Neurodiversity in the Workforce: Kazu Of Ultmeche On Why It’s Important To Include Neurodiverse Employees & How To Make Your Workplace More Neuro-Inclusive

An Interview With Eric Pines

Surveys will give employees a chance to provide their input, in a manner that won’t make them feel pressured or on the spot. The ball then goes into the manager’s court to implement survey results.

Research suggests that up to 15–20% of the U.S. population is neurodivergent. There has been a slow but vitally important rise in companies embracing neurodiversity. How can companies support neurodiversity in the workplace? What are some benefits of including neurodiverse employees? To address these questions, we are talking to successful business leaders who can share stories and insights from their experience about “Neurodiversity in the Workforce”. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Kazu.

Kazu is an engineering career coach and founder of Ultmeche — a Professional Career Resources website focused both on job searching mainly focused on industries such as Engineering (Mechanical, Civil, Electrical, Software Engineering, etc.), but covers other industries and sectors such as Tech, Business, Finance, Healthcare, Accounting, etc.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you ended up where you are?

Growing up, I always enjoyed math and science which steered me over to becoming an engineer in my career. After being able to land my dream job at a company that designs, develops, builds, and supports one of the world’s most advanced products, I wanted to help others do the same.

Job hunting was and is the hardest thing ever — until I figured out the right job-hunting frameworks.

In 2016, I had the hardest time finding a job out of college.

I applied to 100+ jobs and in 1 month, I would hear back from absolutely no one. I thought it was normal and part of the game — that applying to jobs online felt like a black hole.

These results are terrible and it was because of my resume.

My resume looked absolutely terrible.

I didn’t know how to write a resume.

No one taught me and I messed up in not having a mentor or even seeking feedback from colleagues.

How would I know any better what I was doing was wrong? I thought it was all part of the game.

After an eternity of trial and error, I figured out what the right job searching frameworks were which led me to land my dream job.

I aspire to teach all of those trying to land their dream jobs the right frameworks so that they too can land themselves opportunities they wouldn’t be able to.

You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

1. Courage

Business is one of the most grueling things ever. It takes an insane amount of courage to be able to spend hundreds of hours on something, with no idea that it’s going to work or not. There are also many intimidating situations in business such as interfacing with clients or other business leaders in challenging phone calls, demos, meetings, negotiations, and closing deals.

2. Industriousness

Business requires long hours of constant trial and error to figure out what works. Tons of early mornings, late nights, and constant consumption of coffee to grind out work was needed.

3. Resilience

Can you fall down and get back up? Business will knock you down on your feet multiple times, but the most important thing is to be resilient to the failure that will inevitably come your way.

Can you share a story about one of your greatest work-related struggles? Can you share what you did to overcome it?

One of the most challenging things for me was entering the industry as a junior engineer. I had no idea what I was doing, how to present myself to others, as I had no exposure. I was responsible for deliverables such as detailed designs, bills of materials, and intimidating design review presentations in front of many key high level stakeholders. How I overcame the challenge was to take it one step at a time — identify what needed to be done and who I needed to talk to get it done. Since then, that’s been one of my greatest strengths — project execution.

What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?

Ultmeche — the Career Resources website is my project that I’m constantly working on developing. I’m constantly developing resources for job seekers such as guides on resumes, cover letters, and interviewing so that they have the tools they need to land their dream roles.

Alongside my career resources website, I am constantly pushing out video content on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and YouTube — follow me @ultmeche

Fantastic. Let’s now shift to our discussion about neurodiversity in the workforce. Can you tell our readers a bit about your experience working with initiatives to include neurodiverse employees? Can you share a story with us?

Fortunately, I’ve been able to work in a workplace that is open to neurodiversity. My workplace opens the floor for discussion for anyone and this allows for less things slipping through the cracks. An environment in which people can openly speak up about their thoughts or concerns is key to strong project execution. I’ve been able to finish many high-level projects because I open the floor for round table discussions throughout any of my meetings with stakeholders.

This may be obvious to you, but it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you articulate to our readers a few reasons why it is so important for a business or organization to have an inclusive work culture?

An inclusive work culture brings forth opportunities for really good discussion and collaboration among teams and stakeholders. Without this discussion, some projects may not even make it to see the light of day or will potentially miss critical items that could set back project schedule. Having an inclusive work culture also provides the potential to strengthen work place camaraderie and relationship building.

Can you share a few examples of ideas that were implemented at your workplace to help include neurodiverse employees? Can you share with us how the work culture was affected as a result?

A simple, but effective method is using surveys. Through surveys, companies can get a real time feedback from employees. Whether companies choose to take action and implement feedback from surveys is a different story, but I have come across managers that take surveys very seriously and as a result work to implement those in day-to-day business functions. As a result of one of my manager’s actions, employee engagement went up which fostered a strong work place.

What are some of the challenges or obstacles to including neurodivergent employees? What needs to be done to address those obstacles?

People just don’t understand each other sometimes. Sometimes all people can think about is themselves or they see how things operate themselves as an end all be all. This is not the case and many people think differently. It is critical to host discussions which allow the room for both agreeing and disagreeing between respective parties. As long as this discussion is done so in a healthy way, this can lead to long term positive outcomes, even for a neurodiverse party.

How do you and your organization educate yourselves and your teams on the concept of neurodiversity and the needs of neurodivergent employees? Are there any resources, training, or workshops that you have found particularly helpful?

Internally we will have training seminars, certifications, workshops that make sure employees will undergo such training to ensure that they have exposure and are ready to tackle neurodivergent employees in the work force. Although many don’t take training seriously, this training is an initial step towards the right direction in making sure that the work place is ready for neurodivergent employees.

Can you please share five best practices that can make a business place feel more welcoming and inclusive of people who are neurodivergent?

1 . Round table discussions

A simple “around the room” sweep after a meeting to ensure that everyone’s voices and concerns are heard will go a long way. This will open up opportunity for important discussion if needed.

2 . Surveys for feedback

Surveys will give employees a chance to provide their input, in a manner that won’t make them feel pressured or on the spot. The ball then goes into the manager’s court to implement survey results.

3 . Training

Employees should be provided resources such as training to deal with neurodiversity in the workplace.

4 . Establish performance expectations

Managers should be setting some type of performance expectations regarding how an employee deals with neurodiversity.

5 . Incentive

Going back to the previous point, along with setting performance expectations, employees could also be incentivized to learn how to better tackle neurodiversity in the workplace.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share a story about how that was relevant in your own life?

“To become more confident, you need to become more competent”

To make business work, you need an absurd amount of confidence in your own abilities to get things done. When I stumbled upon this phrase, it made me realize that the only thing I need to become more confident is to put in the reps. Practice, study, read, execute, and doing things over and over while racking successes along the way is an insanely positive feedback loop when it comes to building confidence. When you’re more confident, it carries when you’re doing marketing, sales, writing, or doing anything related to your business.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

For everyone to take matters into their own hands and take responsibility, accountability, and ownership for their actions and their situation. As much as we want others to help us, it’s ultimately up to us individually to execute upon what we really want.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Follow me @ultmeche on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter.

Additionally, check out ultmeche.com — a career resources website focused on giving jobseekers the best tools they can get to land their dream jobs.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success and good health!

About the Interviewer: Eric L. Pines is a nationally recognized federal employment lawyer, mediator, and attorney business coach. He represents federal employees and acts as in-house counsel for over fifty thousand federal employees through his work as a federal employee labor union representative. A formal federal employee himself, Mr. Pines began his federal employment law career as in-house counsel for AFGE Local 1923 which is in Social Security Administration’s headquarters and is the largest federal union local in the world. He presently serves as AFGE 1923’s Chief Counsel as well as in-house counsel for all FEMA bargaining unit employees and numerous Department of Defense and Veteran Affairs unions.

While he and his firm specialize in representing federal employees from all federal agencies and in reference to virtually all federal employee matters, his firm has placed special attention on representing Veteran Affairs doctors and nurses hired under the authority of Title. He and his firm have a particular passion in representing disabled federal employees with their requests for medical and religious reasonable accommodations when those accommodations are warranted under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (ADA). He also represents them with their requests for Federal Employee Disability Retirement (OPM) when an accommodation would not be possible.

Mr. Pines has also served as a mediator for numerous federal agencies including serving a year as the Library of Congress’ in-house EEO Mediator. He has also served as an expert witness in federal court for federal employee matters. He has also worked as an EEO technical writer drafting hundreds of Final Agency Decisions for the federal sector.

Mr. Pines’ firm is headquartered in Houston, Texas and has offices in Baltimore, Maryland and Atlanta, Georgia. His first passion is his wife and five children. He plays classical and rock guitar and enjoys playing ice hockey, running, and biking. Please visit his websites at www.pinesfederal.com and www.toughinjurylawyers.com. He can also be reached at eric@pinesfederal.com.