Tim Presents on Neurodiversity to Google
Getting Google to recognize neurodiversity and take steps to be neuroinclusive has been a hard nut to crack. With the support of only their VP there is one department that is doing an amazing job creating a grass roots effort. While the official position is those with neurodistinct conditions are disabled and the disability ERG, community, and the accommodations group fill any needs, this group recognizes that neurodiversity is as important as any other type of diversity and only providing support through the disability channels is insufficient and even insulting to the neurodistinct community of Googlers.
While the department has been working on their neuroinclusion effort for over a year, various challenges such as layoffs, shifts in business focus, and change in VP have all worked together so that this is their first event outside of committee and work stream meeting. With an introduction my the AppEco VP I am giving a general neurodiversity awareness presentation with a Q&A to round it out.
The interesting thing to me is this type of grass roots effort for neurodiversity recognition seems to be taking hold at many companies, even one's that have official neurodiversity hiring programs. To me this proves something I have said for years. You don't have to go hire neurodistinct workers. They already work in virtually every industry and any organization that is not embracing neurodiversity and promoting neuroinclusion is wasting talent and innovation that is already in their ranks.
I got some nice recognition and promotion for the recording of the presentation in the Google Cloud Learning Services (CLS) newsletter. This is the department I work in as a trainer. It was great to see CLS promoting this presentation and neurodiversity particularly as they were not the group that hosted it. Following is the write up in the October 2023 CLS newsletter
Thanks to the CLS leadership for their recognition and support of neurodiversity and the effort I put into it for the good of Google.