Kelsie L. Colley, M.S. PhD ABD

In this issue, Kelsie Colley, Ludmila Praslova, Tiffany Jameson, Annika Benson, Tracy Powell-Rudy, and Tracey Todd Staley provide a review of the current state of research/practice regarding neurodiversity in the workplace. They highlight how I-O can help organizations understand the benefits and moral imperative for advocating for the representation, understanding, flourishing, and belonging of neuroatypical individuals in the experience of work. The goal of their column is to shed light on… Show more

In this issue, Kelsie Colley, Ludmila Praslova, Tiffany Jameson, Annika Benson, Tracy Powell-Rudy, and Tracey Todd Staley provide a review of the current state of research/practice regarding neurodiversity in the workplace. They highlight how I-O can help organizations understand the benefits and moral imperative for advocating for the representation, understanding, flourishing, and belonging of neuroatypical individuals in the experience of work. The goal of their column is to shed light on gaps between neurodiversity practice and research and inspire readers to take steps of all sizes to bridge it.

Colley, K., Praslova, L., Jameson, T., Benson, A., Powell-Rudy, T., & Todd Staley, T. (2023). The Power of Partnership: Intentionally Building the Neurodiversity Science–Practice Bridge. The Power of Partnership: Intentionally Building the Neurodiversity Science–Practice Bridge. The Bridge: Connecting Science and Practice, Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology (SIOP). https://www.siop.org/Research-Publications/Items-of-Interest/ArtMID/19366/ArticleID/7460/preview/true/The-Bridge-Connecting-Science-and-Practice Show less

We believe that readers of the focal article by LeFevre-Levy et al. (2023) would benefit from aligning neurodiversity in the workplace and broader arguments for pursuing and researching organizational diversity in industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology. Often referred to as the “case for workplace diversity,” practitioners and scholars have offered various arguments in its defense. In this commentary, we adopt the labels from van Dijk et al. (2012) of (a) the business case, (b) the equality… Show more

We believe that readers of the focal article by LeFevre-Levy et al. (2023) would benefit from aligning neurodiversity in the workplace and broader arguments for pursuing and researching organizational diversity in industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology. Often referred to as the “case for workplace diversity,” practitioners and scholars have offered various arguments in its defense. In this commentary, we adopt the labels from van Dijk et al. (2012) of (a) the business case, (b) the equality case, and (c) the values and virtues case to discuss the approaches for arguing why organizational diversity ought to be pursued. We briefly summarize each case and its consequences. The goal of this commentary is to connect the key points made by LeFevre-Levy et al. to each argument, clarify the values being promoted, and identify who may (and importantly may not) stand to benefit. We encourage the field to consider the implications of oversimplifying claims about neuroatypical individuals and their impact in organizations. In doing so, we hope to further contextualize the important points made by LeFevre-Levy et al.

Benson, A., Colley, K., Prasad, J., Willis, C., & Powell-Rudy, T. (2023). Contextualizing cases for neuroatypical inclusion in the workplace. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 16(1), 70-73. doi:10.1017/iop.2022.108 Show less

Abstract: Although people with autism are protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, there is little theoretical or practical effort to determine whether traditional pre-employment assessments unfairly impact autistic job seekers. Due to the lack of emphasis on social communication, game-based assessments (GBAs) may offer a way of assessing candidate ability without disadvantaging autistic candidates. A total of 263 autistic job seekers took one of two game-based assessment… Show more

Abstract: Although people with autism are protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, there is little theoretical or practical effort to determine whether traditional pre-employment assessments unfairly impact autistic job seekers. Due to the lack of emphasis on social communication, game-based assessments (GBAs) may offer a way of assessing candidate ability without disadvantaging autistic candidates. A total of 263 autistic job seekers took one of two game-based assessment packages designed to measure cognitive ability. After comparing their results to 323 college-graduate job seekers in the general population, we found that performance on the GBAs was generally similar in both populations, although some small differences were detected. Implications for hiring decisions are discussed. Show less

The ergonomic problem-solving process is a uniformly consistent approach to address challenges presented in various environments. Steps include: (1) identification, (2) analysis, (3) brainstorm of possible solutions, (4) implementation (prototypes), and (5) evaluation. This process was conducted at a distribution company that delivered beer to commercial establishments. Less than 200 employees worked at the company. The first three steps of the ergonomic problem-solving process were carried out… Show more

The ergonomic problem-solving process is a uniformly consistent approach to address challenges presented in various environments. Steps include: (1) identification, (2) analysis, (3) brainstorm of possible solutions, (4) implementation (prototypes), and (5) evaluation. This process was conducted at a distribution company that delivered beer to commercial establishments. Less than 200 employees worked at the company. The first three steps of the ergonomic problem-solving process were carried out with warehouse and delivery workers. A safety climate survey was administered. Following data collection (delivery and warehouse tasks observations and a safety climate survey), employees participated in a workshop. The first session introduced work design principles (including product quality, customer service, efficiency, decrease risk of injury, and improve quality of work life) and how they aligned with the company’s goals. Show less