Module 2: Introduction to Rights, Responsibilities and Legislation
Understanding your responsibilities as a Neurodiversity Champion, the rights of employees (including yourself) and the laws that your organisation must follow is a crucial part of the onboarding process. In this module, you’ll learn about the legislation that protects neurodiverse employees and the responsibilities organisations have towards them, as well as your role in implementing our cognitive diversity solution into your workplace.
Over to you
Now let’s put what you have just learned in this Introduction to Rights, Responsibilities and Legislation module into practice. In this module, we emphasised the importance of cognitive diversity in the workplace, and the responsibilities your organisation has to all its employees, regardless of whether they are neurodiverse or not. Here are a couple of exercises to try:
- Where does your organisation sit in relation to the legislation highlighted in this module? Take a look at the Equality Act 2010 and determine whether your organisation qualifies as a public sector body. If it does, make a list of the potential risks your organisation faces in terms of compliance with neurodiversity requirements, and how you can communicate these needs to your HR and legal teams.
- How does your current employee lifecycle account for differences in cognition? Reflect on what you do in your role to acknowledge neurodiversity and cognitive diversity in end-to-end organisational processes. Write down what you think you’re currently doing well. How can you amplify this across the business as a Neurodiversity Champion?
Now make a note of any gaps your organisation may have in its existing knowledge or processes regarding neurodiversity and cognitive diversity. How can you address these and drive systemic behaviour change? We have provided some examples below. We also encourage you to check back in to the Knowledge Hub for our upcoming module on behaviour change transformation.
Examples:
- set up monthly cognition workshops/drop-in sessions where people can share their experiences and suggestions (so it’s not just down to managers to facilitate discussions)
- try implementing a ‘You Said, We Did’ initiative, this could be in the form of a notice board, e-newsletter or email, where employees share their thoughts, opinions and requests, and the organisation demonstrates the changes that have been made regarding neurodiversity in the workplace
- use the Cognassist cognitive diversity solution to facilitate data collection and use this to guide changes throughout the organisation