Guidance on creating neuro-inclusion at board membership level

The goal here is to be able to retain neurodiverse board members in the long term by creating an environment that is inclusive of their skills and differences. This will ultimately need to filter throughout the organisation to benefit all neurodiverse employees.

Training

• Training is the key to making a start. This will be training for board members on neurodiverse conditions, what they are, how they effect people, what other conditions often co-exist with them and understanding more about their lived experience and the equality act (appendix 9) and the Access to Work scheme (appendix 5) that will all help boards to understand an empathise with people that have neurodiverse conditions, while understanding workplace requirements and support available. In conjunction with this, unconscious bias training should also be carried out to help understand where biases we might not be aware of but still act upon can create negative experiences for neurodiverse people. Provide training on neurodiverse behaviours to help board members give and receive constructive feedback.
• Include psychometric models like the Strengths Deployment Inventory (SDI) in board training to increase awareness of diverse behaviour patterns.
• Keep the learning fresh and ongoing, utilise this guidance, other guidance from Co-operatives UK and information online regularly to keep as up to date as possible. Neurodiversity is an ever developing field of research.

Inclusion

• Encourage a culture of enabling equity, which is the idea that people should be treated fairly and justly, and that everyone should have the resources and opportunities they need to address inequality.
• Equality, the idea that people are treated the same way. For this, consider putting things in place that would benefit all such as sending board papers in advance, asking for questions from board members before the meeting, ensuring everyone is called on by the chair to have a say.
• What works well for me document, using the sample (appendix 10) create a document that goes to all board members and gathers information on their individual preferences to use as a basis for accommodations.
• Board buddy, for any board member with less than a year of experience, match them up with a board buddy. Someone who has more experience in understanding the organisation and the board itself and can be on hand to support with providing clarity, being a sounding board, signposting where necessary.
• Provide mentoring training for anyone that is to become a board buddy.
• Adopt a change mentality of ‘done with’ rather than ‘done to’ by ensuring the board members are able to lead on any adjustment requirements.
• If adjustments are needed and can be accommodated, ensure these are timely (ideally within two weeks). Where some are not directly possible for various business specific reasons, seek alternatives rather than completely closing communication down.
• Putting inclusivity at the heart of any changes should remove the mentality of ‘If we do this for you, we’ll be opening the flood gates’.

Meetings

• For the meetings, utilise the Effective meeting framework (appendix 4) which gives guidance on the purpose and process of a number of different types of meeting, board and governance included.
• Distribute board papers and agendas in advance.
• Share a video summary of key points to aid those with processing differences.
• Encourage questions submitted before meetings to give neurodiverse members time to process and prepare.