If you’re a late-diagnosed autistic like me, you’ve probably deliberated about whether to tell your employer about your diagnosis. It’s a big decision, with potentially life-changing impacts.

Annoyingly, there’s no single right answer. It depends on a lot of things. In this blog post, I’m sharing some questions I work through with Autistic Career Coaching clients on this topic, to help you decide what’s right for you. 

Conscious and unconscious bias

No one has to tell their employer they’re disabled. But here’s something to consider: though autism is often described as an ‘invisible disability’, studies have shown that first impressions of autistic people are "significantly less favourable" (source). We’re likely being discriminated against whether we choose to share our diagnosis or not.

Lizzie Somerfield said this in a brilliant LinkedIn post: 

There’s also a point here about support needs. For some people with higher support needs in a work setting, telling their employer might be a necessity to be able to access work at all. 

What do you want out of disclosing?

Getting clear on why you’re disclosing can help you decide whether it’s worth doing, and how to do it. 

Here are some possible reasons you might want to tell your employer about your diagnosis:

• You want or need to mask less at work

• You want to mitigate against possible future misunderstandings

• You’re being performance managed and want to explain why you do certain things

• You want to access legal protection under the Equality Act 2010, as this comes into play when employers know, or can reasonably be expected to have known about a disability

  • Find out more here: https://www.acas.org.uk/what-disability-means-by-law 

• You want to access support

  • Please note: you do not have to share specific diagnoses with an employer when requesting adjustments in the UK

  • Find more advice on requesting reasonable adjustments here: https://www.acas.org.uk/reasonable-adjustments/asking-for-reasonable-adjustments 
    

What difference could it make to your life if your employer knew about your diagnosis? What are the positive impacts? What are the negative impacts?

You can read this National Autistic Society article to help you think about the possible postive and negative impacts.

Who to tell and how much to share

I don’t see telling an employer about autism as a binary thing. There are different people you can tell and different amounts of information you might share. I’ve listed out some options below, but I’m sure there are other ways I’ve not yet come across! Considering what you hope to gain from sharing your diagnosis, think about who you could tell.

Who you might tell:

• Your manager

• HR

• A staff network focused on autism, neurodivergence, or disability

Examples:

• If you want reasonable adjustments, you might ask HR for an occupational health assessment, and ask for only the recommendations to be shared with your manager. 

• You could say that you’re neurodivergent and not go into specifics when asking for adjustments. 

• You could try asking for specific adjustments (like wearing headphones) to gauge reactions before you say any more.

• You might want to ask about other people’s experiences disclosing neurodivergence in the workplace and staff networks, if they exist in your organisation, are a great place to go for this. 

Scripting the conversation

• Get ahead of stereotypes. People have assumptions about what autism looks like, and can get weird when you don’t conform to that. I’ve had every response from “you can’t possibly be autistic, you’re so empathetic” to “we’re all on the spectrum”. I have a brief response scripted for when I disclose to get ahead of those comments. 

  • “I’m autistic. For me it’s not the same as it is on TV, like Sheldon Cooper; there are lots of ways it presents. I’m high-masking so people often don’t notice, but things like sensory overstimulation have a big impact on my life.”

• Be clear on the goal. When you’re going into this conversation, knowing where you want to steer it can be immensely helpful. 

• Think about how much you’re comfortable sharing. I know I’m prone to oversharing when asked anything by an authority figure, so I am clear on my boundaries before going into those conversations. Have some phrases handy for when those boundaries are reached, like:

  • “I’m not comfortable sharing anymore detail on this”

  • “I’d rather not go into the specifics”

  • “I appreciate your curiosity but I’m still working through this myself and am not ready to share”

Other points to consider

• You might want to check if your workplace has any policies on reasonable adjustments or disabilities and read them first.

• You might want to ask colleagues about their experiences if they’re openly disabled or neurodivergent.  

• This might be a new experience for your manager too - you shouldn’t have to guide them through it, but it helps to know what you want and need so you can ask for it. 

• There are lots of online discussions about the pros and cons of disclosing - keep in mind what countries the posters are from and that there are different legal protections in different places. 

Conclusion

This is a really personal decision and you need to do what you’re comfortable with. Not sharing can impact your legal rights, but sharing can lead to direct discrimination in some cases. I had a really positive experience telling my manager about my autism, and was lucky that there was another autistic woman in the team at the time who made it a much easier decision for me. 

If you’d like coaching on this decision and want to book a one-off session, or a series, you can book a call here: https://calendar.app.google/4c3BF9x5mreU874x5