-- Intro --
Chris Moriarty
Hello and welcome to the Workplace Geeks your regular deep dive into the world of wonderful workplace academia and the brilliant brains behind it. I'm Chris Moriarty.
Ian Ellison
And I'm in Ellison.
Chris Moriarty
And we are simply here to hold up the umbrella on this joyful walking tour as we explore the world of workplace performance one study at a time. Now, last time out, we heard from Josh Artus from Centric Lab about a report he co-wrote for the British Council for Offices called ‘Designing for Neuro Diversity’. And it's fair to say we had some lovely, lovely comments off the back of that didn't we Ian.
Ian Ellison
We did indeed and kind of personally on the day that the episode dropped, I was actually teaching down in London and new group of Government Fast Streamers. Hello, folks hope you're listening, especially given his part of your homework. And there were some lovely ripples of support and interest from them. The topic actually kept cropping up in discussion over the two days we spent together in Whitehall, what a strange place, by the way, and informed all sorts of different workplace and learning angles. So that was nice.
Chris Moriarty
I did like the idea of you forcing listeners onto, into the homework of students. I like that
Ian Ellison
It's on the reading list. It's on the reading list.
Chris Moriarty
Damn right. There was lots of lovely comments. But I think my personal favorite was from Victor Kovalets who's CEO and Founder of AcademiaOne and OKEClub, which, if that's if I've said that, right, that's the best thing for anything, isn't it the OKEClub, who simply said, ‘nice’, lovely bit of feedback that now we gave plenty of shout outs to various organisations that made that report happen, including an organization called IQL. Well, fellow Workplace Geek and avid podcast listener, Rachel Edwards, pointed out to me that that was actually an LendLease project. So I think we should probably give them some props for helping to bring this topic to life. And that's a good time for our regular reminder to get in touch with us about your thoughts wherever you are in the world about each episode. The easiest and most popular way to do that is on LinkedIn. So just search for Workplace Geeks using the Workplace Geeks hashtag that's #workplacegeeks, or by dropping us an email on hello@workplacegeeks.org. Or signing up to our wonderful newsletter, where you'll get all the updates on episodes and various blogs that we write, all of which you can find information on at workplacegeeks.org.
So as I said in there, that it's really nice to hear from people all around the world. Now, our most popular country is of course, the UK. And the United States is quite popular as well. We could shout out to our Spanish listener, whoever you are, thanks for listening to us. In Spain. I mean, we've got people here from Singapore, India, Finland. These are all lovely places. And if you've got an event on in those lovely places and want to pay our expenses for us to come over and do a live Workplace Geeks special, we're totally on board with that. We're totally on board on that.
Right! We mentioned before Josh's episode was the first in a two-part dive into neurodiversity. So if you haven't listened to Josh's episode yet, I'd go back now and then come back here once you have because not only does that work in terms of sequencing, but we've also got a combined reflection section with the one and only Esme Banks Marr from BVN Architecture where we'll be discussing today's and Josh's episode. So to avoid the spoilers, go back, listen to Josh, come back here. And when they do come back in who we're going to hear from,
Ian Ellison
So this week, Chris, we're joined again by Dr. Jo Yaker Jo is an occupational psychologist, a researcher and a consultant specialising in health at work. So commercially, she does this as the director of Affinity Health at Work, and academically at Birkbeck, University of London.
So it's the second time that Jo has been on the show, as we know previously, Episode 11, where she was talking about wellbeing in relation to Post Occupancy Evaluation of workplace changes. But in this episode, we're exploring a particular type of study that Jo undertook with a number of different academic collaborators are all about physical workplace adjustments to support neurodivergent workers.
And what they did was what's called a systematic review of information available, which kind of gets called literature in academic circles, about the evidence of physical workplace changes in service of neurodivergent needs. And the key thing there is evidence.
So, if the last discussion about neurodiversity with Josh was about the opportunity of the movement, and how workplace plays a part, Jo and her colleagues paper is about the evidence we have at this stage. And we should stress that because there's a lesson here not just about academic rigor, how to sort the wheat from the chaff if you like when you're looking for the evidence of impact or material to support your own work, but also about the importance of ongoing research and surprise, surprise for the show the interplay between the commercial world, and academic knowledge, as always the link to the paper and other resources in the show notes.
And just one more update before you go on Chris. Breaking news, Josh has just been confirmed for Workplace Trends this October 2023, fantastic conference down in London, talking about this very subject. So we'll be there Audiem, and Workplace Geeks sponsor Workplace Trends. So get yourself over, grab an in person or a virtual ticket, and come and see Josh onstage to learn more.
Chris Moriarty
And if he was half as good on stage as he was on the podcast, it is going to be a real treat. So, we'll see you on the other side with Esme but for now, let's listen to Jo Yarker.
-- Interview --
Chris Moriarty
Jo, welcome back to the Workplace Geeks podcast the first guest that we've been so impressed with that we've asked to come back for a second bite of the cherry. But for those that we don't like to talk about who haven't listened to the first episode. For those listening for the first time, just tell us a little bit about you your work and some of the things that you focus on.
Jo Yarker
Hi, well, it's wonderful to be back. Thank you for inviting me. I'm an occupational psychologist, and I specialise in health and well-being at work. So, I'm really interested in understanding what helps people to stay at work and to thrive in work. And we work with organisations to see what policies and practices need to be put into place, and also with managers and individuals to understand what really needs to happen on the ground to put those policies and practices into reality of everyday working life.
Chris Moriarty
Lovely. So we've asked you to come back and speak to us about a very specific paper, the title of which is ‘Physical workplace adjustments to support neurodivergent workers; a systematic review’. Now before we dive in to the paper, and the topic, you know, we've wanted to talk about this for a long while. But before we really get into it just help us understand sort of the language and the importance of some of the language associated with this topic, because I think a lot of people care about it, but then also feel a little bit worried that they're going to, I guess put their foot in it or offend someone or treat the topic with disrespect, albeit unwittingly. So just help us understand that a little bit.
Jo Yarker
So diversity is an umbrella term that we can use to describe how our brain processes information and functions differently. So underpinning that is that we all think feel sense here and see things differently. And this gives us a variation in how we learn how we access information, how we process information, and behave in the world around us. What we can see is increasingly we can see the words neurodivergent is used in the academic literature. The divergent term is really looking at well how does that diverge from neurotypical population so neurotypical populations, and really looking at that difference? So what we do see there in practice, and I think this is one thing that's really important for us to carry through in our discussion, is this term neuro minority being used. And this is where we think about people with neurodiverse conditions that fall under a broad taxonomy. So thinking about dyslexia, or DCD, where people are typically born with that condition. And it relates to the way that it can impact in applied settings, such as your educational skills, for example.
But there's also clinical neurodiversity. And this is, again, where you're typically born with that condition. But it relates more to the behavioral skills, and it's considered a health condition. So autism, ADHD, and Tourette's, for example, and then you have acquired new neurodiversities. And this is where people may develop neurodiversity in response to a health condition, and that may exacerbate or deteriorate over time. So, it's a very complex area. But one way really what we're looking at is, how do people think feel experience the world in different ways? And what does that mean for them?
Ian Ellison
It's really complicated. And it's really important, but just showing us those different, almost categories, ways to think about different examples of neurodivergent. I want to say conditions, but I don't know if conditions is the right word.
Jo Yarker
I think one of the things that comes through is we have such a broad range of characteristics that we're looking at, and even when you're living it, so my daughter is autistic. And what I've begun to realise there is that people just like to describe themselves in different ways. So, some people prefer to refer to themselves as people with autism. Some people prefer to refer to themselves as a to stick around, there's lots of individual differences around not only the diversity itself, but also the preferences that people have and the extent to which they want to embody that identity. And that I think makes everything a little bit more complex as well.
Chris Moriarty
You mentioned your daughter, then, and hopefully you don't mind me asking this. But how much of a factor was that? I guess, as a parent, when you're trying to process something yourself, your academic training kicks in, which is, I need to research this, I need to understand it. What does the literature say? Was there a bit of that when you were approaching this paper that there was this kind of personal curiosity about, what is the evidence out there? What does the research tell us?
Jo Yarker
Many years ago, when I first started out in academia, we looked at the work experiences or parents with autistic children. And that was fascinating for me, because it gave me a real insight into what life for those parents was like, and how they could engage in the work environment and what supports would be necessary. And as time has gone on, I think this paper came about really because of that long standing interest in how do we help people navigate work adjustments? But also where is this intersection between mental health and neuro diversity? And how do we help people really make sense of the work environment, but also always at the back of my mind is how do we help managers and organisations make things as simple as possible so that people that need the adjustments or the support, get it at the time that they need, so that was really what was in the forefront of my mind, I suppose rather than being a parent. But what does always surprise me stroke makes me feel somewhat despairing is knowing that I have a child that is going to be navigating the work environment at some point. There's so much that needs to be done. And so it really shines a light on that.
Ian Ellison
Okay, Jo. So let's turn towards the paper now, because I'm itching to get into this and have a proper geeky methodological discussion, amongst other stuff. So, as Chris said, the title was ‘Physical workplace adjustments to support neurodivergent workers;, a systematic review’ systematic very much being the word. So this review evaluates the evidence for physical workplace adjustments, and they're linked to occupational longevity, performance, and health and well being in neurodivergent workers. So in a pithy, catchy strapline, that's what this is all about. So could you just take us a little bit deeper? And then let's explore how you went about what you did and why.
Jo Yarker
The aims are really to objectively as we can look at the literature base to say, what is it that we know often when we look at a single study, it's quite hard to get the broader picture. And so, in bringing together all of the literature that we could find that was around physical work adjustments, we aim to really try to make sense of what are the most important adjustments? What impact do they have? And also, do we know anything about how people access them, whether they’re used in combination, and so on? So that was really the starting point. What do we know about these work adjustments? And can we try to find some common threads that give us confidence that these are the most important work adjustments for employers to ensure that they offer to their employees so that people can stay at work and thrive at work? So that was really the intention. And we went through a systematic process that has been very well documented through our doctorate that, that we run at Birkbeck, we asked all of our upcoming occupational psychologists to learn how to do a systematic review. And it's quite a complicated process, because you have to make so many decisions along the way. But essentially, what it requires you to do is to set out some very, very specific research questions. And then think about, well, what are the terms that I'm going to search for so very clearly articulating what key terms you're going to be looking at? And then the key criteria that you're going to use to include the studies in that, that the final result? And also what are you going to exclude, because there's so much out there that we can't look at everything. So, we need to make some really clear decisions around what's going to be in that final review, and also what we're going to sift out along the way.
Ian Ellison
So going back, and sort of drawing on my own academic experience, what we're talking about here is a literature review. That's kind of the language that starts everything off. And for anybody that's done an undergraduate dissertation, or postgraduate dissertation, or any research whatsoever, basically one of the fundamental things that needs to be done is to turn to the existing work. And it might be professional writings, it might be academic writings, it might be research writings, it might be a theoretical stuff they might be papers, they might be books, but turn to the body of work that's been done before and go, ‘What can we learn from this?’ And you can do that in an unsystematic way, you can just follow your nose and go Well, that's interesting. I'll include that. And that's probably the most common way of doing a general basic literature review. But what you're saying is, we have to raise the bar on that to do this properly, we have to almost bring in some structure to what we're doing and why we're doing it so that we can essentially filter what's in and out,
Jo Yarker
I think all of us will know from writing essays, you come with a very clear idea of what argument or outcome you want to put forward. And so a literature review that is unsystematic, allows you just to choose cherry pick the research that you want to present. A systematic review will add that layer of objectivity of criteria, whereby you are then searching everything that's out there, within a clear boundary, and you set that clear boundary and then you follow a very, very distinct process to ensure that you end up with a core set of articles that meet your criteria.
Our search term strategy was let's just keep it really broad, so that we can see what's going on. And then we also made decisions around what literature to keep in and that was very much around ensuring that there was people at work or working age, so that we knew that our sample wasn't full of people who are studying, for example. And so those were decisions, and there's much more detail in the paper, but decisions that you make, as you go through before you even get to sifting through the research and then getting to the final group of papers to quality assess.
Chris Moriarty
Is it a case of testing your searches against the exam question?
Jo Yarker
Absolutely. And some studies may include mixed samples, some, some studies may include solely the perspective of the employee. In our study, we were broad, we wanted to know as much as we could so, we also included perspective of family members of colleagues of employers, so that we could not restrict our approach.
Ian Ellison
Okay, that's a very theoretical discussion that explains what and why let's now start talking about so what does that actually mean, in practical terms for this paper. It meant that when you set your very specific research criteria, what it meant, there's when you then went out keyword searching, it brought you to 319 studies, you sort of went a little bit deeper in different ways to make sure that you haven't missed anything with your net. But then when you took those 319 studies, and you kind of applied the rigor of this systematic filtering process, you only arrived at 20 pieces of research that made the cut, essentially, that were in the finals for consideration.
Jo Yarker
Of these studies, we saw that there were mixed study designs. So, one quantitative study, seven mixed methods and the remainder were all qualitative. And I think that's really important to reflect on because what we know from study designs is that different study designs allow us to interrogate, ask different questions of, of the data or different questions of what's going on in that that environment. And so, even just as a top line, take home message, what it shows us is really, we only have opinion, and stories of what is working rather than triangulated data of what is working and who it's working for. And so those stories are absolutely vital and so valuable, but they're only one part of understanding whether something is working and working well.
Ian Ellison
The vast majority of information about neurodiversity, and particularly physical workspace adjustment, or what we mean by physical adjustment is changes to the physical settings, the workspace of people working to better accommodate their neurodivergent needs. So much of it, a vast majority of it is currently speculative, maybe theoretical, but certainly not evidence based in in a robust way, which was meeting your systematic selection criteria.
Jo Yarker
I'd say there's some interesting differences, I suppose. And I wouldn't say that that speculative is the right word, but it is really that we, with the data that we have, with so much of it being qualitative, and based on reporting of that experience from the individuals perspective at one time point, for example, what we're not able to do is to really be sure that if we change a certain aspect of the environment that is going to have over time and impact on performance, health and well-being, satisfaction with the work environment, ability to feel in control of the work environment, and so on. So, the qualitative studies give us a real rich insight into what's important and how some of those adjustments have been made. But what they don't tell us is, what is working and why it's working with any definitive certainty.
Chris Moriarty
What, that got me thinking about is, I mentioned in the intro, that this is a very popular topic at conferences and from people that design space that to make sure that, you know, clients are aware of neurodiversity, and what it means. And so they've done their own research, and that sometimes might be in partnership and stuff. But what worries me is that this kind of clamour for the topic, mixed with organizations, commercial organisations keen to present themselves as progressive to clients, because that will be commercially beneficial as well, but mixed with a lot of good intention as well. So objectively, we could say that the findings of it wouldn't stand up necessarily to robust academic scrutiny. But we've got lots of people make it, potentially, lots of people making lots of decisions based on something fairly light and not peer reviewed, not robust, hasn't been scrutinised, therefore, there's a bit of risk in there.
Sorry, that's a very long winded way of articulating the kind of balance between commercial and academic research, I guess,
Jo Yarker
I think it's a really important point. So I have, I suppose two views on this one is from an academic point of view, a number of studies that look at trends, for example, are not robust in the way that they sample in the questions that they might ask, in the interrogation of the data to look at associations and what might moderate or mediate or impact that relationship. And so to one extent, yes, a number of practices are likely to be based on very flimsy data, and very flimsy evidence.
I think, on the other side, what we also need to keep in mind, and this is where my practitioner hat comes into play, is that often academia and research is lagging practice, because academics are very much, I suppose, caught in this trap, sometimes of wanting to publish and therefore needing to use the same measures and robust measures and look at particular constructs and so on, that sometimes they can be constrained in terms of what they are looking at. So, you have this this divide, which is very well, well talked about. But I suppose the lack of evidence doesn't mean that they won't, couldn't work, it just means that we don't have the evidence to definitively say that these adjustments are these practices, these initiatives make the impact that we hope.
Ian Ellison
So how would you summarize the key findings, then? What are the takeaways? What's the punch line to this research, Jo?
Jo Yarker
Say the punch line is that it's encouraging that work adjustments are being used, and really encouraging that there is the beginnings of an understanding of what those barriers and facilitators are to securing work adjustments.
In terms of what adjustments are being used, we know that there are specific adjustments around manipulating your environment. So, whether that is around light, and sound. And that's very important, because we know that particularly for people with hypersensitivity, that can really distract from your ability to even be in the work environment, let alone thrive in the work environment. And so that is, is something that's really important. I think one of the things that we don't know, though, is what works for whom, in what circumstances. And that's a real shame. So that's really where we need to go, because we have some broad understanding of the different adjustments that could be used. But what we don't know, is really what impact they have, over time, on work outcomes, and on health outcomes.
Ian Ellison
I mean, Chris, this goes all the way back to Episode 1 where we were talking to Mark Eltringham and Matt Tucker, about the need to sort of try and find ways to synchronise these two systems at work with something as important as neurodiversity. Is there an opportunity Jo for almost for the professional world to offer up the opportunities to kind of expedite the evidence that we need?
Jo Yarker
I think that would be truly wonderful if we, if we found a way to work better with those who are building the work environments who are working in estates and doing the fit out But also when people are going through consultations to have work adjustments, whether that's with occupational health, whether it's with their line manager, their HR professional, how do we feed that information through in a way that will really help us understand what people need, what they're using, what impact is having on work and individual outcomes.
Chris Moriarty
That was something I certainly picked up when I was reading it is that it kind of feels like the measures at the moment are almost task based. It's kind of like, okay, this person needs to concentrate, do they concentrate better when they're in this room? Or in this room? With reduced sound or reduce noise or whatever it might be. As opposed to what you talked about, which is kind of outcome based stuff. Like how does it improve their employment? prospects? How does it improve their health and their quality of life?
Jo Yarker
And it's that, that tricky thing around real-world research. So it's really thinking about what we need to do is help people understand how to collect data better and more systematically in real world settings. And there's a really great evidence base that is around real-world evaluation and process evaluation, where we can look at when we make changes in the work environment, how are they experienced? What is actually happening? And what is the impact of that change? And if we were better at collecting that information, we would have much more confidence that certain things were helpful, or indeed that certain things were unhelpful.
Chris Moriarty
So can I ask you two very specific questions, because there was two things that popped up in the paper that I thought were really interesting ideas that I don't think have been talked about a lot, and felt quite fundamental to some of the stuff that you found in your paper. So the first one, and you've touched on it already, but I'd like to get a bit more of an explainer on it is the difference between hypersensitivity and hyposensitivity, because reading through the paper, it felt like there is a heavy focus on the former, and less focus on the latter. So just explain what those two terms mean, the differences and why they're important.
Jo Yarker
Somebody that has hypersensitivity is likely to feel and experience stimulation in the environment very, very strongly. More strongly than then many others. And so, noises that perhaps some people don't notice, really, really great, and actually become something that they can't unfocus on, because they're they're so intense. And go back to the experience of my daughter, I know that if I put the radio up, above, maybe seven on our car, I know that she instantly, it's too much for her, and it actually brings on a physical pain sensation for her. So, hypersensitivity is when we can feel that environment in a very intense way. Hyposensitivity is perhaps where that isn't the case. And there is this under syimulation of the senses. And so perhaps feeling cold, for example, not being able to recognise that the environment is cold, because that feeling is just not that there.
Chris Moriarty
That's probably what struck me is that this is more complicated and then layered than simply saying, we've made adjustments and we've put a room down the corridor for someone to go, that's dead quiet. That's not the be all and end all of it.
Jo Yarker
So thinking in terms of the different terminologies, I think one of the things that is interesting to think about is the idea of spiky profiles, I'm not sure if you've heard of that term, as well. But often when we're thinking of neurodiversity, we think of a continuum as you as you suggest, that actually it's much more complex than that there are many different aspects or different dimensions of somebody's neurodiverse profile. And so what might be an appropriate work adjustment for one individual with autism is absolutely not the case for another everybody is completely different and has a unique spiky profile that we might need to adjust to.
Chris Moriarty
So just tell us a little bit about adjustment fatigue because I thought that was probably something that people don't take into consideration with all this stuff. I kind of read it as there's a kind of an assumption once we've done the thing, then the thing is solved but actually changing patterns, behaviors and I guess kind of routines comes with its own energy drain which can also affect what we're trying to achieve as well. Right I've I kind of have I kind of read that right?
Jo Yarker
So having the adjustment put in cases is really valuable and it will reduce the load on the individual and give them the additional space to be able to focus on the task in hand. But just because the adjustment is there, doesn't mean that it's everything is absolutely perfect and there'll be able to focus or expend energy in the same way that a neurotypical person might do. And so what we can think of there is if you have somebody who has this hypersensitivity to sound, for example, you could in the work environment, have soundproofing booths, we've seen lots of fantastic adjustments that we can we can make to having independent offices or sound barriers wearing sound protection. But that doesn't mean that that individual will not get tired of that environment and need to expend energy in making that environment work. And so is the adjustment that that might be suitable, actually to rebalance and have the physical environment that's available to them, but also to ensure that they can work from home for example, in other situations, so the adjustment fatigue element is really trying to bring through and it talks there about the ableist perspective as well, which is where we might think, well, we've put the adjustment in, so therefore everything sorted. And actually, it's recognising that the adjustment might accommodate some needs, but it is unlikely to fully accommodate needs, because they will, they'll be different, different challenges that come away.
Ian Ellison
I don't know about you, Jo. But I find literature review papers, in some respects, almost bittersweet, because they're like a gateway to all the gold if you can find a literature review paper, because by its very definition, it's a meta study, it's a review of work that's been done, it allows you to get up to speed with the situation both topically, and in terms of the quality of the landscape really, really quickly. But what you end up with is a much richer understanding of what's going on.
But then the flip side to that, depending upon what you find, can mean things like and I'm quoting from your conclusion here, our results indicate that the research is generally not well developed is methodologically weak, and therefore confined to offering indicative effects. Now, I think you've been really kind as to that's where we are. And that doesn't mean there isn't good intention. But what you're also saying in this paper is stuff needs to improve, and particularly for the people talking about physical adjustments, and perhaps in the business of physical adjustments and proclaiming their expertise. Things still need to improve. And we've talked about ways that we could do that. What would you recommend next off the back of a paper like this, because we kind of laugh and joke a little bit that at the end of every academic paper, it says one of the things we need to do is more research, because that's like one of the standard things that always needs to happen. But in a kind of much more. I don't know whether the word is practical or a much more focused way. How do we improve this? How do we set ourselves up for better workplace adjustments that support neurodiverse needs in the future?
Jo Yarker
It made me laugh. Thinking about every paper does say that we don't have enough research. And you're quite right. Often in an organisational setting that is the case because there's just so many things that come into play to to impact the outcomes.
I think with this research, there's a number of different things that we can do. I think, first of all, is really developing first and foremost, a deep understanding of what those sensory needs for neurodiverse conditions are and can we better articulate what those needs are, and what adjustments may well be appropriate. And there's some brilliant organisations that are doing that. So, Genius Within really focuses on taking a functional approach to adjustment, we can see Lexxic, Access to Work, there are some great organisations that are moving and doing great work in this. I think what also could do well is to then translate that research into the academic environment. And so, Professor Nancy Doyle is somebody who's leading in this area and taking all of that practical work, and considering how it can really inform our understanding in the academic environment.
But we, I think, could ask more of companies to help translate that that information, whether that's through partnerships with academia, whether it's through knowledge transfer arrangements within universities, whether it's student projects, there are so many different ways that we can feed that practice based information from those organisations that are supporting the implementation of adjustments into the knowledge base. But I also think that there's a lot of space for charities and support groups to get involved as well. And I think that's one of the things that is such a challenge often in academia. The questions that are asked are those that progress the academic knowledge in tiny tiny ways, and they're not always the questions that are really important to the people that are living their lives. And so can we engage those groups in a more productive way?
Ian Ellison
What would you recommend if somebody wanted to really understand this and learn more, so that they could be practically helpful in their own organisational, professional situation?
Jo Yarker
So if you're keen to learn more, I think that there's so much available on the web now, in terms of getting an understanding of the basic definitions and what the experience of somebody with a neurodiverse condition is in the workplace. But I think even going back a step to understand well, what does life look like, for an individual that is a neuro minority? What does what does life look like? What do they experience and there are so many great case studies and videos, if you're thinking about different charities as well, that can really bring that to life. Because I think until you've heard stories, it can be very difficult to then put yourself in the position of wanting to support somebody.
But also, I think one of the things that you mentioned right at the very beginning, was that people don't want to say the wrong thing. And I absolutely can, can recognise that. But we see this in our work with mental health, we see it when we're looking at supporting cancer patients to return into the work environment, is actually saying nothing is far worse. So being open, ask it, ask the questions, but in a way that is open and supportive. So, what can I do? What can I learn? Where can I read? What would you recommend? And being open to that learning is the most important thing really.
Ian Ellison
So there's a lovely message about empathy and showing caring, showing kindness, showing concern, not sympathy, but displaying empathy and a desire to understand these fundamentally at the heart of improving all of this? Right?
Jo Yarker
Absolutely. And understanding that nobody has all the answers. And I think that's part of it is it all needs to be a test and learn experience when it comes to work? One adjustment might work for one week, but not the next and not the next month. And so we need to take this as a constant journey of just learning more, and keeping that conversation open so that we can continue to see what works and what doesn't and adapt along the way.
-- Reflection Section --
Chris Moriarty
That's the end of our chat with Jo. And as we said last week, and we reminded you at the start this episode, we are going into reflection section on both Josh and Jo's episode. So again, a reminder, if you haven't listened to Josh's episode, go back and have a listen to that because some of this might not make sense. But we're gonna go into a doubleheader reflection section. And for that we are joined by friend of the show, Esme Banks Marr of BVN Architecture. Hello, Esme.
Esme Banks-Marr
Hello, Chris.
Chris Moriarty
So we had two very different conversations, it feels like we had Josh, who was talking about a guidance note, it's research informed it was it swimming in scientific knowledge and understanding, but ultimately a document that was aimed at education, it was advisory, he described it as a playbook. It was purposefully digestible, it was very kind of consumer focused in that, you know, they needed people to read this. So they need to make it as accessible as possible. And then we had Jo's, which was a very, very academic exercise on purpose. It was a very academic exercise very methodological. And essentially, it was a robust test of what evidence exists around some of the topics that we're talking about across both of these episodes. So two very different papers, one very important topic, Esme, having listened to them, what was it that struck you the most across each of them combined? Across the topic? What was it that really kind of jumped out to you,
Esme Banks-Marr
Let me take this back step and just say I was a little bit nervous about this conversation, I'm going to be really honest and say I was a little bit nervous about being the ponderer, for these conversations, because it's such a huge topic. It's such an important topic. And I felt like I have been ill informed in the past. I'm really pleased for one that both Josh and Jo were invited on and talking about the same thing, but slightly different things. But I will say one of the things I was so pleased to hear and Chris, you pulled it out, was the idea of language coming through and the language that we use to describe these things. And when I got thinking about why I was slightly nervous to come on and discuss it, I think it's because of language and making sure I wanted to not say the wrong thing and say the right thing and educate myself and all of that kind of thing. So and I think you talk about that at the end of the conversation with Jo. And the idea of people being slightly concerned about saying the wrong thing. Jo kind of says, doing nothing or not asking any questions is worse than accidentally asking, technically speaking the wrong question or using the wrong terminology. So, I think language and naturally that seems to be quite an Esme thing to say, perhaps quite crisp thing to say as well is super important and the fact that that came through for both of them. I loved I'm so pleased that kind of kick started and then rounded off both conversations. The other thing is, I'm actually just thrilled that Josh's research is through the BCO. I am I'm excited for the BCO in the future of the BCO, which is quite a statement. But yes, I was like, wow, sit tight. Here we go British Council for Offices, they're getting behind these things that super super matter. And they were kind of veering away from just their standard kind of guidelines and what that might mean. So yeah, that was quite exciting.
Ian Ellison
I think in the conversation, I said something like, I was surprised and delighted, or words to that effect, I found myself partway through it going, wow, that I am being offered something here, which is challenging me, educating me, inspiring me, not just to know this topic better, but have the opportunity to do better in a much more inclusive way.
Chris Moriarty
It's a really interesting angle to come at it. Because with my background, at professional bodies and stuff, there is always this tension. And I don't mean tension in the negative sense, let's call it a healthy tension. But there's always a tension between providing members with stuff that is going to make their job easier today. And that might progress their career, you know, very kind of individually focused. But one of the things that I used to work on with an old colleague of mine, James Sutton, was the role of professional bodies to act as a force for good in society. How do you pull together all of the collective knowledge and make a genuine difference to society through your professional tribe, and that kind of feels like that's what this is, it's a very top level gone, okay, like this is a, I'm going to call it an emerging topic. And I say that, in that it's very recently become very important. And the emerging part of it, I think, in my head is that there's a lot of us, and we've kind of flagged it on this, this interview in this segment, that are learning as we go. But they've clearly seen that as an important topic, wanted to get it right, brought in the right people to do it, and invested in it, not just financially, you know, Josh mentioned some of the sponsors that made sure that it could happen, but made sure that it got given the airtime. And I know, and I don't know how often they do this, they might do it more regularly than I realise. But it's free to download, right? You know, they could have charged for it, they do charge for some of their reports, right. But this one was free to download. And that strikes me as them saying that, you know, let's put our best foot forward and do something powerful with this.
Esme Banks-Marr
Chris, just hearing you say that it's getting airtime was something I was thinking about as well, because I actually think it could be given a bigger platform, I would like to see it pushed more. And I think there's some of the people who often point a little finger out and get angry about social media. But there are some influencers in this wider office industry. I never call it that workplace industry. But I'm thinking of the BCo that perhaps could do a little bit more in terms of using their influence the power to push this a bit more, I would like to see even wider spread. Now I know they're both relatively recent. And naturally, with my kind of background being PR and comms way back when I would say something like that. But you know, you guys are definitely those people. And you're opening up a lot of this academic research and otherwise to practitioners and people who are just interested. But I would like to see more of that. But yes, love the BCO for going hang on a minute, we are the British Council of Offices, and we don't need to just talk about ratios, and push things out that are per square foot per person. It's a bigger, bigger thing than that. So yes, delighted.
Ian Ellison
Although I would venture that because the design of research, the style of research, the way research is articulated, whatever the research is intrinsically linked to the people doing it, my gut feel is that Centric Lab were right for this gig. But equally, if another organisation had been commissioned to do this gig, it would have been a very different report. We can't flick between parallel universes and see what the other reports look like. What we are is delighted with this version of the report because of what Centric Labs done for you that if you go onto their website, the landing page, all of the words are about change. They're about better. They're about a better world, whether it's an urban or rural world, whether it's about people, whether it's about the environment, they are about making stuff better, and that is a political position. And being bold enough to take a political position is important.
Chris Moriarty
We're talking about being bold, right? We've talked a bit about Josh's paper there. And that is very challenging. You could argue maybe it's very optimistic to say we can do something about this, we must do something about this. But Jo's paper comes at this from a very different angle, almost like it's a balancing measure to go woah there. Let's not get carried away. Let's not you know start charging in and making changes because from a scientific point of view, there is no evidence that that works all this works. And I think Jo's point isn't that it doesn't mean it doesn't work, you might have experience of doing it and it was brilliant. But from a scientific point of view, we have not done the work required to be able to pop this into a report to make it robust to be able to repeat it next time someone does a test and builds on it. We haven't gone through that scientific process. And I think that takes some courage as well, because she could have quite easily gone along with the very powerful wave of energy being put towards this, but it acts as a let's just be clear moment here. And I thought that was that was incredibly powerful as well,
Esme Banks-Marr
Jo, so great at that she'll do the whole kind of hang on a second, let's pause, let's see where we're at, how can we perhaps improve it? How can we support it more. And the other thing that I love about Jo and kind of her work both as an academic and for Affinity Health at Work, she's always trying to bridge the gaps in the industry. And she said it again, she said it on our first time around with you guys last year. And then she said it again, about trying to be kind of in the room with the practitioners, other practitioners as well as herself, and the architects, the designers to try and bridge those gaps and support people in making these, what does she call it? The work adjustments, which I think is also just quite an interesting term, trying to see it big picture.
Ian Ellison
So the word that stands out for me with the Jo piece, it's about rigor, because Jo is looking at work that has already gotten not aspirational recommendations. And we talked about the language with Josh about the BCO document, which was all about guidance and recommendations rather than what we should be doing. And they were very careful about the words they chose. Whereas Jo's was, let's see what people are reporting. And let's put it through a validity check and see how rigorous the scientific research is. And then let's see how the findings stand up. And an acid test would be would some of the documents that are out there circulating in our sector have made the cut, and many of them were that we're aware of, they didn't they might have even been referenced in the wider discussion, but they didn't make the research cut. It's not that you then get to say, well, everything else is rubbish. It's just it's not within the parameters, that Jo's methodology, and do you remember, she said that at Birkbeck, they encourage all their master students to do this as an exercise in critical thinking, rather than accepting everything if we set parameters, what's in and what's out. And so that kind of approach is really, really valuable to really, really sort of put an acid test to work.
Esme Banks-Marr
Yeah, I definitely learned something actually, with that when the unsystematic and systematic ways of doing a literature review, I think I thought it was all just one. And I've done a fair few of literature reviews. Luckily, that was a while ago now so.
Ian Ellison
I did a project at Loughborough University a few years ago, where they did an absolutely rigorous literature review. And it took me by surprise, because it was it was based on certain databases, based on certain keywords. It was then about filtering by abstract and all of this way to say, here's the big pile, but now we're gonna end up with a little pile. And it's the little pile that we are going to then use to measure the knowledge that exists on this particular topic. And it was about robots and AI and the future of work back when we were getting very aeratedabout it before the pandemic.
Esme Banks-Marr
Well, I would be interested, though, to drill into that and say, Well, how does bias creep into your system for your systematic literature review? Because you're coming at it from a certain standpoint anyway.
Chris Moriarty
So are you saying does your bias sit somewhere else? In that unsystematic review, it sits when you're Googling and searching in a systematic review, there's potential for the bias to be locked into the what's in what's out. But that into the process, right, you say, we have decided at this point, this is in and this is out before we even look what's available. You could argue well, you've already there's already bias. I’m sure Jo would say the same thing. But that I guess that's that there's flaws with all and as long as we're aware of them…
Esme Banks-Marr
I think that's it, it's there just being aware of being cognisant of them. And you know, I was just going to pick up on that when you said, you know, it's not for us to now say anything else that's out there, we kind of tracking the been anything that somebody else has done a report on, we kind of disregard but I think it's about just being cognisant of the way that Jo's kind of approached the research that's out there. And being aware of that and appreciating that. But it doesn't necessarily, I would say it doesn't necessarily disregard other people's work in the industry because it's all furthering the conversation. And it's all creating awareness. And then we should take it upon ourselves, especially within this industry, I would argue everyone, but in this industry, especially to kind of drive forward our own understanding and educate ourselves and do better in a Centric Lab kind of way.
Ian Ellison
But you know, whether you say there's flaws with or whether you say there's room for all what we need as readers what we need in the sector is better critical thinking skills to be able to spot what is going on.
I get very, very interested in this topic because what sits beneath this and the next layer or the layer below that doubt is different approaches to social science. And you know, some people maintain that through the use of very strict methodologies, you can get the person out of it, you can get the bias out of it. And because your scientific method is so robust and other people go, the very fact that you're interested in the topic, means that fundamentally, intrinsically, you're starting from the biased perspective, otherwise, you wouldn't be doing this research, right? And you can't ever get away from that. That's the human nature bit.
One way you could think about this is what are they both talking about? So, one thing that I noticed, the thing that really stood out to me about the BCO paper, the piece of research that Centric Lab led was here, we are thinking we're going to be talking about spatial guidelines, physical architecture. And so much of the report was about the social architecture of work. Was so much about how you treat the people, how you enable the people, and the management perspectives on that, it's in there. And I think it's one of the things that caught me off guard when I started to read it, because you don't get to the physical bit until later. And that's the bit that PLP brought to life as part of the project.
In the Jo paper, they also talked about these different ways that people who identify as neurodiverse, or people with a condition, which would be considered to be part of the neurodiversity sort of group, if you like, and then you can start freaking out about have I used the right language or not. But I think we can broadly, we broadly understand what I'm trying to say. There are physical adjustments, but there are also social adjustments and adjustments which involve the organisation that people around you and management. So both of those things play a key role in this. You can't fix it by space alone. And you can't fix it by how you manage your workforce alone. They are interrelated. And that's a core principle of placemaking. And it always has been.
Esme Banks-Marr
Yeah, exactly. That's neurodiversity or not neurodiversity. That's just workplace. That's spatial, pragmatics spatial needs come later anyway. That's a that's a really good point. I think what all of it was kind of telling me is that ebbing and flowing your work environment in your wider workplace, whether that's virtual, physical, everything that comes with it, is still crucial. We knew that the whole time. But at the end of the day, you can do this research on your own workforce or a firm can come in and do that for you or look to create a new workplace for you. At the end of the day, in a couple of years, your workforce might change, the person's or a person that this might relate to, and they're kind of the things that impact them in their role might change. So ultimately, it's about having somewhere where I would say people can add an element of their own…I wanted to say personality then, but that didn't feel quite right, maybe just preference to the space that they're in, which I know is a bit tricky. And when we talk about workplace at the moment, it's kind of well, you can personalise things at your home desk or on your dining room table. But you come into the office, and you're using it a little bit more like a hotel. But actually if you're creating spaces where people can mold it to their needs, not just needs actually but yeah, feel at home feel comfortable to do their work in it hasn't completely thrown them off because they're hyper or hypo sensitive. That's kind of the crux, but again, that's always been the crux, hasn’t it?
Chris Moriarty
It should be I mean, what I found really interesting about both of them, sort of linked to what you guys are talking about is that neither, talk about it in the way that I've seen, not everyone but most people talk about it, which is creating sort of a set of very distinct spaces, to go away and sort yourself out sort of thing, it kind of feels like you're having a bit of a moment there's a room at the end of the corridor, go in there and chill out and rub the wallpaper.
Esme Banks-Marr
There can be a bit of an us and them thing
Chris Moriarty
Right. But both of them used measures of outcome that we would all consider measures of outcome for us, right? Employment outcomes, health outcomes, happiness outcomes, it's kind of like yeah, that's how I would think about my workplace. So I think we kind of hinted at it, I forget which one of the conversations It was now but this idea that it's just taking a broader approach to that as opposed to the neuro typical approach and it's very difficult and this is where you do get into sort of systems of power and all the rest of it, when most of the people making the decisions are probably neurotypical and there's a reason for that and it's how do you break that cycle? And to Josh's point where he says about you know, we need these people shaping the table not just at the table, they need to be shaping the table and part of that is because I can't see what I don't know. And it turns out to be quite detrimental and on that I just because both of you was so close to stealing my thing. And I'm sitting there watching you guys go ‘don’t talk about my thing’, but my thing was….
Esme Banks-Marr
It’s okay, you can edit it out if we do
Chris Moriarty
That’s it. Talk about systems of power I edit these so I can make it whatever you want. I I was just really fascinated by the language of it all. And kind of take two different viewpoints on that is that I've always had this thing that about swearing, right? And how people get offended by swearing. And I sit there and go, if you strip everything away from it, it's just a word, whatever word it is, it's caused this offense, right? It's just a word. And actually, if we go back a step further, it's just the sound that we've shaped with our mouth as we like, as our as our wind bags have blown air up our windpipe,
Ian Ellison
Wind bags?
Chris Moriarty
Or lungs, as we like to call them. As we've as we've just made a, you know, what could have been millennia ago, a guttural sound, right? And we shaped it into a different sound, and we say it. And everyone goes, oh, you cannot say that. It's like, no, literally is just a word. It's just a word. It's a set of letters next to each other that the that's one, one approach. And I'm not saying I'm on that camp. But the other approach is to think about it is the going back to what you said about social architecture. It's all the history…
Ian Ellison
It’s a social construction of what the word
Chris Moriarty
Exactly. And I think the reason people are so worried when they come into this debate is that what could just be a simple misunderstanding of a word here or word there or a slight misstep comes with all this social construction. And for those who aren't living and experiencing it every day, either themselves or through a family member, like Josh was talking about his brother, right? What it's all becomes about is to say no, no, there's so much more to it than this, and you don't realise what you've done. And I think both of both Josh and Jo, and particularly with Jo's statement at the end that you've already mentioned, as me, it's, I just hope that more people feel comfortable to have a go. And I hope that people on the other side that are living with this, remain as they are to be open to people getting it slightly wrong. And going, this is a great opportunity for me to explain why that term doesn't quite work for us. But let me tell you why. And I think Josh was brilliant at that, by the way, where he would say, you know, neurodiversity is a movement, you identify, you identify, you choose to identify as neurodivergent, because you've had a medical diagnosis over here. And as he was explaining that I'm going right, and you know, we've talked about his social construct, it was like I was watching the construction, I was looking at the blueprint, I was going oh, okay, I see, because I've just used these words interchangeably. And I didn't know how they relate to each other. So, words are totally powerful. And equally with Jo and the words, what kind of struck me her saying there is no evidence, doesn't mean it doesn't work.
Esme Banks-Marr
And she will, she said that herself. Right. That was her comment. And I think the identification things quite interesting, though, because what if you don't know to identify yourself as that, I think that's kind of part of it, as well. And I was thinking about this this morning, to catch up with a colleague who's running some workshops for a client at the moment. And lo and behold, they're struggling to get people back into the office, especially on a Monday and a Friday. And actually, in the focus groups that they're running at the moment with the kind of emerging leaders group, a lot of people were saying, it's actually really overwhelming on the peak days to be in, like so much so that it's impacting their ability to do their work, yes, to find somewhere to do it, because everybody's in and, you know, the spatial aspects comes into it. But actually, it's just really overwhelming, especially after not doing that as much the last couple of years, and certainly not doing that on a Monday or Friday. If they're in on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, it's just so overwhelming, the experience of being in is overwhelming. And they kind of said that across the board. And it just kind of got me thinking about okay, well, there are aspects of what works for us and what don't work for us. That's true of everybody. There's a psychology of preference that exists. But when it comes to the identifying myself as this, I don't know, you know, I've heard before I don't think either of these guys mentioned it, Joshua, or Jo, but I've kind of heard before that some statistics around when people kind of realise, oh, perhaps I'm part of this neurodiverse, neurodivergent as the kind of umbrella term, they don't necessarily realise that about themselves until far later in life. And often when they've gone through their kind of peak career part.
You know, and I just think that's really interesting. There's the identification piece, which is amazing. And that's helping people to understand it and to do better and to support people more. But there's an element of sometimes perhaps you don't know how to identify yourself.
Ian Ellison
And linked to that and also link to your comments about language question the power of language, there's a whole thing about whether you are interested in having a label whether you see that as strength or a weakness, whether you want to use it as a strength or a weakness, not necessarily use it as a strength, whether you see it as a strength or a weakness, whether you use it to your advantage, or you see the feel that it wouldn't be advantageous, and the degree of choice in that and the degree of well, who's doing the labeling, there's power within this because there's power within language as well. There’s power within swear words, but there's also power within how people choose to wield language like a weapon. So, so it is complicated, right?
Chris Moriarty
Well, that's a really interesting point about swearing, right? And, you know, don't worry, I'm not going to swear now because it means we've got to put a little ‘E’ on our episode. And it's just an extra bit of work and admin that we have to do. But if you…
Esme Banks-Marr
I’m tempted now.
Chris Moriarty
No, don’t. Actually I’ll just edit it out We've established I can just bleep it out, right? Actually, I am going to do that, do we, Ian do we have to put in a little explicit thing if I bleep out the swear?
Ian Ellison
No, you do not. Right.
Chris Moriarty
So Billy Connolly, right? It swears like a trooper, his favorite word is f***. And talks about, it's one of the best words in the English language, you know, talks about how it's very clear, when you tell someone to f*** profit in whatever language they speak, they understand, we are asking you to f*** off. But somehow, somehow, his audiences are full of people that you would be amazed sitting there watching someone swear quite repeatedly, right? Somehow, he gets away with it. Whereas other people might just drop the one F bomb. And it's all hell breaks loose. So there's this sort of whole thing about context and, and tone and language and all the rest of it. And and that I think that applies to this debate as well is that if you can tell that the person is trying to include someone, you know, we've done this to try and be inclusive, I might get it a bit wrong. And all the rest of it is that well, that's alright. You didn't mean it like that. But I guess that the does become very subjective.
And we've seen, and this is for another show, nevermind, another episode, this is someone else's topic. But we've seen that with gender, and how explosive it has been on both sides of the argument and the national debate, it's become so kind of central to a societal conversation about where are we going with this. And it's stirred up very strong opinions, very strong emotions, for people that are anti this whole idea versus those who are living and breathing with it and trying to explain to people and it's just gotten very, very, I would actually argue it's got quite toxic, and I'm not what I worry about is it's all gonna get lost. And I desperately hope that, and I'm not sure it will get close to this because of its kind of exposure. But this is another example of identification of labeling the pros and cons of, the willingness to get something out into an open debate. But it's complicated, in one sense, but as Josh said, get the framing, right. It's actually quite simple conversation as well.
Esme Banks-Marr
And I think Ian and you kind of said this, at the end of the Jo episode, actually, it comes down to empathy, just come on. And and you know, just be empathetic towards it. You know, don't shut this down as well. Unfortunately, I kind of sit here and say, I have seen a little bit of that, over the last maybe year, 18 months, some people kind of disregarding this, don't disregard it. Don't assume at the moment, you have all the answers either. Because I mean, Jo's basically proved that we don't. You know, that's one way of looking at it, but we don't, but also if you're going to claim that you do or you do this anyway, you know, that's not showing any compassion towards the movement that's going on no empathy towards it. And basically, I want to say, sit the f*** down here, because Chris can bleep that out. But if you think that that's the case, you know, it's constant change, constantly evolving, show some empathy, don't be dismissive of this…
Ian Ellison
Be open to learn
Esme Banks-Marr
Be open to learning. Exactly. And fine, there might be some people are saying, oh, it's just more labels that are kind of coming through and we can't design for everybody. Well, actually, if you're talking about workplace inclusivity, that doesn't mean treating everybody the same, it means treating everybody different. And being kind of open to that and accepting of that, whatever that might materialise into. And the other thing, can I just jump in with one more thing that I love that Jo said, again, classic Jo, for connecting dots, she talked about the work of charities, and trying to bring them into the conversation and bring them around the table? That's actually it's such a good point. Because you think, well, we go out to workforces, where it's quite hard. You know, we know this from doing surveys and interviews, when you ask people what they want, or what they need, that's really difficult to do. And if you're doing that to people we don't always know. So let's work with people who work with people all the time to try and get a deeper level of understanding that isn't necessarily just looking at them in their workplace the entire time.
Chris Moriarty
Thank you so much Esme for joining us. And I'm sure we'll have you back. I will certainly get you back this season. There's we've got another nine episodes or so. So we will definitely listen to you again.
-- Outro --
Chris Moriarty
And that concludes our two part special on neurodiversity. I'm sure we'll be back on the topic soon. Given the importance and the focus on it, and rightly so our two episodes have highlighted the importance of getting it right and the need for more scientific data to help us get it right. Suddenly definitely still an emerging topic for sure.
Remember to rate review and recommend the show to help build our community. And please do get in touch via our LinkedIn community. Search Workplace Geeks and you’ll find us you can also use the Workplace Geeks hashtag. That's #workplacegeeks. And of course you can email us at hello@workpalcegeeks.org or visit our website and join the mailing list sign up at workplacegeeks.org.
Speak to you next time.
