helped you not have 30 jobs? Oh, really good question. I think looking back, for me, it was the dopamine seeking. And I, so started my life out at work in ITV. I used to be a presenter on the right stuff. So the on-air sign would go ping and oh my God, showtime, like off I go. and actually as an industry in media, you moved on quite quickly. It was contract roles, wasn't it? I moved on quite quickly, and then I got into PR and marketing. So I didn't know it was my ADHD, and I think if I had found a role earlier, that kind of tickled the box of dopamine-seeking and fun, and I think that's what it was, is I was probably looking for something new and exciting and shiny and lovely.

15:22And I think running our own business now, I still do that. Like the other day, you're like, I see you've been designing another website. It's just like... We are constantly websites, domain names. I'm like, I've just created a new logo. How many domain names have you got? Honestly. Couldn't tell you. That's the honest answer. We've got a lot. Yeah. And don't you think that should be part of the diagnostic criteria? How many domain names have you got? Do you have the promo for Canva to design a logo or a business card just in case? That's exciting and shiny and lovely. And I think if I'd have known that from a career perspective, I inadvertently did find a career that suited me in terms of media going to PR and marketing and I did get to do some really cool stuff and for me that was really great and I didn't really know I masked but obviously I'm quite a lot and I would change jobs and I would think to myself right you're quite a lot you can be quite a lot for some people so just I used to think in my head and I didn't really think it was masking like just don't laugh as loudly okay right tone it down a little bit.

16:21Literally, be less Hester. I used to stay in my head, not that I refer to myself in the third person, but it would just be like, right, oh, it's been six weeks now. You can unleash a little bit and unleash the next bit. And do you remember I worked for Hitachi in finance? I mean, God knows how that happened, but I did. And they would comment on my outfits. It wasn't even that mad, just not corporate and I didn't wear a suit and whatever. But I think Like if I'd have been in a role where the manager was like, we get it, you get bored quite easily. Let's give you some project work. Let's support you with deadlines or kind of checking in halfway when you've got something.

16:59You know, there's quite a lot of autonomy in my role as well, which doesn't always suit neurodivergent folk because you're just expected to get on with stuff. So I think manager support. But I think like with Kelly, I think you found the workplace much more challenging. Whereas I got it almost a bit more bored, didn't I? Does that make sense? I think also looking back, I went into a career in sales. And, you know, you met me for five minutes before this. And, you know, it probably is not, looking back, it's not the career that I should have gone into. Ironically, I also, I sold British Gas door to door when I was 18.

17:32And I was... I'm happy. I was all right. Yeah. I was okay. I was okay. But I hate it. I hate to put so much effort into it because I'm not naturally, you know, small talk is the worst for me. You just have to do networking. network events and you know a lot of time you know later on in my career I would kind of lead teams and stuff so I would have to be the one that motivates everybody and it's the one out there laying that kind of foundation for everybody and it was so exhausting having to be that person rather than just sit at the back and go I'm part of the team I can just kind of be part of the team rather be come on guys you need to be motivated and motivate them you put so much effort into it and I remember you'd come up and you'd be like I have checked in with everyone I've asked how their holidays were I've checked in if they had a good I've made so much effort and someone went oh, I didn't feel that scene today.

18:15And Kelly's like, I don't know what more I can do for them. Like I have given a thousand percent. I know that's not a thing, but you know what I mean? That kind of, what else could I have done? Yeah. And we used to say that before my diagnosis, before we knew that I was kind of an extroverted introvert. So, you know, I am an introvert, but because of my job, because I had to pretend to be an extrovert. Yeah. Well, the masking. Exactly. Masking in my experience is just the extroversion, right? That is all it is. It's not being an extrovert. It's pretending to be something you're not. But it's so exhausting.

18:52So much energy, but also not just mentally, physically. I'd be physically exhausted. If I'd been away for work one day and you'd have to go to some sort of award ceremony or customer engagement, and I would just come away exhausted. And the next two days, I was like, one of the days, but I can't work today. You'd be physically alone as well, wouldn't you? We'd think, is it something you drank? Is it something you ate? We'd call you a lightweight. wait yeah but it wasn't that yeah so yeah that's responsibility is this of like is it the employer's responsibility is it the employee's responsibility is it people like you guys who are training and coaching and consulting is it the government's like whose responsibility is this i think it's a mix because if we talk about you know we're talking about maybe 20 percent of the population in neurodivergent i think probably more than that also 50 percent of those don't know they're neurodivergent.

19:41So actually, if you say it's down to the responsibility of the individual, what if they don't know? They just know they really struggle with certain things. Nobody's ever told them, you know, oh, you might be autistic or they've never thought about it. So it can't be just down to them because that's never going to work. From an organization point of view, if we go back to what I was saying before, if they are talking about these things, maybe that will kind of provide that light bulb moment for the individuals to go, that's me. Now I can look into that a bit more. So I think workplaces of a big responsibility because the barriers that they put around their people, they need to understand what works and what doesn't.

20:17So there's responsibility for them. There's obviously responsibility for the government in terms of policies and what we should be able to do and what's right and what's wrong. All these sorts of things. So I think it's a mix of all of them. But no, even just in terms of like coaching and things, I remember, you know, finished working with them. They're an amazing person. They would be in London a lot and I'd be like, right, so you need to know that the next couple of days you just need to have a quiet work situation. Can you work from home? Can you this? And they were openly autistic and ADHD.

20:45So they would share that and the boss would be like 100%. So you go home from that and you work from home for the next day or two. So there's not so much peopling. So you're still doing your work. You're still doing your job, but you're not back in the office, having to try and make that effort and just being able to remove getting to work, the travel, the what am I going to eat at lunch, the who's going to be in, am I hot desking, all those kinds of things. Yeah, take the demands away. Yeah. So I'm always like, you know, we kind of, even ourselves, we'd plan ahead and go, right, this is a really busy working week.

21:15Let's make sure we don't do much at the weekend. It's kind of the whole, you know, old don't burn the candle at both ends. But actually, as a neurodivergent person, you need to be responsible to go, yeah, I'm not going to then go out for dinner with someone that night and then do this the next day and then have a really busy weekend. Actually, I need to know where my barriers are. and I think with us as a neurodiversity consultancy, it's about the coaching and the understanding and we talk about stuff like that, don't we, in our training and our webinars and workshops. Like we did a big NHS one last week, didn't we?

21:43And I spent time at the end going, if you've got half an hour in your day, what can you do for yourself? What is it? Is it you want to message someone or call them or go for a walk or stand in your garden or read a book? Let's do more things for ourselves that help us recuperate. And this is for everybody, not just neurodivergent people. But for neurodivergent people, it's really important. to be able to understand yourself a bit more. And that's, I think, hopefully what coaching does is people go, oh yeah, I can't keep going. Because I think sometimes we're the worst, aren't we? Going, oh, let's keep going and keep going and I'll design a website and I'll get up early and all the shiny, exciting things.

22:17But I think, like Kelly said, it's everybody. It is, and I think we feel that responsibility really deeply. Because we're neurodivergent, we've got a neurodivergent family. We live and breathe every single day, right? And we're here, we talk to as many people, as many companies as we possibly can. And there's that responsibility to make sure that we get things right as well. Sure. Because we want people to get the correct information, not wrong information that you can just, you know, Google and it'll give you something. You think, oh, well, that's what it might be. Yes. You know, a client we worked with a couple of years ago, they had recruited an autistic individual and they were really proud of that.

22:50They thought this was great. Look, look, aren't we really great? I was like, fantastic. Okay. And they had issues. Well, it's just not working. Well, why is it not working? Well, because we've kind of given this individual their own desk, kind of in a quiet space in this open plan office. but they don't like that. And I said, why did you do that? Well, because we read that's what autistic people, they don't like other people, do they? So we've given them their own space away from everybody else. No, no, you've got it completely wrong. So there's this responsibility that we feel really strongly and quite heavy on us that we need to make sure that when we are communicating to people and companies, that they're getting the right message, the right awareness, the right accuracy around, look, you need to understand this properly.

23:28It's not stereotypes. It's not one size fits all. It's everybody's different. yeah it's just if you're neurodivergent you feel some of these things a lot stronger than anybody else and so then i can imagine maybe not so much people listening but certainly in the wider workplace managers going do you know what i'm having a workshop every bloody week on something dei wise yeah are you telling me that i have to learn all about autism yeah all about dyslexia all about dyspraxia whatever that is dysgraphia dyscalculia tourette's like blah blah Are you telling me I've got to suddenly become an expert in all of this stuff?

24:07That is so overwhelming. And you're telling me that everyone's individual. You're telling me that it doesn't show up in the same way. Get off. It's too much. And it's really overwhelming. Yeah. That's really overwhelming. If you said that to somebody, oh my God, I can't cope. The easy answer is no. Obviously, they don't need to become the expert. That's why we're here. It's about giving people information. It's about making safe spaces so people can talk about these sorts of things so they can understand. It's being able to signpost that people say, look, we're not the experts here, but we can help you on your journey.

24:42It's not about having all the answers, is it? It's about going, do you know what? Okay, so you've got dysgraphia. I don't know much about that. Can you share what that means to you? Can you explain it to me? We don't have to have all the answers. And I think managers feel, oh my God, like you said, I need to be an expert in this. I need to be an expert in gender. Another thing. Like, oh my God, like what else? And obviously it's a hidden disability. It's a hidden condition. So then it's like, well, hold on a minute. I can't even see it now. And now I don't know what to do. And they don't even have to tell me.

25:13You don't have to legally disclose that you're neurodivergent. But you can then go, bam, mic drop. And you're like, well, hold on. I didn't know. You know, it's a minefield and I completely get that. But I think it's about saying, you know, we say, even if you suspect someone else, you don't out them. Remember that call we had and they went, how do we find them? We were like, it's not Hunger Games. Like, you know, how do we track them down? We were like, we didn't work with them, did we? Funny enough, they were not the company for us. You're not neurodiversity detectives. Yeah, I know. Hiya. You're not hiding, you know.

25:43Yeah, yeah, in plain sight. And I think it's about saying, we've just seen there are some challenges. Maybe you're not getting your work in on time. We are struggling with this. We seem really overwhelmed. Is everything okay? Can I support you? And I think sometimes when people say, how can I help you? That feels massive. But if it's like you say this to me, okay, you seem overwhelmed. How can I help you? I don't know. And then it's like, okay, what are you struggling with? Okay, well, I've got this in my mind. I've got this. And then you work it out. And that's what managers can do. And it's that kind of going, I don't have all the answers.

26:16I've never heard of dysgraphia. I've never heard of dyscalculia. Like, I don't know much about these terms. Please help me understand. What does it look like for you? What does that mean? rather than everyone feeling they have to have all the answers. It's not that at all. And I think that's the important thing. It's asking questions and then it's listening. Yeah. So tell me. So I don't make assumptions that make the situation worse. The labels and the terms actually in this case are actually really unhelpful because they're so loaded. Yeah. They're so judged. They come with so much bias, prejudice, stigma.

26:52What about the Barbie and Mattel? Yeah. I mean, autistic Barbie, that's blown up. Yeah, that really has blown up. I bet Mattel were not expecting that. And it's because, well, it's a look and it's this and you're saying. And it's one. And it's one and Barbie's a female. We were talking to our son about it. I had a little debate with him the other day because I was like, right, let's discuss this. And he went, what about Ken? Yeah. Because as an autistic 14-year-old boy. Of course. Where's Ken in this? Fair enough. Why is Ken not in your bedroom? My autistic daughter's like, I don't need any more Barbies.

27:23I've got Barbies. Is she? Yeah. You were like, phew. It doesn't matter that this is autistic Barbie. I know, but it's really interesting. And I think this is what happens. And as a community, we find everyone's very quick to attack and jump on. That's not the right thing to say. Yes. That's not. It's quite militant at times. I'm putting myself out there. No, no. There is a police force on LinkedIn. Oh, yeah. And on social, the neuro-linguistic police, I call them, the NLP. Do they have a badge? They are on you. Yeah, of course they are. Honestly, yeah. And also someone in the public eye like yourself, you've then got to be careful what you say.

28:06And you're like, this is my personal opinion. Sure. Like, please don't tell me what my view is. But also I find that they attack, but they don't have any solutions themselves. It's just a lot easier to say that's wrong. Yeah, you shouldn't say it like that. No, so what should it be? Well, I don't know. but you don't do it's like well no give us something constructive help us out a little bit like we do a lot you know in workshops and things around language and what to say and what not to say our children could not care less they're like I'm autistic I have autism we have the tism touch of the they literally don't care they're like I'm not bothered yeah just see me hear me and listen and support like it doesn't define me yeah but I think this is it isn't it and we do do around language and what to say and what not to say because I think that's really important from a workplace perspective if we talk specifically about language it's whatever's right for that individual.

28:53How they want to phrase, you know, their condition, how they feel it, what it feels like. That's purely, you know, it's down to them. Use whatever language. That's why it's good to ask them. So how would you explain your autism? How would you explain your ADHD, for instance? When I'm kind of doing training workshops, I'm very clear that for those individuals that are neurodivergent, whatever goes for them works for them. If it's the wider audience and they're trying to learn and educate themselves awareness, I want to try and make sure, right, This is what the community prefers in terms of language or wording or phrasing, but that will differ.

29:24But if you're, as a non-neurodivergent individual, going to talk about somebody who's autistic or ADHD, this is the language you should use, but then refer to the individual if you can. And that's really important because otherwise you will just get this, people piling in and go, well, that's not right. I'm not agreeing with that. And then the companies will go, it's too much. I don't get it. It's too complicated. And I'm worried about saying the wrong thing. The beauty I am finding, and we are a fully neurodivergent team on the charity, we're a large majority neurodivergent team on the drink side as well, is that I don't need to talk about the labels because I'm having a conversation about how somebody processes information or how somebody likes to receive information.

30:09And that's got absolutely nothing to do, actually, with needing to call out, oh, you're autistic. What is it like for you? It's like, no, let's just talk about how do we want a meeting to be? Yeah. That's got nothing. That's just individual way of working that is like, let's get the best. And it benefits everybody. And that's great because you're obviously your company set up and people understand. But most companies don't. And if you just said to somebody, well, you know, in a company, well, I don't like doing things like that. that doesn't work for me or I get really anxious. You know, the immediate reaction is, well, don't be ridiculous.

30:42Why would you get anxious at that? I don't get anxious at that. We're just going to carry on. I think using the labels almost makes us go, oh, okay. All right, there's a reason now for this. Right, let me listen to it. So, right, you struggle with that. You're processing or deadlines, whatever it might be. Okay, you're saying it's ADHD or because you're autistic. Right, okay, I will listen a bit more now. Because if you just said, I can't do that, well, don't be ridiculous. Go and learn to do it. But there are some things that we can't learn to do. It doesn't matter how much coaching you get, how much training, my brain just doesn't compute.

31:12So I think labels are quite useful at the moment. But, you know, the hope is that there is a day when most companies are like, the way you've described it, we don't need to use labels. We just talk about, look, I struggle with that or I find it easy doing this or can we do it that way? Yeah, absolutely. Explain why. What's the benefit? But I think at the moment, people don't understand why people might struggle with something or why we might need to do it a different way. You know, we even struggle just to communicate differently. yeah you know what do you mean you want to communicate that way well because it's it well no i do it this way so you're going to do it that way yeah so i think that helps break down the barriers and say okay there's a reason i get it rather than just you're being difficult i think also some labels people feel quite scared with so i always say adhd is your gateway drug people can handle maybe thinking they've got adhd it's a bit cool it's a bit quirky oh the media says whatever, you say autism, you might be autistic.

32:05It's like, bam, it's like a grenade in there. People are like, what do you mean? That's where the stereotypes come in, don't you? You go, oh, okay, I've seen a movie about that. Or you think, you know, Sherlock, the good doctor, young Sheldon, you know. Rain Man is the one people mostly remember. No, that's not the way. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, true for us all. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for the older lot, for the younger lot, it's young doctor, young Sheldon and stuff. But I think that's the thing is people don't realise, and they're often talking about ADHD, but actually they're not. They're talking about their autistic traits because if you're autistic, it's 70 % chance you've also got ADHD.

32:37You two both are autistic ADHD. Our kids are both autistic ADHD. There is this huge overlap and I think this is what's happening is people aren't realising that and then maybe they're seeking an ADHD diagnosis or they're taking ADHD medication and bam, here comes their autism, which they didn't know was hiding in the corner. And people aren't aware of that, are they? And I'm seeing that a lot in my coaching where I've got people going, but hold on, I've been diagnosed with ADHD, I'm medicated, why am I still feeling anxious? Why am I still feeling this? And I'm like, because you're autistic and you just didn't realise it yet kind of thing.

33:13So the labels are important, unfortunately, sometimes. If somebody's undiagnosed listening and struggling at work, but has done an online test or is on a wait list or thinks they might be or is relating to TikTok videos or whatever, what rights do they have in their job, like as an employee? Well, if you're neurodivergent, it comes under the Disabilities Act, right? So companies have to put certain things in place, what we call reasonable adjustments. Okay. And they're called reasonable for reason. You know, you can't do whatever you want to do. So if you go to an employee and say, look, I'm really struggling this.

33:49I think, you know, I have ADHD or I do have ADHD or I'm autistic. The employee needs to listen and they need to have a conversation with you. Says, OK, where are you struggling? What support do you need? If you know what support you need and what reasonable adjustments could be put in place. So it might be things like the environment you're in. It might be where you're seated. It might be allowing you to have things like noise cancelling headphones or earphones. Flexible working. Flexible working because you work better at certain times. or maybe your job involves lots of focus during certain parts of the day.

34:19So actually, is there an area you can go outside of this big open plan, you know, space that's got hot desking? You can go and spend an hour a day to do your focused work because we know that that will help you. So they need to listen and put some things in place and work with that individual to understand what is it you need? Where can we help you? And, you know, a lot of times the individual will say, but I don't know. I don't know what I need. I just know I'm really struggling. And that's where they need to have a conversation. Okay, talk me through where you're struggling. And I always say to kind of companies and leaders, look, you can then have a conversation around the challenges rather than the condition.

34:54So don't worry too much about the diagnosis. What are the challenges? Where do you struggle? Okay, let's unpick that. Don't worry about the diagnosis. Why do you struggle? What can we help you with? And then also the individual can say, well, if you can help me with that, it makes me a better member of the team. And I can help you in turn. I think when you ask for requests or when you're like, I struggle with this and they come up with a solution, you can then reframe it as an employee. If I have this, this will help me do X, Y and Z. Look at that. Aren't I being great and supportive? And I think the thing is, though, there are such long waiting lists.

35:29It's 10 years, isn't it, in some areas. Some areas have closed the ADHD waiting list now, unless you're very severely at a point in crisis, unfortunately. So actually, we always say put things in place now. Don't wait for a diagnosis. Some people might not want to be diagnosed. It's obviously their choice. Sure. But actually, they know and work can still put things into place and support them with whatever that looks like. But like Kelly said, it's got to be really important. So therefore, sorry, just to be really clear there, if I'm an employee and I don't have a diagnosis, I can still approach my boss, manager.

36:02You don't need a formal diagnosis. You do not need a formal diagnosis. The fact that you're going to say, I believe I'm AG, I believe I'm autistic, that's kind of that's really important that's really important because there are half a million people sat on a waiting list I know yeah right exactly with no like light at the end of the tunnel it's not just round the corner no and also I think you get a lot of people that maybe will diagnose autistic first and go I can't go through another diagnosis this feels too much or there's too many forms there's too many barriers aren't there in getting a diagnosis so I think 100 % you can go to your employer and ask for reasonable adjustments because we had that email from someone saying I work in a warehouse on the warehouse manager and I've asked to work from home and I was like right and they the employer had said yes to two or three days working from home and they said but that's unfair I want to be able to work from home always and I was like I had to reply and be like you are a warehouse manager you need to be in the warehouse to manage that yes so maybe this isn't the right role for you and I think sometimes sometimes employers especially think, oh my God, I've got this person and I have to do this for them.

37:09But actually, at the end of the day, you're running a business, you're running a company, whether it's your own company or a bigger organisation, the person still has to do their job. So actually, is it about looking and seeing where routes that person could fit? Do you know what I mean? Is this the best role for them? Is this the best way? Like Kelly said, you know, when he worked at PepsiCo, lots of different opportunities, places to go. Is that really the best we're getting from them or actually if we take them out and put them in there is that going to be magical and that's the the part that unlocks it for them and i think that's really important and can you paint me a picture of the dream employer wow okay i think i think probably like best in class just absolute five stars gold stars absolutely perfect employer okay from neurodiversity.

37:59And just to clarify, that doesn't exist today. It doesn't exist today. I think it's an employee that's kind of open and honest. They've got the awareness and understanding. They're asking their individuals questions about themselves. Top down. Top down. So the person at the top is consistently and constantly communicating, talking about these things. So it becomes a safe space, right? Because if they're not talking about it, I better not either because, God, something's going to happen. So we talk about the stigma and the fear. There's a huge stigma around it, but also the fear if I open up, I'm gone.

38:32Or what are they going to think of me? Or they're not going to promote me. It's a weakness. Exactly, yeah. It's a weakness. Well, they can only do that type of job, so we'll stick them over there. So it's having that kind of awareness. It's kind of being open about what they do and how they do it. And I think also it's focusing on people's strengths. So an organization that focuses on individual strengths and puts them into roles and gives them tasks that place their strengths rather than weaknesses. Because what we tend to do as big companies, we want to kind of put everybody into this one box.

38:58And we say it's one size fits all. We want you all to do all of these things okay. Yeah. Rather than we want some experts. So we want experts to be great at that. We know you're not going to get that and never are, but we know somebody in your team, your weakness is their strength. Yes. Let's give them all of those types of roles. Why do we try and fit you all into this box? It's sort of dividing and conquering, isn't it? Looking in the team and going, Hester, you're absolutely shocking at Excel and maths. Let's not let you do that, but stick you in front of a client. Absolutely fabulous, because that would be your idea of not so keen.

39:29We don't do that with the football team. We don't do that with the army. Your analogy that I'm not allowed to share because every time I share it, I get it slightly wrong, is about a football team. So, yeah, I talk about a football team and I say, right, you bring a new striker in, right? And I'm the manager of the team and I'm like, right. We've noticed your strengths. You're really good at scoring goals. You score 10 goals a season. That's amazing. We'll park that because it's a strength. We don't need to do anything with that. But your weaknesses, we've noticed that you're not very good at saving penalties, are you?

39:54But I don't. One day, as an organization, we might need you to save a penalty. So for the next year, we're going to make you work on your penalties and that's it. And at the end of the year, we're going to base your bonus on how many penalties you've saved in training and whether we think you're good enough now. What they should be doing is saying, that's irrelevant. Saving penalties is not something we want you to do. But your strength, what we want to try and do is build you from 10 goals a season to 15, to 20, to 25. That's far more valuable to us as a company than having you focus on saving penalties, which you'll never have to do.

40:24but as an organisation we like everybody to be able to do a bit of everything. And that's kind of what we kind of say, don't we? I think people go around and get it wrong. Pay for the maths tutor because the child isn't very good at maths and ignore the arts tutor because they are a brilliant painter. Yes, because we don't need that. No, no, make them better at maths. It just seems so counterintuitive. Well, it is, isn't it? I was thinking about this the other day very randomly going off on a tangent. When I was having to choose my GCSE options, We're looking at that for our son at the moment.

40:55I really, really wanted to do drama. I was not allowed to apply to take drama because I was told I was too loud and outgoing. And I was thinking, my God, if that happened to our kids now, I'd go absolutely mad. So I wasn't, they refused to let me apply for GCSE drama. Think where I could be now, Ben. Yeah. Like the sky's the limit. But isn't that mad? Yeah. Whereas actually, rather than going, she likes being on stage, she's quite outgoing. she'd be fabulous at drama and they were basically sort of sharing it as if drama was something for the not confident children and that's how we'll be sure I could have got an A in that G's but we have this weird uniform mediocre ambition yeah right where it's just like let's get everybody to the same level yeah smooth it all out yeah everyone's the same yeah oh no you're a bit too good at that go over there and do something that you're not so good at yeah okay so strengths based on your perfect company things like more clarity.

41:52What is it we actually want? What are we doing? You know, expectations. Are the expectations clear? Because we all have different expectations. And for somebody who's neurodivergent, your expectations might be very, very different. So being really clear about expectations, the processes, what you're going to be doing, what you're not going to be doing. And also the whole hideous, you know, performance tracking at the end of the year and all that kind of stuff. And actually, have they been really clear from day one? Or is it a bit ambiguous and you're not quite sure? And then they go, oh, you didn't do that.

42:20Yes. And you're like, you didn't tell me that was part of my job. Caught you out. And actually, I've been really busy running an ERG and doing all these amazing things. So it's, I think, like you said, that being really clear from day one. What about recruitment process? Recruitment's a really big one, isn't it? We talk a lot to companies about recruitment because, you know, nobody gets it right and more often than not, they get it terribly wrong. You know, right from the beginning, even before they get the person through the door, they get it wrong. So things like job descriptions, you know, we're talking forever with companies about most companies, and I know because I've been in that position, you take a job description you just regurgitate the same one you used last time you just change the name copy and paste and maybe you know a couple other bits but the basis of it the same you know what your competence are what you need to do it's always the same so excellent communication skills yeah sure you know great presenting and you think they normally have like 10 things and from an autistic person's point of view i can speak personally i'll read that job description i'll think oh they're asking for 10 things i've only got eight of those so actually i won't apply because there'll be people out there that have got all 10 and there won't be.

43:17So it's almost think about what's relevant and what's not. Why are you asking for this stuff? It goes back to the strengths of the weaknesses. If it's not relevant, leave it out. Or like, you know, you need four years excellent presenting skills. I've got three and a half. So you'd be like, well, I've only got three and a half. So I won't apply. Yeah, but I did a poetry competition when I was seven. Bam. Hello. Yeah. Four years. Presenting what? I know, exactly. Well, it gives me the vibe when I applied for that job when we went backpacking in Australia and I applied for a sandwich job and they said, how many years experience making sandwiches?

43:46And I was like, like 15? And they were like, really? And I was like, well, yeah, because I've been making them since I was like 13. I didn't get the job. No, you didn't. Absolutely fuming. But it is that, isn't it? It's like, what do you mean when you say experience? What level? So I think recruitment is a huge one and it's about getting it right with the job description. Like you said, not copying and pasting. And then it's the interviews. Well, even before the interviews, you get that question, don't you? Do you want to disclose anything? if you want to disclose if you're a new advert you've got disabilities well personally myself i wouldn't ever disclose during a job because i think we're not ready for that as businesses yeah stereotypes you may not be going to hr it might be going to an actual line manager who goes well i don't i don't want some of my team that's like that because i've heard what they're like kind of thing so don't disclose and then you don't get the support when you go for the interview because you haven't disclosed and then you go for the interview as you're going to say and it's more about performance within that interview rather than well are you actually any good yeah will you be good at the job it's like well they didn't perform in in the room i used to work in recruitment many years ago lots of different hats and we used to recruit for the investment banks in london and we would get people in the door the candidates who're going for the jobs in reception and we'd ask the receptionist when she'd show them to the room so what were they like did they you know did they look smart were they personable and she'd give us a rundown and we'd almost make our mind up on whether they were going to be any good or not from the feedback she gave us and she wasn't even a recruiter and then we went into the room we'd work out oh was it a good handshake and this whole thing about, is it a good handshake?

45:08Did they maintain eye contact? Did they have any fidget at all? If any of those things were off, then were they not going to be any good, are they? I don't know any job in the world where part of your criteria or task is to give good handshakes. Sure. I mean, we'll go down a slippery slope with that one, but you know, or maintain good eye contact or body language. So most interviews are about... I mean, sales would be the one where I'd kind of go, yeah, first impression. Yeah. Yes. But does the handshake matter? Yeah, but I, so I, maybe I'm old school. Maybe I would say the handshake does matter.

45:39What if it's too limp? Yeah, yeah. I don't... What if it's too firm? I hate your bone crusher. And I'm like, all right, love, I'm 4 '11". You don't have to exert your authority on me. But I think the point is lots of things we base our views criteria on an individual is not related to how well they're going to do the task, right? It's all this kind of other stuff which is like you can sort out. Or me fidgeting. Right now I fidget a lot. Does that mean I'm not paying attention? Does that mean I'm not listening? does that mean I wouldn't do a great job because I would fidget in the interview because I fidget?

46:08And it's things like, if you think about somebody's neurodivergent, we do sometimes have slower processing, right? So you're asked a question and you need to respond straight away. In the event, having a response straight away, well, you're no good because they're no good at answering questions. Or there's a two or a three-parter. Yeah. I remember the first bit, but not the, can you say that again? Just ask me one question and be done with it. So we always say, you know, send the questions out in advance. 24 hours, 48 hours. Some love that. and others like well that's cheating isn't it what do you mean it's cheating well because they're going to know what to answer then but it's not cheating you want to see that person in their best light you're not trying to trip them up yeah and they're like but why should we send it to them i said no no send to everybody yeah yeah of course make it a level playing field yeah because i might have some really great examples of stuff i've done really well that link directly to what you want me to do yeah but on the spot i can't think of anything you asked me what i did yesterday i'll be like god i don't know sure i can't think you asked what i did in 1996 i can probably tell you But do you know what I mean?

47:02So it kind of works that way. So if you're asking me for a question, I don't know. You'll get better answers if I have a bit of time. But I think people think they'll have time to really think about it. Well, good. That's what we want them to. I did this the other day on the NHS workshop and they were like, they might chat GPT it. I was like, but you're quite quickly going to know if they just chat GPT'd it or if they actually know the medical answer. It was like a role where you'd be out and about in the community. And I was like, I could chat GPT the answer or any other AI. But you'd quite quickly know if I actually really, like you only have to ask one extra question.

47:36Exactly. Like I could probably remember it, but you asked me an actual practical question. If you're meeting a patient that, well, now I'm screwed. Like, so, you know, I think there's that real fear, isn't there, of that. But actually, we always say like an interview should be like a best man speech where you want the person to do well. It's not like a ha, you got that wrong, you tripped up. Ha. Shouldn't be that, should it? But we start from this place of like, are you any good? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we start from the place of you're not good. You prove yourself. Yeah. It's guilty until proven innocent, isn't it?

48:08This dynamic of like, you want this job and I've got the power because I can give it to you. Yeah. Rather than like, hold on a minute, I'm interviewing you as well, mate. This is it. I was just thinking, if anyone's watching, it's got to be a two-way street because I've been in interviews and quite quickly you're like, oh, this is not the job for me. It looked great on paper and I've got the interview and this is wonderful. I remember I went for a job years ago as a PR comms person and they were like, congratulations, we'd love to invite you for a second interview. And I was like, yeah, no, I'm all right, thanks.

48:35And they were so surprised. And I was like, no, that's not right for me. And I think this is the thing with getting back to the strengths that people bring to the team, but also knowing where they want to work is an office based place for you. Do you want to be out and about? Do you want to run your own business? Do you want to be creative and free and with a laptop somewhere? We're doing this a lot with our children, aren't we? What does that look like for you? And we're talking to our son at the moment about GCSEs. And then he's like, what comes next? And we're like, there's A-levels, but there's also T-levels, or there's diplomas, or there's BTECs.

49:07We're like, the world is really big and wonderful and magical. And yes, you do need some GCSEs, I always think, to get through life. Absolutely fair enough. But actually, you don't need to follow this conformed path. I mean, look at us setting up Perfect Autistic. I don't know how old we are now. In our early 40s, strong corporate background for you. That's all you've ever done. And we just went, do you know what? We've always wanted to work together. let's set up this business and actually work for ourselves and that's why so many neurodividend folk work for themselves let's just talk about the fact that you work together yeah and you have yeah your own business and you are married I love it yeah all three tick tick tick tick tick tick yeah yeah I mean for context we've been together for 25 years this year congrats yes thank you you're going to have a medal marriage for 18 marriage for 18 and we've known each other from years before I won't go into it but we've known each other from years before Just check out Hester's first episode.

49:58I've heard the story before. You don't need to repeat it. But within three months, we were in Australia, travelling, backpacking, and we worked together at the Melbourne Boat Show cleaning shoes, right, cleaning boots. And we were like, we would love to work together. This would be amazing. But then you get back and you get a house and a mortgage and you have kids. And you follow life and this is where you should do things. You go out to work, separate jobs. So it's taken us kind of 19 years roughly to get back to this point of let's start business together. But I think the important bit is we didn't start the business thinking oh what business can we start right we want to start business what we can do that wasn't the idea at all we're both working both you know successful and it really came down to kind of my diagnosis and then the feedback from my company and i think when i was diagnosed first as autistic we decided that i should tell people it was only myself hester and the two kids knew even my immediate family didn't know and they've the kids have been diagnosed first yeah and it was off the back yeah from that diagnosis things started kind of thing hold on this is resonating this is me and i got a message from hester one day i was away with work and you know it said here's some feedback from the psychologist i said well hold on is this me or hudson our son because i'm like well it sounds like me and that's when the kind of penny dropped and then we i got back and we're like well let's pursue a formal diagnosis because the way my brain work is it's very black or white so i needed to know sure it wasn't good enough to go well i might be sure i need to know for sure yeah so got the diagnosis and i thought right the next thing i to do, which a lot of people need to do that work with companies is tell their company potentially.

51:26And I thought, well, I want to do that because I want to explain. And I remember having the conversation head thinking, there's lots of ways this conversation could go. And the way my brain works again, I kind of work out what those different ways are going to go. So I've then got a backup plan. So I picked up the phone to my boss and I explained the situation, the process, and it was formal and I'd been diagnosed autistic. And he just laughed at me and said, really? Well, you don't look autistic. And that wasn't one of the scenarios I thought of. That was not the bingo card, was it? So it kind of threw me.

51:53And the conversation only got worse from there with some kind of the feedback. And that was the point where I decided, do you know what, I don't want to work for this company anymore because there wasn't any support after that conversation either. But it was a big global corporation. Big, big global company. I was kind of, yeah, sales director at the time for London. He was head of UK and Ireland. And I said, right, this is really bad. I started to reach out to other people and found out actually that's not an uncommon response from work. So we were thinking... Or in the public. In the public job.

52:20Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just to also say... People. But particularly at work where there should be some more responsibility and accountability from workplace. Ah, and it's a professional setting, right? Yeah, exactly. Life's not a personal setting. And I think what we tend to forget is companies, you know, you are at the end of the day just a number to a company, right? If you go, they're not going to go, oh, my God, what are we going to do now? But as individuals, we think, oh, my God, we need to be loyal, do what we can because, oh, we need, you know, as soon as you've gone, you're like, I can't believe I've given them 10 years of my life kind of thing.

52:45So that's when we decided. Not small companies, by the way. No, no, no, absolutely not. Phoebe, Charlie. No, obviously not. We were like, Ben doesn't care. So it was kind of that. And then that's where we decided, well, look, let's do something about this. Two reasons. One is to, how can we make companies like the one I worked for just understand a bit better? Yeah. But not just understand, it's the acceptance. Not the kind of laughing, going, don't worry, Dick, say you're autistic, you know, look autistic. Yes. We get it kind of thing. But then on the selfish side of things, we were like, well, actually, our children, I can't remember how old they were at the time.

53:16I'm really bad at math. Like eight and like ten. Eight and ten. And they'd been diagnosed. We thought, actually, if we can speak to as many people, as many companies as possible, by the time they make that huge transition from school to work, maybe the world would be a slightly kinder place. Yes. And they won't have to explain. They might have to go through all this. People go, yeah, we get it. Yeah. Because we've been talking about it for the last 10 years. And that's kind of why it came about. And I think that's why it works, because it's not something we thought, what business can we set up?

53:44How can we make money? It was just like, well, let's do this. And is the aim there for, obviously, that companies don't need people like you? That's exactly it. Right? Yeah, you know, especially with your workplace mediation as well. Like, that's a huge increase. You don't want to be doing workplace mediation. We want to get to a stage where you don't need us in for workshops or webinars or there to be training, because you know the stuff, you know this, and it's all okay. And actually, it's okay to be different. It's normal to be different. You know, I think that's the key point. Yeah, we don't want to be doing this forever.

54:15No. Don't know what we'd do. But presumably if enough neurodivergent leaders, managers can advocate enough and understand enough and therefore cultures and ways of working and all the other corporate bollocks terms that I'm talking about, like change and shift, that just infiltrates. That just then becomes the norm. Yeah. And I think also it's about people advocating for themselves. Like for us, that's massive with our kids. And we are hugely trying to make them advocate for themselves. Because, you know, like I took my daughter to the GP and I always have to, they're like, why are you here? And I was just like, do you want me to start?

54:52And India's like, yeah. And I'm like, oh, we're here because. And then within like 10 seconds, she's like, so this has happened, didn't it? And she's like, and I wasn't happy with that. And I came home and I said to you, that girl can advocate for herself. And that is what I want. And I think a lot of grownups can't advocate for themselves. And I think, you know, there's the whole stats around the time a child is 12, if they've got ADHD, they will have received 20 ,000 more negative comments, 20 ,000 than their peers, their friends that, you know. And I think then adults grow up and go out into the world of work and they lack confidence and they struggle and they can't advocate for themselves and they can't go, hold on, I'm struggling or can you help me, please?

55:31They go, yeah, yeah, that's fine. That's fine. And they're kind of suffering in silence. and they're masking, but also they're the coping ones, you know, and then maybe if you're a woman and you hit perimenopause, bam, or you're a guy and you've been working flat out the whole time and then you get to a certain age and you're like, I can't keep going. And we see this a lot, don't we? Men especially, and women, but I mean like, you know, from your perspective, 40s, 50s, who have been masking all these years and are in roles that maybe don't suit them and they've been providing and this and that.

56:00And then on the flip side, you get women who've had kids and then maybe kids are diagnosed and then you hit the perimenopause. And I think it's interesting. We see there's almost like this lost generation, right? Between maybe, I don't know, 35, 40 to kind of up to 60 that were born in the 70s and 80s. And, you know, diversity certainly wasn't a thing. It was around, but nobody knew about it. Autism, ADHD. Unless it was very high needs. Yes, unless you're kind of in that space. So people just grew up and just got on with it, right? They coped, they masked, they got through life, they struggled through life, maybe struggled from job to job, relationship to relationship.

56:34We're now seeing a lot of these individuals coming forward to us and saying, you know, I think I'm neurodivergent. I think I'm autistic. I think I've got ADHD. And a lot of the time it's because of the diagnosis of their children. Because we know these runs in families, right? And suddenly you've got these kind of 40s, 50 year olds that go, my whole life, I'm looking back now and I think, oh my God, that wasn't the real me. I don't know what to do now. I've now received a diagnosis and it's made everything clear. Or some people say, well, I got a diagnosis when I was younger. It was the wrong diagnosis.

57:02Sure. So we're seeing this real group of people that kind of were missed. So many people are misdiagnosed, especially women, borderline personality disorder, anxiety, depression, bipolar. No, no, they're autistic in a neurotypical world or they're ADHD and autistic. Like that's what it is. And the labels are 50%. Borderline personality disorder is another one that drops out. Yeah. Yeah. And this is it, is I think there is that real lost generation and then you get to a certain age and you feel like you're coping in inverted commas and actually you find you're not coping so well and that's when it becomes an issue in the workplace which then affects home life which then affects relationships or marriage or partners or whatever it is it then has a much more bigger impact i'm yet to come across somebody telling me about an industry around neurodiversity where someone is not saying to me oh wow yeah ND over indexes in our industry and I'm talking banking construction finance legal yeah medical the arts music sport etc politics whatever and so and I just wondered if based on your guys experience and the different kinds of companies and organizations you've worked with we are everywhere right yeah 100 % like every industry yeah there's this neurodiversity doesn't matter how big your company is how small is what industry where you're based geographically yeah although some areas will you know talk about it less than others or maybe not allowed to talk about it and others all don't believe in it but yeah everywhere individuals are everywhere but we do find in certain industries certain companies you'll get higher or lower percentages depending on the type of work 100 % because we've actually kind of kind of gravitate over the stuff that works Yes.

58:48Red Bull, we've got engineering, tick. We've got Formula One, tick, which is a huge sport loved by a lot of autistic people. It's very analytical, isn't it? And so, you know, you've then got a much higher percentage of people. I was just thinking, we used to live in Reading. They've got the Microsoft headquarters, the Oracle headquarters at Silicon Valley of the UK. There's a really high percentage of neurodivergent kids in Reading and Berkshire. I wonder why. Yeah. Where are all their parents working? Yeah, of course. And we see it a lot in the different industries we work with. And you can just see that they're struggling.

59:24Their employees are struggling and they can't see why. But you're right. You know, we are everywhere. Give me some best in class examples of adjustments, changes, policies, campaigns that some of your clients have put in place and are doing. that people listening who run companies or run ERGs, et cetera, can kind of take some inspiration from? I will say that, you know, we work at Red Bull. They're amazing. They put coaching in place for their colleagues, for their employees, whether they're diagnosed or not. You know, if someone's struggling and they feel they would need some support from someone who understands neurodiversity, here's Hester, which is amazing, I think.

1:00:09And I think for us, it's the organisations that go, what else can we do? I think it's the ones that are open to supporting. That's what it is. I'm standing to find you out more. Yeah. We don't want to lose you. Yeah. What can you tell us? How can we help you? Like I was just thinking about like TUI. We did a massive piece of work with them around neuro-inclusive holidays. Amazing. Oh my God. Like travelling and holidays with neurodivergent children, if you're neurodivergent yourself. So we did a whole piece of work and then they went, hold on a minute, what about all our staff? Like, does that make sense?

1:00:38Yeah. they're neurodivergent how do we support them so we went through a programme they also take holidays 100 % and they work here of helping them and training them which is great yeah and I think that's the thing it's a lot of companies it's the journey that you're on and I think that's what's key is it's not a like we said you know neurodiversity celebration week is coming up tick box exercise done that's not what it has to be I think you can tell that it always starts with an awareness piece yeah to get the whole company on the same page yes because if you've got a few people that don't get it yeah it's not going to work for those individuals and then it kind of spirals from there very quickly we can tell the discussion yeah right you talk about awareness but we can tell that you you kind of get it right you get what we're talking about maybe you you're directly linked somehow to neurodiversity whether yourself or somebody else but we get that you get it and you want to do some more things yeah and you're talking to us from the perspective of our people need our help how can you help us rather than you know we want to do something for this day yeah and then everybody go we're really happy and they'll be they'll all be fixed because we've done a workshop kind of thing, right?

1:01:37It's kind of that ongoing stuff. So I think that's a really important bit, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, I think the main point, trying to remember your original question, is almost like what does not quite best in show look like? But I think for us, it's all around communication. I think if you get the communication right, whether it's at work, whether it's with colleagues, whether it's relationships, whatever it is, it's that communication is key, isn't it? So understanding how different people communicate, which we've talked about already, but understanding, maybe does someone want you to follow up with that on email?

1:02:03do they prefer a face-to-face so that they can understand and take it in but then they still need that on email to follow up so you can refer back to it yes you know is it that actually someone doesn't want to be in a room with loads of people when that's being discussed is it that actually someone would be preferred to work from home and it's teams and that's more comfortable but i think communication is key isn't it i think that's really important is getting the communication right yeah 70 of it i never understood mid to late 20s why i absolutely loathed brainstorms and yet i was in a creative industry and in an industry that was all about ideas and design and all the rest of it and yet in a brainstorm i was usually quite rubbish where you know what would happen because i didn't want to be put on the spot i want to think about stuff because i want to work it out i'd like sure i can have ideas but i actually also can work stuff out to come out with the idea yeah you need to go through that process yeah and sometimes you've got to go through that like my kids now know but like i'm not going to guess don't ask me to guess about anything we do this all the time i'm like guess what that said guess what happened now i don't want to guess just tell me guess guess how much that cost guess this not guessing yeah no kelly's the same don't ask me yeah it's almost one of those where they stand in the room yeah they've got their notepad right go brainstorm right blue sky thinker whatever they want to call it crappy words you know right go right Ben go what have you got you haven't got anything okay right next one and also the whole no idea is a bad idea yeah stupid but also it is because then you would say something and everyone would go oh no well this idea is a bad idea for a start so yeah stupid but as you say actually do you know what we're all going to come together have a think this is what we're going to discuss agendas for meetings do we need a meeting do we need the brainstorm like we were doing some work with mind mental health charity amazing super proud of that they were like re-looking at all their meetings and how they should run and I said how many meetings have you had for that they'd had five meetings to discuss their redoing of meetings mind-blowing mind-blowing but actually brainstorming we're going to have a brainstorm this is what we're going to discuss bring your ideas with you yeah here's some information up front here's a brief think about it Ben go away come to it you know in a couple of days time with your thoughts yeah not get you on the spot yeah not to kind of labour the point on like It doesn't matter.

1:04:23I don't really care whether you're autistic or ADHD or dyslexic or whatever. I just like care how can you thrive and how can you do your best work? Yes. That again comes back to asking the questions. Yeah. What are you good at? How do you like to communicate? What do you mean you want it unwritten? Well, okay. Well, if that's what you want, it'll take me two extra minutes to put that information in an email rather than stop you in the corridor and go, Ben, glad I've got you. I need to do this, this and this for me. God, I can't remember what that was that he asked me to do. Yeah. It's just little things.

1:04:50It's easy. Can you just send me an email? Oh, what a f***ing DV. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Can I just? No, I can't actually. But then also you've then got that clarity, haven't you? So when they go, oh, you didn't do that and you go, as per my email dated, you've got that as not evidence, but then it just keeps it clear in your head. I can look back at it another time. I can see exactly what you're asking me for. Oh, and I can see you prioritise them as well. So I was thinking you wanted them in a couple of weeks because it didn't sound very important. I actually wanted it by tomorrow. Shit, I better do that.

1:05:20That helps them. It's not about being a diva. It's actually what I need to help you. You know, it's that clarity, it's expectations. It's knowing where you stand, isn't it really? I think that's the point. I think touching your question around what makes it good, it's kind of moving away from this kind of performance, making the optics look great. We're a great company. Look, put it on your website. We're neuro-inclusive. Yeah. The kind of neuro-inclusion comes back to the individual, comes back to lived experience. actually does your neuro inclusion make their work life better how does it better support them rather than just looks great from a pr perspective sure when you're inclusive great come and work for us well once you're in we've got you you're not going to change anything yeah i think that's the key and what can potential employees look for when they're looking at companies they want to join and considering like how neuro inclusive they are rather than kind of going like do you know about autism yeah like what should be people be looking for i mean i think they should be looking at if there are neurodivergent leaders within that organization so we did something with the london mayor's office didn't we and the deputy mayor out and proud as dyslexic and he was like the irony is i have to spend all my time writing speeches i'm not very good at that so i delegate that because actually i'm really great at the other bits so somewhere where there's a leader or line managers that are out and proud as i call it and are talking about being neurodivergent themselves or what this looks like.

1:06:48That's a massive sign, isn't it? Not just someone we've got a poster boy. Not just the websites that we're great. It's like within their kind of diversity tab somewhere at the bottom. Yes. It needs to be that's kind of walking the walk, talking the talk. I think you'd know quite quickly from an interview, for example, if you get that far, how genuine it is, if they mean it, et cetera. But I think do some digging. There's websites, aren't there, like Glassdoor. See what people are saying. Sure. You know, if you've got ADHD, you're going to go on a deep dive, aren't you? You're going to go down that rabbit hole and really find out and see what people are saying, you know, within that organisation on LinkedIn.

1:07:21You can quite quickly get a picture, I think, if you do some research, looking between, like Kelly said, you know, any badges on their website. Oh, this is what we do. It's like schools, isn't it, with the kids, you know, the ones that all have these amazing policies. But what are you actually doing for this rather than just going, we've got a policy on that. That's great. It's like anything, isn't it? Do your research, ask questions, maybe get recommendations from people. If you know somebody that works there or know somebody that knows somebody that works there, ask them, what are they like on this?

1:07:49What are they around neurodiversity or diversity in general? Oh, they're terrible, don't work for them, you know, kind of thing. Oh, great. They look great on the website. Have they written any articles? Do they have any blogs written by employees that have lived experience? Yeah. You know, that they allow them to put their blogs on the website. That actually shows that they're open to talking about it. So lots of things you can do, but just do your research, ask questions. But also think, is that the right company for you? Is that the right company geographically? am I going to then have a two-hour commute each day?

1:08:14Like almost the real practical thing. Are they open to flexible working? Yes. You know, all these sorts of things that you'd want. Yeah. Yeah. What's the one thing that employers can start with or do to be more neuro-inclusive aside of emailing Hester? Or me. They can email me. I'm open to emails. We're very responsive. I think it's the talking about it. Talk about it. Yeah. Reduce the stigma, rid of the fear that people have within organisations. Talk, talk, talk, right? Especially the people at the top. Talk about neurodiversity all the time, consistently. And it is okay to talk about. Of course it is.

1:08:54Share blogs, share podcasts. We saw this really cool podcast, thought you might like to watch it. You know, I think it's about just being open and talking about it, isn't it? Because I think the more you talk about something, the less stigma there is attached. Whereas if it's like, no, we don't talk about that. Oh, no, we don't talk about that. That's something we just read about in the news or whatever. And we are everywhere. We're in every company. Yes. Like there isn't a neurotypical company. No, every level. We're like across, we're kind of across everything, aren't we? It doesn't matter kind of where you're from, intersectional, new diversity.

1:09:26It's the only kind of diversity that kind of is at that level. And I think, you know, we all know, it doesn't matter how big your company is, how small it is. If the person at the top has a particular view or doesn't talk about something or talks about something, nobody else talks about it. it does it does massively yeah so talk about it openly that will get the conversation going people be open then you'll suddenly get more experiences inside your own business saying well we should be doing this or that's a really great thing to do well let's adopt that then yeah if i give you a magic wand oh yeah is it sparkly yes very sparkly good it's got a pencil at the end and it's like stationary yeah perfect maybe a pom-pom yeah good i'll give you a magic wand the goal is make the UK workforce or industry more neuro-inclusive, what do you do?

1:10:10Such a good one. I think it's about not judging and being kind. Okay. I think you don't know what people are going through. So you have the whole adage of like years ago, wasn't it like leave your personal life at the door because you're in work now. And actually I think people have got so much going on and they don't know that they're neurodivergent. So I just think we need to be more kind in the world, kinder to ourselves. and I think within a business, just be kind. They're people. At the end of the day, you've got amazing staff. You've got amazing people. It's going to cost a lot of money to retrain people, rehire them, get new people in, et cetera.

1:10:41So just look after the staff you've got, meet them where they're at as well and just put things into place that benefits everybody. Don't be treating people differently. Just it's a blanket approach. It's the right thing to do. And then Kelly, I'll give you a stick because you are angry and annoyed about something that does need to change, who are you going to hit? Wow. Okay. The list is long, I feel. That's quite an open question for me. So there's so many different answers I could give you there. Yeah. If you'd give me like A or B, it would have been a lot easier. Yes. Who would I hit? I don't think I'd hit anybody.

1:11:20Okay. And I'll explain what. I don't think it's anybody's fault. That we have so many unemployed people. that are neurodivergent, you know, tribunals are happening. No. You don't have enough awareness. Yeah, but we have all that. But I don't think that's one person's fault. Sure, sure, sure. So it needs to be, you know, a number of sticks, a number of different lengths to reach those people. Yeah. I think there's a huge amount of ignorance. There's a huge amount of people being scared to say things, whether you're neurodivergent or not, because they don't want to upset people. And, you know, we've gone through this whole thing around cancel culture.

1:11:52You say the wrong thing, actually, that could be you over. Yes. Whether it's your job or if you're a celebrity, whatever it is. So I think there's a huge amount of ignorance, a huge amount of awareness that needs to happen and understanding. So I don't think it's a case of hitting people with sticks. I think it is about bringing them on kind of on that journey and helping them to understand what the benefits are, why we're doing this, that it's actually neurodiversity, something that's real. What could government do though? From a government point of view, they're not going to fix everything, but it's almost like being that role model leading the way.

1:12:21Like we say about leaders within companies, government are above leaders in some respect. So they need to be setting the tone, saying we understand, this is what we're putting into place. We're actually engaging the community in this. We're understanding what they actually need and what they don't. Making short lists, you know, waiting lists shorter. Sure. Putting policies in place. Letting people get diagnosed. The trouble is every government that comes in might only be around for five years. Yep. So each government will put something that benefits them for the five years. Yep. And then maybe put something deliberate at the end that trips up the next government.

1:12:50Sure. So I think we're kind of, you know, fighting this kind of very short-term thinking rather than long-term. So if we can have government policies in the long-term thinking that can't then be undone by the next government that comes in, I think that'd really help. So I think they need to guide organisations about saying, here's some mandatory things that we need to be doing as standard, like we do for other things in companies. You know, you can and can't do certain things in the business. They need to be doing that neurodiversity as well. I also think that goes across into employers. You'll definitely know it's like kelly with cycles at fmcg companies of like people enroll for a couple of years or three years or stints as ceos and it's based on performance where you've got to answer to shareholders and it's who gives a f**k about neurodiversity like yeah is it that's too long a thing that's not really is that gonna i desperately want somebody and i know made by dyslexia team came out with a report in the last year around the the kind of potential benefit economically of supporting dyslexic thinkers globally being 4.5 trillion dollars right that's what the opportunity is and i think unfortunately until people really recognize and see the economic benefit of having neurodivergent people someone said to me the other day you're only three full-time people at the charity i'm like yeah yeah it's like wow you look massive And I'm like, neurodivergent team, like get on with it.

1:14:22We make things happen. Like until people realize that it is a benefit and a competitive advantage having neurodivergent employees, we're not going to flip the kind of narrative. And I mean, when we do our training, we talk about the fact that it brings creativity, innovation, different ways of thinking. You don't hire the same people because you just hire the same people. And it's a, you know, a cookie cutter approach. You're going to get the same things each time. So if you're wanting innovation, creativity, wonderful ideas, you know, great products, new marketing campaigns, awesome new alcohol-free spirits, for example.

1:14:59You know, if you want all these kind of amazing ideas, you do need to hire people who think differently. Yeah, but if you want repetition and attention to detail, someone who is just so accurate. Yeah, absolutely. Like, get some autistic people in your boat. Yeah. But we need to get to that stage, don't we, where everybody potentially who's autistic knows they're autistic. Yes. Or has ADHD, knows they're ADHD. And you have in the tech world over the past five, ten years, the tech companies, particularly in America, have deliberately tried to target autistic individuals. Yeah. But only specific autistic individuals.

1:15:32You know, the ones that they would call high functioning and they are old money. Do you know what I mean? We want the ones like that. We don't want those ones. We want the ones that can, you know, do what we want them to do. So I think until we're all kind of comfortable enough disclosing kind of our condition or our kind of challenges, but also our strengths, it then becomes very difficult for companies to say, well, we are going to hire these people. That's what we're looking for. We're looking for those skills. Now we understand there are people who have those kinds of skills. Wow. Yeah. So it almost needs to be a new language moving away from the labels, like you said, to a different way of explaining or describing the skill set that you would have if you're autistic.

1:16:08but it doesn't pigeonhole you into, well, everybody that's autistic is great at that. Yes. It's like, these are my skills, but how do I explain that? If it was less about the role and more about, okay, what skills do you bring and what challenges? So what kind of employee are you? Yeah, I think that could be massively, it's got nothing to do with labels and all the rest of it. And, you know, it's easy to kind of jump far ahead, get carried away when we live and breathe this and like with preaching to the choir, talking to ourselves about it. But I think a lot of companies think that putting reasonable adjustments in is really expensive.

1:16:40I think they think we're going to come down and take down walls and redo their lighting and sort out the heating. And actually, it's like, just send an agenda before the meeting. Yeah. Like, just ask people where they want to sit. Communicate, set expectations, ask a question. Does anyone really want hot desking? Like, let's really think about this. Maybe give someone a desk lamp. Like, it's not groundbreaking. And I think people genuinely, companies, think, we can't afford this. It's going to cost us a fortune. It's just different ways of communicating. Yeah, most adjustments, they don't cost anything.

1:17:09Yeah. And they're so easy to implement. Yeah. And also if that person then doesn't have five, six days a year. Yes. And I don't know, makes£10 ,000 more sales or whatever, then your 50 quid desk lamp is like absolutely worth it. Yeah. Yeah. Or you invest in some coaching or you invest in some training or you, you know, like I said, share podcasts with people. like things don't have to cost a lot of money. And you can be like, here's a really great Instagram clip you might relate to. Do you know what I mean? It doesn't need to be some big all singing or dancing. And I think companies sometimes are like, oh, we're not there yet.

1:17:44But I think they also think we need to solve it now. Yeah, it's not a journey. This year's campaign is neurodiversity. Right, team and HR or EDI or employee resource group, solve this for us by December. Come back with a plan. We'll have a brainstorm. You'll come up with all these ideas. We'll have a plan. We'll put strategy. we'll give you a little bit of budget or you come to us you come to us cap in hand and ask for some money and we'll do it for you but you need to solve it by December and then that'll be 2026 done and then we'll have a new campaign into 2027 actually no let's work on it for the next 10 years but do it bit by bit we could keep talking obviously obviously thank you so much I mean thank you for coming in and us having your brains for some time but also you know we haven't covered this before I think there's loads to it But I just hope for people listening and watching, whether they are an employer or an employee or in a recruitment process or just trying to understand how to support a colleague or deal with a boss or whatever.

1:18:45Hopefully this is a good understanding. If people want to find out more about your work, where can they go? So perfectlyautistic.co.uk. We're both on LinkedIn. Kelly is Kelly Granger, the autistic CEO. You talk a lot about leadership, don't you? Which I think, you know, being an autistic leader, which really resonates with people. I'm Hester Granger on LinkedIn. Obviously, we're over on Instagram. I'm Hesters Vibe, obviously. You're over on Instagram as well. But just, yeah, we've got loads of free resources, loads of free blogs on our website, information. I think that is what people need, isn't it?

1:19:18They need signposting. I think that's a really great place to start is go, where can I read more about this? So, yeah, perfectlyautistic.co.uk. Okay, lovely. And my last question, which is actually two questions because it's one to each of you, our green dot badges. You guys are sporting them. We do have them available on our website. You get two badges for£10. Which means you can give somebody, which is a nice thing. That's nice. But I've got a badge each for you to give to somebody else. Kelly, who would you like to give your badge to? It didn't take me long to think of this, to be honest. So I would probably give it to the boss that laughed and said, well, you don't look autistic.

1:19:58I think that's probably the biggest one for me. And that's almost where this journey started for me. So there's your badge. Bit more acceptance, bit more understanding. Good one. Yeah. Hester, who would you give your badge to? I'm going to give it to my drama teacher that didn't let me take my GCSE. Not bitter at all. Wow, you guys have like, it's good. this is dartboard stuff. Can we give it to them? Spiky end in. You know, because it's a little pin. Give it to them without the other. That's what I mean. Without the end bit of the safety cap. Without the butterfly bit. Just in. Just push it in.

1:20:33Yeah. I think that's who we would. Yeah. Pin the tail on the donkey. Thanks, guys. Keep doing what you're doing, please. It's super important what you're doing, so please keep doing it. Thank you. Really appreciate that. Thank you.

1:20:49that's it for today's episode of the hidden 20 but just before you go a favor the hidden 20 is a charity and we do this to bring you the truth the latest research and the real stories that matter so if this episode spoke to you then please hit subscribe and if you can donate via the link below. Finally, a big shout out to you all for listening and our brilliant team who make this all happen. Phoebe, Charlie, Kristen, James, John, and the guys at TYX Studios. We'll see you next time.