Reasonable Adjustments: Transitioning Teams from Home to Office Happily!

Claire Dibben – 04:36

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Claire Dibben – 04:54

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Claire Dibben – 05:15

And when you exit the webinar as well. And this is where you can let us know how you found the session. As I said at the start and some of you are already doing a fantastic job of it. Please do join in with the chat and talk to your peers on the call. Um, we see lots of great stories and experiences being shared in the chat and that just adds another level to.

Claire Dibben – 05:35

The conversation that we’re having today. All of that in mind, though, I do understand that the chat. Can be a bit distracting for some people. So if you need to, you can turn off chat previews and you can mute your notifications as well. If you have any questions for the speaker, please use the Q&A section at the bottom of your screen.

Claire Dibben – 05:55

I’m going to point down here. Um, I think it says Q&A. The big question mark on it. So you should be able to find it. Um, I’m going to encourage you to use that function for your questions rather than the chat, because sometimes the chat gets quite busy and it means that you’re very important question won’t get lost.

Claire Dibben – 06:14

And if you use the Q&A function, you can also upvote other people’s questions so that we know which ones to tackle. As a priority during this time together. And the question that we get asked the most is that. Yes, this webinar is being recorded. So you’ll be sent the recording and a full transcript generated by Caption.Ed in your inbox.

Claire Dibben – 06:33

Tomorrow. So with all of the housekeeping out of the way, I want to introduce you to. Devon Lowndes as she joins me on screen. So Devon, please do join me on camera and I’ll give a brief overview as to your background. Hi, Devon. So, Devon is a neurodiversity and Ed and I consultant.

Claire Dibben – 06:50

She’s also the co-founder of Self, which gives organisations the tools to build and inclusive culture where everyone feels supported, which what an excellent business to have. Um, Devon herself has ADHD and dyslexia. So she knows what it’s like to feel different.

Claire Dibben – 07:06

And I am. I have no doubt that we’ll find out a bit more about Devon’s journey shortly. So I’m going to hand over to you, Devon. Thank you so much for joining us today. I’ll leave you to it and I’ll be back at the end with everybody’s questions

Devon Lowndes – 07:20

Great. Thank you. So much, Clare and I was totally having a little boogie along to the intro music. There. So I hope other people at home are feeling that same vibe. I’m going to go ahead and share my screen now. So you guys can see my slides. So bear with me Just one moment.

Devon Lowndes – 07:38

Here we are so reasonable adjustments transitioning teams from home to office. Happily, it’s a topic we have all come across recently. Um, I have personally found that most of the organisations that I work with, whether they’re global, multinational organisations or some of those closest to our heart here in Bristol, for those of you that might be, uh, local.

Devon Lowndes – 08:03

Uh, are all dealing with this return to office in some way or another. And reasonable adjustments is a big part of that. So without further ado, I’d like to ask you, if you can drop in the chat. How do you prefer to work? Do you prefer to work from home, from the office?

Devon Lowndes – 08:20

Uh, or do you prefer a hybrid model? And if you could just drop a sentence explaining why? Why that is. Uh, that would be great. Oh, we’ve already got Margareta here from home. Yeah. I’m joining this webinar from home today. I’m more of a hybrid gal myself. Um, but some things like this, I find easier from home hybrid for me.

Devon Lowndes – 08:38

Uh, this is so I can adjust to my environment where everyone can work their best hybrid, best of both worlds. Absolutely. Hybrid home. We’re having lots of home in silence from Paula. Yeah. Bit, of quiet. Time is good for everyone, isn’t it? Uh, particularly for me, when I’m doing finances. I need that complete concentration bubble working from home today.

Devon Lowndes – 08:57

Hybrid model. Uh, currently in the office. Like a mix to be able to see people, but also from home. I can get some decent heads down and work done. Absolutely. There are those collaborative bits where sometimes we want to be around other people and and that’s really collaborative. But other times we just want to get on and heads down, heads down.

Devon Lowndes – 09:15

That’s a good, uh, good way to put it. Um, and Paula home, the ability to control my sensory environment is really valuable and allows me to concentrate better. Absolutely. Sensory environment. Wow. That’s a term I’m definitely going to be stealing, if that’s all right with you. Paula.

Devon Lowndes – 09:30

Uh, sensory environment. So much easier to control from our homes. Isn’t it? And hopefully today we should cover some of the things that could maybe help you to support your employees, to control their sensory environment while they’re in the office. Who knows what we’ll we’ll go through this together and we’ll see.

Devon Lowndes – 09:46

Thank you so much. Uh, for joining in there. Oh, yeah. Liz, the commute. That’s a real thing. Isn’t it? Uh, it can really set us up in the wrong way for our day. If we’re not ready for that stressful commute. Uh, depending on where we live Uh, there’s Michelle as well. Spending years on motorways.

Devon Lowndes – 10:03

I can I can really relate to that. So thank you. So much for giving your, uh, answers. They’re guys. I’m going to be going through Three things that you can do to meaningfully improve the working lives of people returning to the office today.

Devon Lowndes – 10:19

So the first thing that we’re going to talk about is encouraging open conversations. And I think that this is relevant, not just for return to the office, but maybe for all of the time. Right. Um, encouraging those open conversations between our employees and our line managers in particular, can be really tough Uh, but we’re going to talk about a few ways that we can do that.

Devon Lowndes – 10:41

Um, through the model of psychological safety, which is something I’m sure lots of you have come across. Uh, in your working lives. Um, so psychological safety, what is it? It’s a concept by Amy Edmondson. And it’s. How do you feel safe within your team on this graphic?

Devon Lowndes – 10:59

It says a new team. And that’s just because this resource from Amy was focusing on that. But sometimes I think when we’re returning to the office. Things can feel new in fact, a lot of the people that I work with. Perhaps they joined the organisation during the pandemic and they’ve never been in the office.

Devon Lowndes – 11:14

So it can feel completely new. So let’s talk about the four levels of psychological safety. The first is to feel included to feel you are welcome and to feel like the office is somewhere that’s set up for you to thrive. If the office isn’t feeling like a place that you can thrive.

Devon Lowndes – 11:33

The office is feeling like the wrong sensory environment for you. Maybe. Maybe we’re open plan. Uh, maybe there’s lots of people wanting conversations and wanting that social element. And that might be difficult. Or anxiety provoking. Uh, for certain employees or, you know, maybe certain people with neurodiversity.

Devon Lowndes – 11:51

Uh, or like we said, just after the pandemic, returning to those busy, uh, social situations can be anxiety provoking for for all of us. Can’t it? So if we can set up that situation to feel like either we can be there and we can be ourselves, and we can get what we need, and it’s the right environment for us.

Devon Lowndes – 12:11

Or that if we request the things that we need to make it the right environment for us, that that’s not going to fall on deaf ears and it’s going to be taken seriously. And enacted on. Then we can open up that sense of belonging. Open up that sense of feeling welcomed in the workplace.

Devon Lowndes – 12:27

Learning is our second level. So that’s that feeling that I can ask questions without worrying that that might make me seem like, I don’t know, I wasn’t paying attention. I don’t have the experience. Um, there are lots of things that can hold us back from being able to ask those questions at work One of the greatest ways that I, I recommend all over the place for encouraging this is for modelling from our managers, from our senior.

Devon Lowndes – 12:54

Leadership levels of this question asking. Right if we can put up our hands as a as a manager and say, oh, can you just remind me what this this means? What’s this term or what were we doing here? Then you can really model that. That’s a safe and okay thing for everybody to do.

Devon Lowndes – 13:09

Um, and that can go along with not just the subject of the work matter, but returning to the office in general. So there’s that learning isn’t there? What is the GDPR rules? When I’m working from home, what are the GDPR rules? When I’m working from the office?

Devon Lowndes – 13:25

Are there differences there? We can start to model asking those questions to make other people feel more safe and you might actually be asking a question, uh, you know that lots of other people will have on their minds contributing. I can add value. So for a lot of employees that prefer to work from home or in a hybrid way, sometimes they are made to feel that they can’t contribute and add value in the same way.

Devon Lowndes – 13:49

There’s a lot of messaging out there at the moment that, um, people might be less productive from home. People might do their job less efficiently from home, and dare I say that people from home might be trying to be a bit lazy. This isn’t true. And I’m sure as we’ve had loads of answers in the chat that we like home working and hybrid working.

Devon Lowndes – 14:09

You guys know that too, and you probably come across that falsehood that working from home is actually people trying to get away with not working. When we can see actually, for someone to feel psychologically safe and able to have those open conversations with you. They need to be able to feel like they can add value.

Devon Lowndes – 14:26

Um, and if they’re preferred ways of working are is a hybrid way or is working in the office. But with some of those adaptations, some of those reasonable adjustments, accommodations, whatever it is that you’re calling them in your workplace, um, that that still adds value and they don’t become a nuisance or a burden or asking for special treatment.

Devon Lowndes – 14:47

So that we’re keeping ourselves really open to making sure people feel that they can add value. And the final one here is challenging that I can challenge the people around me. Hey, can I just ask why is it that you need me to come and work in the office? Why is it that, um, Wednesdays are the day when I’ve got to be in?

Devon Lowndes – 15:05

We want people to be able to challenge this so that we can give them the. Well thought through reasoning behind the reason we’re asking them to return. Um, in order for them to feel safe, they need to be able to get all of that information without again. Feeling like they are asking difficult questions or making a nuisance of themselves.

Devon Lowndes – 15:23

This is feedback we get a lot from disabled and neurodivergent employees in particular, but really across the board. They don’t want to ask for more accommodations. They don’t want to challenge, uh, the return to work. Um, situation. They found themselves in because they’re worried about finding themselves a nuisance.

Devon Lowndes – 15:41

Um, and I’m sure we all know that we want people to come with those questions, especially if we are encouraging open conversations. So that’s the first thing that I really recommend. If we’re talking about the return to office and we’re talking about reasonable adjustments, encourage those open conversations through encouraging psychological safety.

Devon Lowndes – 16:05

So the second is personalised accommodation. So this might mean that we find a way to personalise a return to office. Is that a phased return to office? This could be an individual matter. Right. This could be not a company wide.

Devon Lowndes – 16:21

Uh, request to return to office, but it could be that somebody had a long term sickness absence and they’re returning. And if we, um. Think of it in that way, we do have a long term established route. Normally through our HR policies that we can have a phased return that we can try out different days that we can slowly build up those hours that we are increasing in the office.

Devon Lowndes – 16:45

And other personalised, um, accommodations can be things like quiet working spaces. Uh, this can be things like headphones. Noise cancelling headphones. We talked a lot about silence in the chat. Somebody said they like the silence and I can’t find a better silence than my headphones.

Devon Lowndes – 17:02

I like to have, um, what I call my concentrating music on. It’s actually called that in the playlist. Please feel free to laugh at me in the chat, but I put on my concentrating music. Um, and have those noise cancelling headphones to ensure that I’m really not distracted because my brain is really good at getting distracted.

Devon Lowndes – 17:18

I’m hoping people can relate, but if not, uh, you know, that’s all down to the fact that I have ADHD and dyslexia and my brain really wants to interact with other people. My brain really wants to see what’s going on over there. Um, so for me. Having the noise cancelling headphones and having that concentrating music on is maybe the only way that I can get my finance work done.

Devon Lowndes – 17:41

Um, can you see a couple of things in the chat? Um, oh, we’ve got some other oh, concentrating music is techno music. I love that I would love to meet this person. I bet they are a lot of fun. Um, I can’t say I like techno music even in the fun times, but whatever works for you.

Devon Lowndes – 17:57

Hey, we talked about personalised accommodations. What’s your concentrating music? Uh, maybe everyone has something a bit different. Um, what I’d like to talk about though, as we are here today to talk about reasonable adjustments on the title, I like to call them accommodations.

Devon Lowndes – 18:13

And this is because there’s been some pushback from the disabled community, from the neurodivergent community. Um, and from the HR. Community at large. That reasonable adjustments is a confusing. Term. Reasonable for who? What does reasonable mean? Um, so I like to go for a and I like to do my accommodations.

Devon Lowndes – 18:33

Based on the social model and not the medical model. So let me explain what I mean. Oh, I will if I can flick my slides there. We go. So medical model tends to look at the individual as having the problems okay. So if I take my for example, someone with dyslexia and ADHD, we might say distractible.

Devon Lowndes – 18:53

She needs some blinkers on. Uh, we might say uh, that she is really, really chatty. Uh, and needs to be away from her co-workers. So that she’s not getting distracted by having conversations. We might say that she’s got a poor focus Uh, I’ve got, uh, a lack of ability to spell and write.

Devon Lowndes – 19:13

Correctly. So you can probably understand. And these are all real examples by the way Uh, of labels that I’ve received in workplaces. Uh, how that slowly started to make me feel like I was a problem. And going back to what we just said about psychological safety, it then made me feel like I wasn’t able to add value because these things needed.

Devon Lowndes – 19:36

I needed to fix. I needed to fix about myself, or I needed support to fix myself in order to be a productive member of those teams. And needing to be fixed, made me feel like there was something wrong. What’s wrong with me?

Devon Lowndes – 19:52

Became my internal monologue. Uh, for a long time, until I came across the social model. Now the social model rather than pointing fingers at the individual and seeing what’s broken or what what’s weak or what’s wrong with you.

Devon Lowndes – 20:08

Looks at what might be in the environment, in the systems, in the building’s even that is a barrier for individuals. So rather than saying, oh. Devon, you get a bit distracted. So, um, if you want to use the quiet space in one of the offices, then I can give you access to that.

Devon Lowndes – 20:26

It might be sending around a company wide communication saying, hey, there’s this space available for quiet working. Can you see there how we’ve changed the environment? We’ve changed something about the workplace setting that’s going to make it more accessible. Maybe not just for me, maybe for other people too.

Devon Lowndes – 20:42

Um, so here are a few examples of what some medical model accommodations might look like as opposed to social model and remember, the reason that we want to do the social model is because we want to make people feel psychologically safe.

Devon Lowndes – 20:57

We want to make people feel valued and like they’re contributing well. And we want to make people feel like they belong and are welcome in the space. So medical model, we might provide an adapted keyboard for someone with dexterity, challenges, and that might be really key.

Devon Lowndes – 21:13

And important. I’m not saying that we don’t do that, but it might be that also we provide a company policy where we ask everybody at the beginning of their work. Um, working year or when they onboard, do you need any of this extra desk equipment?

Devon Lowndes – 21:28

Can you see their how we’ve made it a company thing and not an individual thing. Um, so a social model example of something for somebody maybe with, uh, that needs a wheelchair. Uh, would be installing automatic door openers to improve the accessibility for people in wheelchairs.

Devon Lowndes – 21:46

Again, we’ve not asked that individual to ring a, and we’ll make sure someone’s there to welcome you. And get you through the doors. We’ve actually changed something about the environment to remove that barrier entirely. We could offer flexible working arrangements and accommodate to accommodate individual needs.

Devon Lowndes – 22:03

Um, so that again, could be a company wide policy, something that we talk about with all of our employees, employees rather than adjusting work hours for one singular employee who might have something like chronic fatigue syndrome. So again, we’re not singling people out to make them feel like maybe something about them is different.

Devon Lowndes – 22:24

Um, and needs to be fixed. But maybe that difference in them also could be a great asset, right? Um, that’s something that we’ll save for another webinar. I won’t get into that today. Um, but we can actually make sure that people feel welcomed and belonging and like, they can turn up and contribute without having to ask for things.

Devon Lowndes – 22:43

Um, it’s often a, the board that we find similar accommodations that are needed for a range of different reasons for employees. So I hope that one helps. Okay. So this is my third suggestion for how to do.

Devon Lowndes – 23:02

Great returns to office. Its regular check ins, and I’m going to let you in on something here. Regular check ins is what I would recommend in almost every situation. Everywhere. Most of the organisations I go to are some point in some teams or on some level.

Devon Lowndes – 23:19

Have, uh, dropped their number of regular check ins. Uh, they’re one to ones have gone from weekly to biweekly to monthly to never. Just when we’ve got to do the yearly review. Maybe. So regular check ins help us to avoid, especially as HR and management.

Devon Lowndes – 23:38

And getting into unconscious bias. Right. We start to make the story up. That’s what our brains are so good for. Human brains are made to tell stories. We will fill in the information that we don’t have. So let’s show that we have the information through our regular check ins.

Devon Lowndes – 23:54

So that we’re not falling into the pattern of unconscious bias. We’re not falling into maybe thinking that our employees with ADHD who prefer to work from home sometimes are actually just lazy. I’m sure you know, that sounds like a strong sentence, but I’m sure actually that plenty of people here today have heard something like that narrative.

Devon Lowndes – 24:14

Um, it could be actually that they work from home because they’re trying to be more productive. There’s lots of you have said in the chat, that’s what helps you to be productive. So these regular check ins are really good unconscious bias. Busters. Um, and it can help us to get really clear on what people need.

Devon Lowndes – 24:31

And what people. Um, are going through. Um, I’m going to tell you a story. I think I’ve got time. I’ve got time. I’m going to tell you a story. So there was a lady, I was brought in to support in an organisation, and I have her full permission to tell this story in my trainings.

Devon Lowndes – 24:52

Um, and she was on her final warning. Really, before she, it was looking at termination of her contract. And this is because her working hours varied greatly from day to day. She would often explain, um, that she was sorry that she was late.

Devon Lowndes – 25:10

She would try. Better. People had put things in place for her like a 15 minute window between when she could arrive. Um, to try and negate the the lateness. Um, people had explained to her why it was important for her to be, in late part of the duties were covering a front of house, desk that needed to be open at a particular time.

Devon Lowndes – 25:30

It came to light, though, just before. Um, before I joined the team. Um, and this is the reason I was I was brought in to support, um, that we’d kind of gone quite far along the disciplinary process with this individual.

Devon Lowndes – 25:46

Uh, where the only regular check ins had been about this disciplinary matter. She hadn’t had any regular check ins with her line manager for a long time. For various reasons. And it turned out that this individual was actually living with their partner, who had a terminal illness.

Devon Lowndes – 26:02

And this is the reason that she was late. Most of the time. And as you can imagine, the empathy on the team for the reason she was late. Went up tenfold. A hundred fold in that moment. And people could really understand that this wasn’t about, uh, her, not caring about her job this was actually about her caring for her partner, who was unwell at home.

Devon Lowndes – 26:26

They then implemented that she would cover the desk in the afternoons. Um, and this is when there was care actually, in the home. Um, so that she didn’t have to, uh, leave her partner when she was the only care at home. And so we don’t know what’s going on for our people until we sit down and check in with them.

Devon Lowndes – 26:44

And we also don’t know what’s going on with them until we’ve built up that rapport and trust for them to share something that big. You can imagine that if you’re having a check in every six months or once a quarter in that one hour. You might not feel about, you might not feel like, or you might not feel safe enough to open up about something just so big.

Devon Lowndes – 27:07

So regular check ins to build trust to build rapport, to build that sense of belonging are so vital. And because that then means we’re going back to our first point. Then about encouraging that open conversations, people then feel safe enough to bring that information in and to fully open up, um, so, uh, here are the six components of building a relationship based on trust and belonging.

Devon Lowndes – 27:35

According to Lisa D foster. Uh, who’s a leadership coach and trainer. So empathy, listening, recognition, curiosity, compassion and gratitude. So I would suggest that these are the six things you really want to be training your managers on how to introduce elements.

Devon Lowndes – 27:53

Uh, of all of these six things into their regular check ins to make sure that they’re, they’re building that you can really see how compassion and gratitude would build that psychological safety. The gratitude in particular, really adds a sense of what value that employee is bringing.

Devon Lowndes – 28:09

If we can be really grateful for that bit of work, they did last week, if we can be grateful that they’ve opened up to us and helped us to understand what accommodations they might need. Um, recognition, we can recognise and praise the positives in someone’s work, but we can also recognise, uh, maybe the difficulties that people have gone through.

Devon Lowndes – 28:31

I recognise that you have been coming back into the office for a couple of weeks now, and when we’d had a conversation about that being difficult for you. So I just wanted to send some gratitude. Your way. See two. In one there. Uh, for doing that. So when we start to build these things in our relationships with our employees, we start to increase the quality of those 1 to 1 conversations.

Devon Lowndes – 28:55

I’m going to give you one tool in your back pocket that’s going to really help you to introduce these into your one, to ones, or to take to line managers in your organisations as a tool for them to help increase their one to ones. So we call this unpacking win.

Devon Lowndes – 29:10

So to often in our, in our whole lives as human beings, we are focusing on the negative. We’re focusing on what went wrong, where we stumbled, where we tripped up and that’s because our brains are hard wired to notice and concentrate on that stuff.

Devon Lowndes – 29:27

Because back in the back, in the primal, uh, years of humanism, is that some words of humanity? We probably really did need to focus on that time. We nearly got eaten by a tiger, right? Because we want to make sure we never get eaten by that tiger again.

Devon Lowndes – 29:43

So we’re so hardwired to focus on those difficulties. This task really helps to build a habit. Um, and build the strength to focus on some of the positives and it gives us really good tools to be able to combat some of those barriers and challenges.

Devon Lowndes – 29:59

So I’m going to go through these three sections. Um, I’m going to. Just read from a piece of paper. So please do. Excuse me, but I filled this in for myself about a win that I had recently. And hopefully this will help you to understand how you can use this tool.

Devon Lowndes – 30:14

Uh, to overcome some barriers. So I’m going to start with the individual. That’s me. So I know that I’m dyslexic and I have ADHD. But at this point when I sat down to do this task, I was feeling quite calm because I’d had a 1 to 1 with a colleague.

Devon Lowndes – 30:30

Uh, where I talked through the task and I was encouraged by them. So I was feeling encouraged, and I was feeling psychologically safe. The task itself was to write a report which normally is a dyslexic. Person, has my heart beating fast. I’m already feeling the emotion rising.

Devon Lowndes – 30:47

Um, and in a sense of panic can set in. But I had broken the task down into manageable sections. I was clear about what I had to do and in what order the time frame was clear that I had to complete the task, and I was well researched and prepared.

Devon Lowndes – 31:04

So that conversation I’d had with a colleague beforehand had helped me to get the task really clear. And set out. Then I looked at the environment I had my noise cancelling headphones in and my concentrating music on, and I was in a communal area, not at home and not in the office.

Devon Lowndes – 31:21

Now this is important for me as someone with a if I’m in my home, I’m sure you guys I love this term. I’m sure you guys have all been there at some point, but I love to do a bit of procrastinate cleaning. They call it so procrastinating by doing the cleaning jobs that I would never, ever do.

Devon Lowndes – 31:36

Otherwise. You know, uh, the skirting boards or like, just hoovering under the sofa. And if I’m in the office surrounded by wonderful colleagues, my brain would absolutely much rather be having a chat with them than getting on with writing a report, because as I’ve said, as a dyslexic person, there’s so much.

Devon Lowndes – 31:53

I’m rubber banded right back to being a young child, being in lots of trouble for not being able to get my F’s and G’s under the line, or, you know, my spellings. Just on, um, so that was a really good environment for me. I also, have someone on WhatsApp that I could message for support if I needed to.

Devon Lowndes – 32:14

Uh, I told them when I would be doing this work. It was the same colleague I’d had the chat with, and they were available at that time. So if I needed to ping over a paragraph and say, hey, does this sound right? Or needed to go? Was this number okay? Before I put it in, I knew they’d be available at that time. So my environment.

Devon Lowndes – 32:29

Felt supported. I was also warm and I was comfortable. I had a drink I’d been to the toilet. I know that might sound basic, but again, for any of my fellow neurodivergent people on the call, you’ll know when you get sat down to do a task.

Devon Lowndes – 32:45

It could be a long time before you realise why you’re so uncomfortable and it’s because you’ve not been for a wee in a while. Right? Um, so I unpacked that Wynn. Can you see how much I’ve learned about my brain and what it needs to work there? What accommodations I need? Um, and it’s only by going back and thinking, why did that bit of work?

Devon Lowndes – 33:03

Why did that task go so well? Ah. It’s because I had my noise cancelling headphones. It’s because I was in the right environment. It’s because I’d laid out the task and an appropriate way beforehand that we can then go and apply it elsewhere. So a really good example of this. I was supporting somebody who managed, someone who went and did off site visits in their car, and they made lots of appointments with people in the community to go and visit.

Devon Lowndes – 33:25

Now they were often not turning up for these appointments or being late. And this looked really bad for the company. Um, and they’d kind of focussed on why are you late? Why are you missing these appointments? And they’d hammered that home until this individual felt really rubbish at their job. And guess what? They were missing more appointments.

Devon Lowndes – 33:41

They were being more late for things. Right? Can you see how that anxiety increased? Uh, the problem. So instead, we broke it down. Let’s unpack a win. Let’s talk about a client that you have a really good relationship with that you’re always on time for. And we realised that these appointments.

Devon Lowndes – 33:57

Needed to be scheduled in the afternoon for this individual. And they were going to do their desk work in the morning. And once we’d unpacked the win about the client that was going. Really well, that was really obvious. This was always someone they met with in the afternoon. Um, and it was someone that were never late for so we could use unpacking the win a positive way to have a conversation, not a disciplinary type conversation, not a conversation about failures and missteps, but a conversation about what had gone really well.

Devon Lowndes – 34:27

And then we can replicate that. So I hope that makes lots of sense for you guys. Um, I did see some things just popping up in the chat. If it’s going to let me read them. No, it won’t. Let me access them right now.

Devon Lowndes – 34:42

So I’m sure I will catch up in the chat. Uh, just when I can. So just as a recap for you guys, then we want to encourage open conversations with psychological safety. We want to personalise accommodations focussed on changing the environment to serve the individual.

Devon Lowndes – 35:04

And we want regular check ins to build trust and belonging. If these three things are met, we can ensure that people are having a much easier transition to working in the office and then it’s an ongoing process.

Devon Lowndes – 35:20

I really want to, um, impress upon you guys that with the regular check ins in particular, we can keep checking in on what’s going on. We can keep updating these. Is it still the case that afternoons are best for you to go out and do those client visits?

Devon Lowndes – 35:38

Is it still the case that, um, you want to be in a quiet space to do your financial bits or actually, do we need to revisit that? We implemented this last week. How’s it going? So we’re checking in and we’re doing that. Um, plan. Do review Uh, method.

Devon Lowndes – 35:55

Right to keep updating those accommodations. I managed to get up the chat. Now, um, and we were just having some questions around, uh, the empathy, um, and I completely concur with you there, Kate. It can be a really difficult thing, uh, to learn empathy.

Devon Lowndes – 36:12

It can be done. Believe it or not, there’s some really good research on increasing levels of empathy for individuals. In fact, not just individuals. This research started with people who had committed really atrocious crimes. Right? That were actually labelled as having traits of psychopaths.

Devon Lowndes – 36:29

Uh, they increased this through restorative justice and storybook reading. Right? I’m not suggesting now that you sit down in your office and have everyone read a storybook and do some restorative justice, I’m not quite sure what that would look like with your teams anyway, but we can actually start to increase empathy by having the regular check ins.

Devon Lowndes – 36:47

If we take away the unconscious bias. We’re actually doing a great deal to increase empathy already, so there are a lot of people out there, and I’ve mentioned it before in the task, but there’s a lot of negative, um, assumptions that are made about people that might want to work from home, that they are perhaps trying not to work very hard, or they’re wanting an easy ride.

Devon Lowndes – 37:11

If we’re having regular catch ups of a good quality where we’ve been trained how to have really good catch ups, we are absolutely going to start to break down some of those unconscious biases and that increases levels of empathy because we’re actually then learning about that other person’s story rather than making assumptions.

Devon Lowndes – 37:29

Can you see that puts us in that other person’s shoes? Um, rather than assuming what it’s like to be in someone else’s shoes? Um, yeah. So yea, empathy and believe people their story. Not that people make it up. Thank you Stephanie.

Devon Lowndes – 37:44

Absolutely. That trust is integral. Um, and we often want our employees to trust us in fact, asking employees to return to the office is a massive request for trust. I don’t know if you guys, um, if that makes a lot of sense, but it’s we’re saying change your lifestyle.

Devon Lowndes – 38:03

Right? Particularly again, for those that are just joining the workforce for people who are perhaps, um, coming into your office for the first time, if they’ve joined the company while they could work from home and now they’re coming into the office for the first time, maybe people who have been on long term sick.

Devon Lowndes – 38:22

Um, so we’re asking them to change their working environment. We’re asking them to trust us that if they come into the office, they’re still going to be valued. They’re still going to be able to be, well, that’s a big one, right? And that we’re still going to value, um, their input, even if that changes as a return to office.

Devon Lowndes – 38:44

Um, so absolutely, that, that, that trust that we’re requesting deserves a level of trust on the other side. If we’re saying trust us, make a leap, come into the office, we promise it’s going to be lovely. We’ve got to trust other people when they tell us they’re stories.

Devon Lowndes – 38:59

And if we can keep having those, encouraging those open conversations, we can keep building on that trust. Uh, to a point where people that’s their first port of call, that’s where they’ll turn to, um, which is what we want them to do. Right before it gets to the point of Disciplinaries, before it gets to long.

Devon Lowndes – 39:19

Term sick. Absence caused by stress. Um, so. Yeah. Absolutely. Believe people that might be one of the most important things, said yet today. Stephanie, thank you so much. Believe people when they tell you what they tell you Okay. Fantastic.

Devon Lowndes – 39:34

So I’ve left you with those three. We’ve finished a bit early, but that might give us a bit time, a bit more time for some Q&A and there’s been lots of interesting things in the chat, so I’d love to see more of what’s there. Um, is that all right? You there? Claire. There you are. Claire. Amazing. I’ll stop sharing here.

Devon Lowndes – 39:50

And we can get to some of those questions.

Claire Dibben – 39:52

Lovely. Thank you so much, Devin. Um, I loved the example that you gave all the tool that you shared, like that. Unpacking the win and sort of putting that into practice as well. I absolutely love that. Thank you for sharing that with us. I think it’s so valuable when we have these sessions.

Claire Dibben – 40:09

Um, to arm people with like actionable, practical things that they can take away and implement. So

Devon Lowndes – 40:15

And I think everyone should be unpacking wins for themselves. Like if you’re, if any kind of journaling or review practice, you take your unpack a win to your own one. To one and do it there

Claire Dibben – 40:26

It’s nice. I love it. I love it, um, so yeah, we’ve had lots of great conversation in the chat. People like sharing their experiences, so I just wanted to thank everyone on the call for sort of joining in with that. And acting in that way. Um, we do have a Q&A section right at the bottom of the screen.

Claire Dibben – 40:43

So this is your opportunity. Everyone on the call to put your questions direct to an expert, to Devin here. Um, I have a couple of questions for you, Devin, before we dig into the Q&A. Also, I was going to ask you, I saw that comment about empathy.

Claire Dibben – 40:58

Um, and I was going to ask you about whether you shared that same view. So I’m you already answered one of my questions. Thank you. Um. It’s it’s interesting. You know, you talked a lot about trust, and I’m. Totally with you on that sort of leading with trust and openness, but I’m just curious.

Claire Dibben – 41:15

I’m thinking about these big, um, you know, you’ll have layers of middle management, then you’ll have senior, senior leadership team. Then you’ll have the board, um, and I’m just thinking how might a manager who is like a, you know, someone who has a champion of neurodiversity, how might they get by in from the board or for senior leaders on some of this stuff?

Claire Dibben – 41:37

You know, there you talked again about trust. But about almost like people need to prove that they’re being productive. And, you know, that that trust isn’t assumed. So as a manager, how would you get buy in from the board or senior leaders to, to help you transition people into the office in a way that accommodates their sort of personal situations?

Devon Lowndes – 41:59

Absolutely. I think I don’t I think every, uh, every generation, every new. Iteration of of what we call today. EDI, um, well, even that’s changing, right? Even even we start to pick apart those words and it comes down to language.

Devon Lowndes – 42:15

These theories have been known and used. Uh, to make real hard nosed business sense. Since the beginning of businesses. Uh, so if you can get the right language that speaks to your board, if you can talk about employee engagement and productivity, and if you can talk about outcomes.

Devon Lowndes – 42:34

Right. If you can set some KPIs around wellbeing. Around engagement, then they’re really going to get this, this is about engagement at the end of the day, it’s cheaper. And we all know this. And we’ll sing it till the cows come home. Is cheaper for your business to keep an employee than it is to hire a new one.

Devon Lowndes – 42:51

So you can make some really in fact, it’s all really hard nosed business sense. I think that most people that find themselves in my position. Position doing this for work. We are the big gooey heart people. I that might be a strange term for us. I have to find a better one.

Devon Lowndes – 43:07

But you know, we might be doing it because we feel like it’s the right thing to do, that we make working the side. We make working lives meaningfully better. Um, and that can all sound. Let’s be honest, a bit fluffy to people who are really thinking about numbers. They’re looking at the bottom line every day. So you can find that language.

Devon Lowndes – 43:24

Actually, I’d really like to support, uh, neurodivergent employees to be more engaged and more productive at work. That’s why I’d like to do this. Um, and that case is so true. And real alongside the belonging, the trust, the empathy, those softer terms.

Devon Lowndes – 43:42

Yeah.

Claire Dibben – 43:43

For sure. What a great answer. I agree With you on that as well. Like ultimately, um, and we’ve spoken about this on previous skill, but it’s about talking the language. Exactly right. Talking the language of the board. Um, and again, bringing it back to bottom line. So employee engagement ultimately means higher performing teams, more productivity, which equals more revenue.

Claire Dibben – 44:05

So it’s just translating that for people isn’t it? Um, right. We’ve got a couple of questions in the Q&A. Um, got a question from May who has asked what about documentation? They said we’ve had we’ve had problems with a new line manager.

Claire Dibben – 44:21

Oh, this is a good one. So we’ve had problems with a new line manager. Not respecting previous accommodations.

Devon Lowndes – 44:28

Um. Okay. Yeah. This is a really good one, isn’t it? And I think this really links. Back to what we were just saying. How do we get the buy in of the higher ups? Because let’s face it. If this new line manager was told by the higher ups, these are what you have to stick to, these accommodations are company policy.

Devon Lowndes – 44:45

They help our employee to be the most engaged and productive they can be. Then they’d be sticking. I’d also say if these accommodations have been provided around a protected characteristic, which they mostly are, you might want to take this limb manager to one side. Give them a regular check in, and explore why they think that this is difficult.

Devon Lowndes – 45:03

There’s bound to be some personal belief. This line manager is holding about what these accommodations mean and not with not upholding them because they think that this makes the person less productive, less engaged, less of a valuable member of the team.

Devon Lowndes – 45:19

So if you can explain to them about how engagement works, about how if they feel valued. Um, that sometimes doesn’t work either, though, right? Quite often our lines managers can feel, um, that they need to have a sense of authority in the team.

Devon Lowndes – 45:36

And they don’t want to do something that was previously set out by a different manager. They want to forge their own path. They want to lead in their way. Um, and it might be the case that you have to get a bit stronger and you have to say, hey, these are protected characteristics. You’re opening us up to risk of tribunal if you continue in this to not uphold these accommodations that have been set out.

Devon Lowndes – 45:56

Um one thing that I see, uh, is often not provided for line managers is any management training. You’d be surprised how many managers out there. And I’m sure there are some people in organisations on the call today that know that they’re managers don’t get any training and management and I think this is a critical misstep.

Devon Lowndes – 46:18

If we are training our managers on what the company policy is around, these kinds of things than we can avoid these kinds of difficulties because, again. What’s going to happen is this employee is probably going to have to leave to find somewhere where they’ll have the accommodations met. And I would say in the meantime, as well, please make sure you’re reaching out to that employee, providing them with the support that you’re able to, whether thats just verbal or a check in or with yourself on an HR team.

Devon Lowndes – 46:44

Uh, I think that that can be really helpful in, in kind of maintaining their trust in the organisation, even if their trust in the line manager might be a bit precarious right now.

Claire Dibben – 46:54

Brilliant advice. Thank you. Stefan. Uh, another question which has come in from an anonymous attendee. Um, they’ve said. Understanding you can never presume someone’s circumstances. How would you advise starting the conversation if you believe someone may be experiencing certain barriers or neurodivergence if they haven’t disclosed

Devon Lowndes – 47:16

Yeah, this is one of the questions that I get asked the most often. Um, and it’s a really terrific tricky one to navigate, isn’t it? When you as, as a manager or as HR can see where you could maybe support someone, but they’re not disclosing to you? Um, first of all, please remember that we have to protect ourselves with our boundaries.

Devon Lowndes – 47:36

Right? You’re not a doctor. You’re not a therapist. You can’t cross those lines. What we can talk about, though, is the barriers. Is the behaviours. So we can say things like, I’ve noticed you might find it a bit difficult to struggle when you’re doing this kind of report. We can’t say. Have you got ADHD because you don’t focus when you’re doing this right?

Devon Lowndes – 47:55

You can. See

Claire Dibben – 47:56

It’s a different approach.

Devon Lowndes – 47:58

Exactly, exactly. And just like we have done for for many years, we can really talk about behaviours at work. We want to talk about those behaviours and we can still provide the accommodation just when it’s the behaviour. The beauty of, uh, the employment law in the UK is that you do not have to prove yourself with a diagnosis in order to receive the accommodations and as an organisation in particular, you can go above and beyond.

Devon Lowndes – 48:23

On that remit right? You can offer accommodations, company wide. You can say, hey team, not directed at anyone in particular, but would anyone want to sign up for this noise cancelling headphones scheme that we’ve got going on? Did you all know about the quiet space that there is for working over there?

Devon Lowndes – 48:38

And then in those regular catch ups, you open up the conversation and it might take a while. I’ve noticed you’re struggling to focus on this kind of report. I’ve noticed that you’re talking a lot in meetings, but then we’re not seeing a lot of follow up. I have to put my hand up there. I’m guilty of that one. Um, and then we can we can start to work on those traits and behaviours when we start to talk about, we get medical model, right.

Devon Lowndes – 49:02

Like we’re talking about before, if we start to think that you’ve got this, you’ve got that you’re not doing this very well. We can start to talk about what barriers lie within the person as opposed to the environment. So what is it about report writing that you find difficult social model. Why can’t you focus when you’re doing this medical model.

Devon Lowndes – 49:20

So ask about the task. Ask about the barriers. Maybe then you can bring in the behaviours as well. But try and steer clear of the assumptions right? It’s so easy and I am probably one of the most guilty. People for this in my friendship group in particular, I look around and I’m like, you’re all like me.

Devon Lowndes – 49:38

I bet you’re all ADHD too. But I have to stop myself and think that’s really inappropriate. You wouldn’t turn around to anyone else and go, I think you’ve got dandruff, would you write you because

Devon Lowndes – 49:49

It’s because it’s not appropriate. And we know that it might not be taken very well. Um, so stick with those behaviours. Stick with the barriers and try and steer away from from the medical things and you can provide the accommodations anyway. Access to work the government scheme would provide the accommodations anyway. So so can you

Claire Dibben – 50:09

Brilliant examples. They’re Devon. Um and yeah just to that point you spoke about rather than saying to the individual, do you think you might need this just having it available for people. So that’s the view that we take at CareScribe Our two products, Caption.Ed and TalkType.

Claire Dibben – 50:24

You know, we we sell those into organisations so that they can have a set of licenses so that when they on people, you know, it’s just they’re and people, you know, can request, um, also access to work our products are available through that as well. So I think you’ll point really resonated there.

Claire Dibben – 50:41

And when you joined us on the very first Skill Sessions, you had, I can’t remember the phrase that you used, but it was about creating that culture where it just exists. Rather than singling people out. And the phrase you’ve used escapes my mind. Maybe

Devon Lowndes – 50:54

The only one that’s coming to my mind is like the site wide licenses. Yes.

Claire Dibben – 50:58

Yeah.

Devon Lowndes – 50:59

Site wide license so that you’ve got a certain amount of licenses that cover all the employees, and you can have it or not. And, and you best believe you’re going to look around and people that are nowhere near being dyslexic are using the screen cover because guess what. They’re sat behind a window or so.

Devon Lowndes – 51:15

Do you know these things work for everybody. And in fact, especially with, um, well, with all all people that suffer any suffer. Sorry, that’s the wrong word that have an impairment or perhaps neurodivergent. They are going to be your best tests of your environment. If something is difficult for them, other people are going to be struggling as well.

Devon Lowndes – 51:33

But maybe not quite so painfully

Claire Dibben – 51:36

It benefits everyone. Ultimately, doesn’t it?

Devon Lowndes – 51:39

Absolutely. We could all use TalkType, right? We could all have days where that’s much easier. Uh, than trying to make minutes in a meeting

Claire Dibben – 51:47

Yeah, for sure.

Claire Dibben – 51:49

Um. Right. We have got three minutes. Left. Um, so we’ve got a question, which I’m going to give you. One minute to answer. Devon, you’ve got a stretch time. Um, so someone has said, short of moving offices, how could you approach certain sensory accommodations that may be more difficult to implement, such as bright office lights or open plan layouts?

Devon Lowndes – 52:11

Mhm.

Devon Lowndes – 52:11

Um, the first and most obvious is hybrid options. Can these people work from home? Can they work elsewhere? Um, and that, that can be tough. I mean we live in a very open office world nowadays. I’ve seen companies employing dividers.

Devon Lowndes – 52:27

Um, so that people can feel like they’ve got a bit more of a private space. Uh, we can look at, uh, noise cancelling headphones. We can look at screen glare. It’s really hard when there are fluorescent lights above you. That’s something that I realised I struggled with before. I realised I was neurodivergent.

Devon Lowndes – 52:43

I hated fluorescent lighting. Um, so that could be quite difficult. But you can reduce the glare on the screen. Uh the other one is to have specific spaces within the office where the lights are lower. When the noise is quieter, like your quiet carriage on a on a train of thing.  Was that a good,

Claire Dibben – 53:03

Um, we’ve got. Just enough time for for for one last quick fire question, which is, if you had to choose one key takeaway that people should leave this session today with what would it be?

Devon Lowndes – 53:16

Uh, okay.

Devon Lowndes – 53:17

So I think that it would be encouraging the open conversations with psychological safety. The more you do that, the more you learn. And I defy any senior leadership person to challenge you on learning more is a bad thing. I. Learning more is always a good thing.

Devon Lowndes – 53:33

Um, yeah. Keep having those open conversations. You never know what learning is going to come from.

Claire Dibben – 53:39

It. 100%. Devon. Thank you so much for your time today. There’s been so much engagement on the chat and loads of things that you’ve said. It’s clearly resonated with the with the attendees. So thank you so much. Um, and again, for anyone that you know. Really found today’s conversation enlightening and educational, we’ve been hosting skill sessions for about two years now, so please do go to CareScribe.

Claire Dibben – 54:05

Website or our YouTube channel. Because you can view all sorts of content around the topic of neurodiversity and learn some more things which you can put into place at work in just a second. One of the team’s going to post a link to the feedback survey. I mentioned at the start. You can let us know how you found today.

Claire Dibben – 54:21

We do implement your feedback. You can also request more information about Caption.Ed and TalkType. If you would like to learn more. Um, and if you enjoyed today’s webinar. Please help us spread the word. Um. We would love it if you could share skill sessions with your LinkedIn network or your peers, or your colleagues, because every bit of word of mouth helps, and we’re really eager to grow this community.

Claire Dibben – 54:42

And just create a valuable network for people, you know, whether you’re neurodivergent yourself or you manage a team of people in an organisation and you want to better understand how to support. So, as I mentioned at the start, next month, we have Donna joining us from neuro. Box and they’re going to talk about how to manage dyslexia in your team.

Claire Dibben – 54:59

And that’s ready for you to register. Now you can sign up for those sessions on our website or on LinkedIn. Just search for CareScribe on LinkedIn and thank you all. Once again for today. Devon. It’s just been wonderful. We’re getting lots of comments in the chat again. Brilliant session.

Claire Dibben – 55:15

Thank you so much. Thank you. Devin. So thank you so much for your time.

Devon Lowndes – 55:19

Thank you. And I’ll definitely be here to listen to Donna next month. She’s amazing. Lovely.

Claire Dibben – 55:25

What a review. There you go.

Claire Dibben – 55:26

Right everyone , see you next month. And have. a lovely afternoon. Bye bye.

 

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