Andrew Pfeiffer wants to start more conversations about neurodiversity in the public service.
"There's a saying, if you've met one neurodivergent person, you've met one neurodivergent person," he said.
"We'll have different and often more pronounced strengths and areas of development in certain ways, and that differs from person to person."
Rewriting the conversation
Mr Pfeiffer and his colleague Robin Edmonds started up the APS's neurodiversity network two years ago, and are now opening the community up to state and territory public servants.
For Ms Edmonds, who works for the Department of Infrastructure, a "new narrative" has developed across the APS where people feel they can talk about neurodiversity and autism since they started the network.
She was diagnosed later in her life, an experience she said is all too common for women.
"For me, it's having a language, being able to advocate for myself and being able to ... communicate my requests with a little bit more clarity," she said.
"We've started a pretty massive dialogue ... [neurodiversity has] become something that managers, not just HR experts, inclusion and diversity experts, are aware of and are willing to talk about."
Mr Pfeiffer, who works for the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, found out he had autism in 2019, a discovery he described as "life changing".
He defined neurodivergent as people whose brains think and operate in a way that is "divergent from the statistical norm".
"Compared to when I started working, it's chalk and cheese," he said.
"I finally got a group of people that understand me in such a powerful way that I didn't experience before.
"Obviously, I still value friends that are not neurodivergent, but to have people that really get me in such a profound way is so lovely."
Network a hit with the APS
About 30 people were expected to turn up to the neurodiversity network's first meeting in 2022; they had more than 160 APS staff from 35 different agencies attend.
In 2024, more than 800 employees from 80 government agencies were members of the network, with about 1000 people on the mailing list.
The network runs an online discussion board where neurodiverse staff can ask questions about working in their departments.
Questions about reasonable adjustments, the communication of working styles with managers and identifying strengths and weaknesses are common fare on the board.
Ms Edmonds and Mr Pfeiffer run events to raise awareness of neurodiversity in the APS, with around 300 people recently attending an event featuring a panel of neurodivergent senior public servants.
The pair also successfully campaigned for a question on neurodiversity to be included in the 2023 APS census.
Mr Pfieffer said while the resources are aimed at people with neurodiversity, they can be beneficial to everyone.
"I think having normalizing conversations about what your strengths, challenges and working styles are means that we're not treating the statistical norm as any better than the preferences and styles of neurodivergent people," he said.
"It's just, hey, everyone thinks about this a bit differently and that's ok."
- You can find more about the Neurodiversity Community of Practice on the Australian Public Service Commission website.
