Written by: Jules Patalita
To start off this month’s newsletter, I want to thank everyone from the Access Network and our Employment Training program that came to last month’s annual breakfast event. We had a great turnout at the LCBDD’s Administration Building and were joined by a sizeable virtual audience, making this year’s breakfast one of the biggest Breakfasts I’ve run so far. Thank you again.
At April’s Breakfast, we were joined by five local experts to discuss “Unwritten Rules of the Workplace,” and the way these can cause barriers for employees with disabilities. Ann Ort, Director of People and Culture with the Toledo Mud Hens, was our keynote speaker as she discussed ways that leadership can make sure that all employees are included in the culture of a workplace. We wanted this month’s newsletter to serve as a resource for those unable to attend the event, but who still want to hear about how these invisible rules and cultures of an organization. The key takeaways from her presentation were recognizing the existence and impact of unwritten rules, leaders being the ones with the most power to influence changes to culture, and impact outweighing intent.
What are Unwritten Rules?
The most important place to start is by asking, “What is an unwritten rule?” Every organization has a set of official, written rules that usually serve as an employee handbook. “Wear this type of clothing,” “you are expected to work these hours,” “these types of behaviors are unacceptable at the workplace,” and so on. But there are also unwritten rules that exist in most teams. These are unofficial norms or learned behaviors that a team navigates the day with, or unspoken processes that you’ve done for so long that you don’t remember how they started. These can also be thought of as unspoken expectations, for job performance and what “being professional” looks like. One panelist at our Breakfast described how these can also appear as under-communicated rules, or a cultural aspect of the team that needs to be communicated in a different way to an employee with a disability. Not all people with disabilities will be equally affected by these unwritten rules, but some could be. Part of the difficulty in talking about unwritten rules is the way they exist in any organization, but the unique nature of each team’s unwritten rules. These rules are usually specific to the group of people on that team because they’re created within a closed-off group. This adds to the challenges for some individuals with disabilities, especially if their disability impacts the way they learn and communicate social behaviors.
What are Common Unwritten Rules?
This is a challenging section to write about. As the last paragraph mentioned, it can be difficult to pin down what are unwritten rules because of their nature to be invisible, unspoken, yet built into daily operations. Here are a few categories where unwritten rules can emerge and how they appear:
- During meetings
- Who speaks up and when
- When is it appropriate to give input or criticism
- How strictly do you stick to the agenda
- Communication
- What’s the expectation for responses to emails
- What tone do you use to bring up issues
- What channels do you use in what situations
- How do you communicate urgency
- What is and isn’t respectful language
- Who to go to for feedback
- Socializing
- Who talks to who
- How to talk to peers vs. Managers
- Inside jokes
- Informal invitations to team functions
- Networking
- Socializing off the clock
- Looking for help
- Who do you go to for help with specific issues
- When is it ok or not ok to ask for help
- How many times can you ask for help
- What looks “professional”
- Word choice, tone, volume, and general verbal communication
- Eye contact, fidgeting, stimming, and other nonverbal communication
- Choice of dress
- What to do between tasks
- Looking engaged and paying attention
This is a long list with a lot of variety, but most of it can be summed up into a few base pillars. Most unwritten rules govern:
- How employees are expected to communicate
- How professional employees are expected to act or perform their duties
- How co-workers are expected to socialize
- Expectations managers have when reviewing employees
Please note that “expectations” are in each of these, because all unwritten rules come down to expectations that may not be communicated until an issue is created.
How do Unwritten Rules Impact Employees?
Hopefully, we can better understand what unwritten rules are and how they appear in work cultures, but what is their actual impact on employees? Are they really an issue?
Yes, they are a real issue that needs to be considered, that’s why we’ve dedicated a 2-hour Breakfast event and a newsletter to explain them. Turn this question in on yourself, how do you respond to expectations you didn’t know were there? How do you feel when you’re criticized for failing to meet these invisible expectations? The answer is probably the most common impacts for many employees with disabilities: confidence is damaged, there is anxiety at work while looking for more undiscovered expectations, and their overall record for behavior and performance may be marked by incidents they were unaware of until it was too late. Not only are these all negatively affecting the way the employee views their workspace, it means they’ll have future worry over encountering more unwritten rules and potential resentment towards the organization.
Unwritten rules can also negatively impact managers and leaders of your organization, specifically in how they perceive the performance and effort that employees with disabilities are putting forward. An unwritten expectation that’s been part of most American offices for decades are certain behaviors we associate with engaged, hard-working employees. Some examples are employees that are confident, willing to speak up during meetings, first to raise their hand to offer support, and those that socialize and get along with coworkers. None of these behaviors are written into employee handbooks for those looking to receive promotions, but they are subconsciously expected by management for workers trying to prove themselves. Yet all of those behaviors may create a disadvantage for an employee with a disability, who socializes differently or who communicates differently than their team. What about an employee that uses assistive technology to communicate, who takes 30 seconds longer to type out a response than a coworker who speaks verbally? What about an employee with autism who struggles with eye contact during meetings? This can lead to managers not respecting the participation of certain individuals due to them failing at these invisible expectations for “what a good worker looks and sounds like.” Don’t let unwritten rules make employees more anxious about failing at work, and don’t let them cloud the judgement of team leaders.
How to Avoid and Undo Unwritten Rules
So now that we understand unwritten rules and their dangerous impacts, what are the best ways to avoid them? Or, even more important, how can we remove existing unwritten rules from your work culture? Reading this newsletter and acknowledging those invisible expectations is the first step, but then you have to work towards the future. The best way to get rid of unwritten rules is to let go of any unspoken expectations and be fully transparent when communicating with staff. This is especially true for new hires. During training, be upfront with expectations for communication, performance, and any other job-related categories. Onboarding is the best time to be clear and communicate all processes and cultures to workers, to ensure they understand what is being asked of them from Day One. Take all the guess work out of what employees think you’re looking for and tell them exactly what you expect from their performance and what traits you want to see from them. Keeping communication clear and direct is just as important; an under-communicated rule is an unwritten rule, so make sure that you’re communicating in a fashion that best suits the individual you’re speaking with.
Many unwritten rules create issues because of a misconception about the competence of workers with disabilities, or difficulty in requesting accommodations. Team leaders may have a bias and think that an employee will be less productive, or be less capable of understanding instruction, because of their disability. This is an awful mindset to have in general, but it also continues to negatively impact the way that leader trains that employee, or offers future feedback. Assuming competence in all employees will ensure that everyone is trained and treated with equal respect, and help all employees get a fair chance to showcase their worth to the organization. Going alongside this, the best way to give an equal opportunity to all employees is having a simple system for requesting accommodations. These accommodations, small changes to ensure the individual with disabilities has access to the tools needed to be their most productive, can completely transform the way a worker functions. If you believe that someone could be getting more done at work, perhaps the issue is that they didn’t get the chance to have the appropriate equipment they needed to be your best employee.
Finally, look at the ways that staff socialize, on or off the clock, and make sure that employees with disabilities have an equal chance to be included. Nothing tells someone “You aren’t part of this team” like being excluded from an event that everyone else is invited to. This creates an unwelcoming work environment, at least from the employee’s perspective, and then their chances of fully succeeding go down. Socializing with coworkers is going into many invisible social rules, dependent on the office culture and the people on your team, so it may appear difficult to intervene here. However, it’s important to look at all the unwritten rules and see where barriers are being created. Step in and ask that all members of a team are invited to the same lunch appointment; it will lead to a healthier department and higher employee outcomes.
Managers as Culture Translators
Many suggestions that are given in this newsletter depend on leadership being involved and actively combatting unwritten rules. One of the most important steps to having a workplace free of these invisible expectations is for managers to be the example for the rest of their team. Managers are the ones showing how to behave to those working under them, and those learned behaviors eventually become the unwritten expectations within that team. So, make sure those expectations account for disability, have an inclusive attitude, and feature clear and direct communication with one another. Leadership are the ones who look at who to reward with positive feedback or promotion; but they need to be looking at job performance and not invisible factors that may be outside of someone’s control, like eye contact or how fast they speak up. The leaders of your team need to be the ones showing how to slowly take down unwritten rules governing their behavior and their perception of coworkers, and the organization as a whole will start to follow.
It’s not About Intent, It’s About Impact
The final important note is that it doesn’t matter if existing unwritten rules weren’t created maliciously. It doesn’t matter if the team wasn’t trying to exclude one coworker from social events. It doesn’t matter if it was an accident that an unspoken expectation led to an issue for an employee. All that matters in these cases was the impact the expectation had on the person. The impact is a coworker excluded because of their disability, or passed by for a job promotion, or a general anxiety they bring to work every day because of invisible expectations. The impact, then, is a less positive workplace where talent from employees isn’t always properly recognized. Does this sound like an organization you would want to be part of? It’s not about the intent of action, or inaction, it’s about the impact on the people around you.
Conclusion
Unwritten rules can be a difficult concept to explain, and an even more difficult barrier to remove from your organization. These invisible expectations can lead to confusion and anxiety from employees, social exclusion of those struggling to connect, and failing to live up to standards that managers never explained to the individual. Regardless of the intent behind these expectations and work cultures, the direct impact is a company that’s more likely to add barriers to the success of those with disabilities. But these unwritten rules can be swept away over time with direct and effective communication, a more open-ended process for requesting and receiving accommodations, and rewarding the output of employees instead of unspoken standards for excellence. The most important step, however, is to have leadership take charge of this, and have managers showcasing the inclusive, transparent culture that you want to see. Then, you can start to see your organization change to one where all employees understand exactly what is asked of them and exactly how they can succeed.
Once again, ACT’s advocacy team wants to thank Ann Ort for being the keynote speaker of our 2026 Access Network Breakfast, and for inspiring most of the content in this newsletter. We also owe a thank you to our four local experts who served on our panel, who gave their professional and personal experience with unwritten rules: Jennifer Repka from Avenues for Autism, Karisa Sherwood from the Lucas County Board of Developmental Disabilities, Lindsay Riegle from The University of Toledo, and Amanda Trease from The Ability Center. We couldn’t have had our event or created this resource without guidance from the five of these local partners.
