Do I really need a diagnosis?

My autism diagnosis was life changing – I discovered that a lot of the things that I’d been beating myself up for all my life weren’t my fault. I turned out not to be a broken person, but a person who was different. Possibly running on a different operating system, things were more difficult for me because the world wasn’t built for me, not because I was useless, lazy and hopeless. Very definitely progress and a huge liberation in my own head. But what else do I need my diagnosis for? Frankly, not all that much…

That might sound like a provocative thing to say, but really what use is a diagnosis? It guarantees me protection under disability legislation but in day to day life if you’ve got to the stage of needing to invoke legal protections, then things are not going well. In the office, my diagnosis is a useful things about me for colleagues to know. Although it’s a double edged sword because for some people respond to it with prejudice or stereotypes rather than support. If I had a pound for every time I’ve been told I don’t look autistic or been compared to someone’s autistic kid; well, I’d have a few quid more than I have.

But what about the reasonable adjustments, you might be thinking? Diagnosis must be helpful in that it makes those possible. In a way it is, but actually there’s no reason why any employee can’t have things adjusted for them provided it’s reasonable. “Reasonable” is the key word here – does the benefit to the employee and the organisation make the cost in money or aggravation to the organisation worthwhile? It’s “reasonable” for me to have a designated desk in a corner because I’ll be much more productive there. Very little cost to the organisation, only minor inconvenience to everyone else, and a substantial benefit to me = reasonable. If the adjustment I’d asked for was (say) to be paid a full time salary but only work on every second Wednesday so as to prevent myself ever suffering from autistic burnout by working too hard, that wouldn’t be reasonable. There’d be plenty of benefit to me but very little for the organisation and it wouldn’t be fair or reasonable.

I suspect people get worried about adjustments because they think the only way for things to be fair is for everyone to have the same. But you don’t think that about other things in life. Take drinks orders. If I’m getting the coffees in, I don’t expect everyone to have a medium skinny latte (my order) to make sure things are fair. Everyone gets what they want or need. And if Anne’s order of a large cappuccino is more expensive than Bob’s espresso, then that’s fine. It’s reasonable for Anne and Bob each to have their favourite coffees, even though they’re not the exact same.

The same is true in the workplace. If Anne works best by discussing things while Bob wants instructions written down, that’s achievable. If Carol needs a special chair and Dilip has adaptive software, that’s OK too. You don’t have to go round to all of these people (and I could come up with an alphabet’s worth of names if I have to – just wait till we get to X for Xanthe) and demand a named diagnosis signed by a doctor to put things in place.

It can be tricky to get reasonable adjustments in place, and sometimes the person needing them has to make a lot of the running to get them done. Sometimes two colleagues have to compromise because they have conflicting needs. But ultimately adjustments in the workplace are about getting the best out of everyone. You don’t need a diagnosis to make them happen. If I happen to be more productive with noise cancelling headphones, it doesn’t really matter why I am – what matters is to get those headphones on and some work done.

So if you have a colleague who you think might be autistic – or might just benefit from some adjustment to working practices or equipment – what’s stopping you from just offering that help? It’s in everyone’s best interests to get the best out of every member of staff. They might benefit from a diagnosis for their own understanding and peace of mind, but they don’t need something signed by a doctor to get a few tweaks made to their workplace.

NOTE: This will be my last blog before the UK General Election. Once Parliament rises and the election campaign is in full swing there are a lot of restrictions on what the Civil Service can do, in case of accidentally influencing the outcome of the election. Clearly this blog is not anything official to do with the Civil Service and it’s all resolutely non-political and completely impartial and nothing about Government policy. But as I’ve got “Civil Servant” in the title, in order to avoid even the risk of anyone thinking I was implying any kind of political message I’ll keep quiet for a bit. See you in July!