Social Media Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sei/
Why is neurodiversity important to you or your organization?
I believe that everyone should be allowed to be their true selves at work. You shouldn’t have to hid a big part of who you are at work. You shouldn’t have to feel uncomfortable and mask at work. Just cause you function or process things differently doesn’t mean you have any less to offer than someone else. I think us neurodivergent individuals have more to offer than what people might think.
What is the best part of your work in neuroinclusive employment advocacy?
I would say the best part of my advocacy work is knowing that I am helping others like me in my organization. I keep getting told by people how impressed with me they are and that I am doing all these great things, even though we are still a small and young ERG in my organization and we haven’t reached all my overly ambitious goals for the ERG, I am so glad that it seems that the group has made a positive impact on a lot of people.
What inspired your advocacy work, and what impact do you hope to make?
I wanted to see more representation of neurodivergent and disabled people, like myself in the workplace. neurodivergent. I thought it would be important to have more education around the topic for those in the workforce. It was interesting how many people didn’t know much about neurodiversity when I had brought it up. People were shocked when I had brought up that I was autistic. I would respond like yeah how did you not know, like it was so obvious to me cause I’ve know my whole life. I knew I couldn’t be the only one in the company that was neurodivergent so I wanted to create a space in my organization so that I could connect with other, educate others and do some other cool things along the way. So I asked the DEI team at SEI if there could be an employee resource group, since we have a bunch of them. I had all these notes and ideas written down already and was really excited about it. They basically said it seems like you already have the whole thing planned, if you want to run with it you have our permission, here are some people to reach out to who have also expressed interest in this get together and see what you can do.
What is your call to action for other organizations to advance neuroinclusive employment opportunities? Please select your top 2
Hiring neurodivergent talent, Provide neuroinclusive benefits and supports to your employees/members.
What else would you like to share?
I’m just honored that you’re featuring me. I forget how someone can do something that they think is small and basic but someone else thinks is huge and important. Thanks for all the hard work you do.