Chris Packham says employers can adopt a productive approach to employing people with autism and aspergers
Chris Packham has been filming BBC Autumnwatch at Wild Ken Hill in Snettisham, with fellow presenter Michaela Strachan, where their live shows are beamed in to our living rooms every night during the series.
The pressures an demands of live television would be daunting to most of us and when I met Chris Packham before filming began we chatted about the challenges faced by people with autism or Asperger's within the workplace.
Chris is really chatty and friendly and has been an inspiration to me since watching The Really Wild Show when I was younger.
He is one of the UK's top television naturalists and an award-winning conservationist, photographer and author of Fingers in the Sparkle Jar.
As a visiting professor at the university of Lincoln he shares his experience and tips for university students with autism or Asperger's as he describes his experience at Southampton university, where he studied zooology, back in the 1980s as 'quite difficult.'
In his YouTube video he describes himself as "a little bit cognitively different" and sees this in a positive way as being enabled.
Advice he has given for younger people who have autism or Asperger's within the workplace will be invaluable to them and also to employers.
I mentioned when I met him that the Lynn News charity of the year, as nominated by readers, is the West Norfolk branch of the National Autistic Society (NAS West Norfolk) and we talked about adjustments and awareness of people with autism or aspergers and how the employer/employee relationship can be maximised for successful results.
Communication is essential in achieving this and Chris said: "By communicating with employees and being honest and asking for simple changes in the work environment, this will make it a lot more productive.
"If like me, people with autism or aspergers are highly organised both mentally, physically and temporally. I am task orientated and when I start a task I do not want to stop until it is finished.
"If I was organising Ikea I would only employ autistic people.
"Employers can research and get lots of advice in choosing to employ autistic people and he result can be successful.
"Usually employers know what they are getting with me, but if they didn't I would communicate that I have a few mental differences. Simple adjustments such as where you sit, how you organise working time, individual working spaces rather than in an open plan office, no background music.
"I like my own space and to control my own space and if I am not battling against the space I can then focus on the task."
"I am candid about my strengths and weaknesses and it is about communicating this to the employer so it is mutually beneficial.
"A certain amount of responsibility needs to lie with the employer about what can we do to employ people with autism or aspergers."
For further information about the West Norfolk branch of the National Autistic Society visit here
Autumnwatch is on BBC2 at 8pm for the final time in this series. Chris earlier in the week commented on the controversy over the shelving of plans to introduce white-tailed eagles at Wild Ken Hill.
