The Success in the Workplace Employer Toolkit: Strategies from Autistic Employees resource was a one year project. The Employer Toolkit was authored by Corey Walker, an Autistic self-advocate, and involved extensive engagement with Autistic employees, employers, and human resources professionals across Canada. The toolkit follows the employee life cycle model used by HR professionals globally, and provides detailed strategies for supporting Autistic employees during every stage of the employee life cycle.
A concentrated knowledge mobilization plan was developed and the author presented or exhibited at the Canadian Autism Leadership Summit, Disability and Work in Canada Conference, Canadian Association for Supported Employment Conference, and the Canadian Professionals in Human Resource British Columbia Diversity and Inclusion Symposium.
Project highlights:
- March 2020 project kick-off.
- Completed environmental scan of inclusive workplace resources in the spring to help inform the contents.
- Developed and conducted two surveys: Autistic workers survey (171 responses) and inclusive employer survey (26 responses) – responses from both surveys formed integral part of toolkit’s contents.
- Established advisory group and steering committees. The steering committee endorsed the toolkit’s contents, provided high level oversight and served as a champion of the project. The advisory group members reviewed individual sections and provided feedback to ensure contents reflected the Autistic voice and was relevant to employers.
- March 2021 Toolkit launched on the Worktopia website.
This toolkit is unique in the marketplace because it was not only written by an Autistic author, but all the content was the direct result of extensive engagement with 171 Autistic employees participating in the project’s Autistic workers survey.
This project truly embraced the concept of “nothing about us, without us,” and ensured the Autistic voice was front and center throughout the entire project. The project team is not aware of any other autism toolkit project that had such extensive engagement with the autism community. Another unique feature of the toolkit is that all PDFs are universally accessible for viewers with screen readers.
Click here to see the full Toolkit.