By Andrew Pfeiffer
I was diagnosed with autism in 2019, at the age of 29. Finally, parts of my life that were utterly confusing made sense! People bullied me at school, and I often felt like I didn't belong. Walking into rooms full of strangers terrified me, and dating triggered crippling anxiety.
I joined the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) as a data scientist in 2016. The following year, I moved to Canberra for a secondment with the Parliamentary Budget Office, only to bawl my eyes out in an SES's office, cut the secondment short, and return home. I took a year of unpaid leave in 2019 to work for a non-profit, and I couldn’t handle the lack of structure. These events involved massive changes to my systems and routines.
As a result of these challenges, I sought professional advice and finally received my diagnosis. While these challenges aren't unique to people with autism, we often experience them more painfully. I regularly wondered what was wrong with me. Thus, my diagnosis was a watershed moment, identifying the common thread of my experience. It didn't change the data about me; it was a trend line that explained the data.
When I returned to the ATO in 2020, an autistic colleague and I raised the idea of starting a neurodiversity network with our Diversity and Inclusion team. We wanted the ATO to have a competitive advantage by becoming an employer of choice for neurodivergent staff, who often have unique strengths and perspectives. Neurodiversity presents a massive talent acquisition opportunity for organisations that choose to harness it. For example, 1 in 7 people are neurodivergent and 1 in 3 people with autism are unemployed.
The ATO invited me to share my story and vision for the Neurodiversity Network at a webinar for International Day for People with Disability in 2020. Following the webinar, HR staff sought my advice on improving neurodiversity inclusion. I invited other neurodivergent staff and allies to provide their views because everyone has unique experiences. Thus, I co-founded the network, which grew organically to nearly 400 members in a year! I'm so thankful to the ATO for their flexibility and support. They advertised the network, helped us elect a steering committee to share the load, socialised autism and ADHD training webinars that we organised, and invited me to speak about the network at webinars, including to senior executives.
Receiving my diagnosis hasn't fixed my challenges overnight. However, I'm slowly learning strategies to manage them. In February 2022, I moved to Canberra again to work for the APS Reform Office in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C). Their flexibility and support have also been incredible. The PM&C Ability Network Executive Committee invited me to help organise a World Autism Awareness Day event in April. I'll be speaking at this event and participating in a panel discussion with colleagues from the ATO and the Attorney-General's Department.
We had incredible demand for neurodiversity inclusion at the ATO, and we can unlock this demand at other agencies. Since joining PM&C, I've convened meetings with staff and SES champions from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), ATO, APSC and PM&C to discuss cross-agency collaboration on neurodiversity inclusion. We still have a long way to go, and not everyone receives the support they need to thrive in the APS. How can we raise awareness of the incredible strengths of neurodivergent colleagues instead of focussing on their challenges? How can we make recruitment processes more inclusive? How can we give people examples of reasonable adjustments and the confidence to ask for them?
Please get involved with the Public Sector Neurodiversity CoP if you're involved in a neurodiversity network, want to start one up, or want to join our cross-agency neurodiversity meetings, Together, we can give the APS a competitive advantage by harnessing the power of neurodiversity.