Episode 14 - In Conversation with...Chris Barlow from Remtek Workplace

Hello! Welcome to the Autism Wellbeing Project's new podcast, the Autism Wellbeing Podcast, which has been created by the community members who use the services that they provide to autistic adults in and around Cheshire and across the UK!

Joining Sarah on her debut as co-host on the show today is Business Development Manager at Remtek Workplace, Chris Barlow. Remtek Workplace is a business that creates inclusive solutions for neurodiverse & disabled people based on their personal requirements, not just by their diagnosis. From assistive technology to ergonomic solutions, they go above and beyond to help tailor accessibility recommendations to help countless employees and students perform the best that they can in further education and the workplace.

Being labelled as "the best kept secret", Remtek Workplace has made its presence in the neurodivergent world by being this year's headline sponsor for The National Neurodiversity Shows, which will be in the North West this week alongside The Autism Wellbeing Project and many other neurodivergent-affirming businesses from the region and beyond! After being there for over 20 years, Chris talks with such passion about the work that they do, the changes he's seen to the assistive technology over the years and how COVID changed their business model for the better.

Chris shares about why taking part in events like The National Neurodiversity Shows is so important for him, how Access to Work effects his colleagues and how her assistive technology helped with his child's schoolwork.

We're excited to let our listeners know that the amazing social enterprise that funded our podcast, The Autism Wellbeing Project, is going to be at the National Neurodiversity Show in Wigan on the 11th June!

Come on down and meet the team, who can't wait to talk to you about the services they provide, the free activities they have available including our podcast and want to meet as many of you as possible. 

The show beings together a wide range of organisations, speakers and exhibitors all there to celebrate neurodiversity, share knowledge and to bring inspiration - sounds like a brilliant day to us!

Tickets are available now: click here to get your tickets!!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

An action. Thank you, Kath. Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Autism Wellbeing podcast brought to you by the Autism Wellbeing Project. Now, as you might hear, I am not Stephen J. Holleran. Today it is one of your editors, Sarah's taking the spot. Just wanted to say thank you for all the listeners that have been tuning in. We've had a lot of great feedback and we really, really appreciate it. And just so you know, hopefully at some point very, very soon, you're going to be not just in your ears, but this will be on YouTube. So you'll be able to see myself and our guest. So without further ado, we're just going to quickly introduce our guest here. Hello, guest.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

Hello.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

What's your name? Where'd you come from?

SPEAKER_02 0:57

Perfect. Hi everyone, my name is Chris. I'm from RumTech Workplace. Rumtech, uh, a company provides practical support for people with neurodiversities and disabilities. And we we offer services such as uh workplace strategy coaching, assessment, assistive technology training, but also the physical products as well, the ergonomic equipment, the assistive technology. For me though, all this matters because when workplaces adapt, everybody thrives. You know, we all win.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Yeah, exactly. And we'll talk more, we've got so much to talk about with this because it's a great topic. But as we always do, we have a joke to break the ice. So let's see what joke you have for us today.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

I've been looking through loads of different jokes at an hour for the past couple of days. And I feel it's quite poignant. Poignant?

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Is that the right word at all? It might be.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

Um it's me, you know, it's the 10th birthday today, and she gave me a joke yesterday, which she insisted is it's her joke, yeah. She's invented.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:05

Um, so I'm gonna roll with that one.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Okay, well, I hope the birthday girl's got a good joke.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

Fingers crossed it lands. Sometimes it's her fault, not mine. Um so what does a panda cook with?

SPEAKER_00 2:18

I don't know what does a panda cook with.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

Panda.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Oh, that's good. That's good.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

I love the audience we have.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Great joke. We loved it. Happy birthday, Ellie! Happy 10th birthday, and thank you for letting your dad come here so that he can talk to us more about what he does for his job. So you've been working in now for 21 years.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

Yeah, well 22 years in November. I started 2004 as an apprentice. Wow. Yeah, now I'm mentoring the new generation, the next generation of apprentices. It's nice to see everything come full circle. Remtech's been a great organization for me and everyone else who's worked there. There's so many of us who've worked there 20 plus years, and I think because the work that we do and the people we're supporting, you know, it's not just a typical IT job.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

And when it started, I was looking at Remtech as a typical IT job. That's where we got where I got into it. You know, I went to college, did not the best the first time I went to college, went back again, did far better, but in the IT side, and I could see that McCalling. So when an opportunity came to work for a company who well, let's face it, we're hiring. But my now CEO, Nick, was a good friend of mine at the time, and I could see that he wasn't just going to work and coming back, and it was a hard slog, it was a job that he actually really cared about, and the way he talked about it was it felt like quite a rewarding career path to go through. And yes, started out as a typical IT job. I was installing software on big old computers with big CRT monitors and installing RAM and all the boring stuff what comes with tech, but then after a while, paying more attention to the the support the external stuff were doing. So there are stuff, but they've not the ones inside the office. The engineers like Nick who were going out supporting people, I could see that that was where the reward came from. Yeah, you know, and I'm guessing a lot of the audience don't know who REM tech are because that's a conversation we've had a lot recently.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

You've been around for a good while, but if you don't know, and like if you've not done access to work, you've not tried to do DSA, then people might not know who REMTech are.

SPEAKER_02 4:33

Exactly. That's it. And uh we've been called, I was down in London last week, we were called the best kept secret a couple of times, which isn't it's not news, but we don't want to be a secret anymore, let's face it. No, and so REMTEC, we were an organization we've been around for 50 years. 50 years, 50 years, um, well, just over 50 years, actually. And primarily the support we've given people is in the DSA, the disabled student allowance.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

The way that we work within there is we support people through the the technology, so the the laptops, the printers, and all the actual hardware, but also the assistive software as well, the assistive hardware. And well, when I went on the road to do the engineer side of the job back in 2008, the way that we worked all the way up until COVID, and still somewhat to this day, but all the way up to COVID, was we wouldn't just be another delivery service.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

You know, this was important equipment, important solutions for people at university. If you were to just dump a load of tech on someone's doorstep, see you later, that's the last year from this company. What's the point? It's just a bunch of gear. So, what we always try to do, and we did quite successfully, is we would offer a familiarisation. Familiarisation you deliver the equipment, you set everything up, that's the first half an hour of the appointment, what you go out to do. But then the next hour, you're showing people around the kit.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 5:53

You're showing the software what they've been given through DSA, offer access to work, showing a little bit about the hardware, the little things, the little touches like helping someone set up the Microsoft Office or OneDrive and get connected to Google Drive, but also showing them a little bit about the software as well, because there's a lot of assistive software on these devices that, for one, probably never heard of before. For two, yes, there's loads of benefits, but until you understand the benefits and how it's going to help you at university or in work, it is just another piece of software. We wanted to spend that time and almost give people what we like to call a light bulb moment. So before we leave, they get a little bit of appreciation of what it is that we've actually been given by the government by student finance or access to it.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

No, I really like that because well, when I went to uni the second time to do a teaching degree, I actually found out I was dyslexic then. And that's how I found out about Remtech because you guys put on oh gosh, something dragon.

SPEAKER_02 6:52

Dragon, yeah, dragon, so dragon naturally speaking, or dragon professional.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Yeah, so it meant that it was a lot easier for me to read when it came to looking at reference books and things like that. And I didn't even know that time technology existed. And I thought the person that did, I don't know who it was that did the familiarisation, but it was fantastic. I've never had it that someone's actually gone through something with me when it comes to that. It's often, oh, this is what you can do, but there you go. Yeah, but then you kind of left wondering what's going on.

SPEAKER_02 7:27

And that's why we always try to do things differently. It's from the two directors, John and Mark, that that was always the ethos that they put into every one of us as members of the team. And again, that's why I've been there so long. That's why a lot of people have been there 10, 15, 20 plus years, because we we knew that it was costing the bosses more money in wages to get us to stay there longer. They weren't getting paid any extra than any of the other companies who were doing similar services. But for Remtech, it's always been about the person, it's always been about the end user for the want of a better phrase, for the student, for the employee, and the journey what a lot of people have to go through to get to the stage where we're turning up, it can be long, it can be frustrating, and it can be very confusing. So if we can just offer that a good starting point when you get the gear and you get the equipment and the software before you get in your training and everything else, the the support you're getting throughout the unicorse, yeah, we can give you that little bit of a head start, it makes a huge difference.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Well, you've been there for 22 years in November. I'm guessing the tech for like accessibility has changed a lot since you started.

SPEAKER_02 8:38

Well, hugely, yeah. I mean, especially recently with all the AI stuff that's been going on. And that's been causing everybody a few headaches and uh good headaches sometimes, you know. It's the tech at the time was a little bit disjointed, let's say. So you mentioned dragon, that's the dictation software. Yeah. You can talk to the computer and it would type everything off you. Yeah, you've got at the time read and write, great tools still around now. Um, but historically that was speech to text. So anything that's typed, yeah, anything that's on the screen, it'll read it all back to you. And then mind mapping software, mind view, inspiration, a few other tools like that where you could organize your thoughts and for want of a better phrase, braindump all your ideas onto the page, onto the screen, and then you're able to organize it. So there's a lot of tools out there which still are out there now. Yeah, but some of the gear what's out there now, again, especially since AI's sort of took over in the last year or two, it's unreal. I found a brand new product. I've never seen anything of its light as a note-taking tool. Loads of note-taking apps and on Teams or wherever you see every now and again auto note-takers join the meeting. But it's a little device what clips on the back of your phone, it's called a pocket, and it's it's a note-taker. It can note-take two-way conversations, it can pop it down on the table while we're all having a chat, and it's taking the full transcribe from the meeting, but then it's naming people, so to say Sarah, Chris, oh wow, Dave, or whatever it is. So you can formalise the notes a lot better than you could have five years ago, two years ago, even. So, you know, before we think about implementing any other tool, we go through so many strict protocols to make sure that this is a safe and relevant piece of kit for anyone in the UK.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

With Ramtech, I know that you've located in Salford, so it's not far from Witness where we're currently filming. Your business must have quite a diverse work staff there because it's not just software like it's ergonomics, is that how I say it? Over launched, yes, perfect, and things like that. So it must be a very busy, very collaborative approach that you have at Ramtech.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

Oh, definitely. I mean, we've got currently 126 staff that are spread throughout the UK and Northern Ireland. Um I think with us, the the good thing is this has more been since COVID as well, actually, that we sort of formalised the teams. At the time I was mentioning about the familiarisation when you got your support, it was none of us were jack of all trades, but I could go out in the morning and do a familiarisation, yeah, and then I could do an ergonomic delivery and installation, and then might have some training, some training someone on assistive tech in the afternoon, and that'd be typical day for all those engineers who were out on the road. We were never sort of engineers in that sense, we were assistive and inclusive engineers, let's call it. And during COVID, obviously everything changed. A lot of business changes as well. And for us, we still wanted to offer that same level of support, we still wanted to offer familiarisations, but we had to adapt, yeah, just like everybody else, and we changed everything to online. So we'd still deliver all the equipment in the morning, and then at one o'clock that afternoon, you get a call by one of our team, they'd help you log on to the computer, get signed in, and then they can help you take over the computer and show you how to do everything. So that was one department where we like formalised this as we've got X smart people who are going to be online familiarization engineers, and then we got it and thought, well, we can do exactly the same for the assistive training. So the trainers were trainers.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 12:25

So during the early stages of lockdown, I was just an assistive tech trainer. Didn't do ergonomics, didn't do familiarizations, just training. And a lot of people really talk to the online trainer. Whereas before it was more the normality of training was face-to-face, but everyone really got on board with the online training, like we all had to do through COVID, everything turns to teams, yes, and that then made us think well, we want an assistive tech training department. So all the trainers now are just trainers, they don't do familiarizations of ergonomics or anything else, they are experts in their field at ergonomics, and we're proud to say that we've got the largest in-house assistive tech training team in the country. Wow. Which is, you know, it's fantastic to have. For me from business development, it's great because I can tell that to people, and you know, it's the truth as well, they're not external subcontractors or anything like that. They are our team, which means that we've trained them in the right way to support the people we're supporting. And they've got our ethos where it's people left, it's people focused. It's not product training. Probably seen that when you had your training as well for the software. We never look at it as product training because you can get that off YouTube. You know, we're people training, it's making sure that the software and the tools that you've got can fit around your requirements, whether it's in the workplace or in education. You know, that's key for us, really. That differentiation. We did the same for the ergonomics team as well, which I headed up for about eight years, I think it was. I was one of the first in the country. I say one of the first, I think I was the first, but one of the first in the country to go back out during lockdown and do face-to-face ergonomics assessments with people.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

The videos are still on YouTube, by the way, if you want to find them. Um you will see me in a full hazmat suit turning up to people's houses, and I was masked, face shield, gloves, apron, front and back, middle of a very hot summer. I was turning up to people, carrying in four or five chairs and loads of equipment in people's houses. And we were allowed to do that. We found out through student finance that it was deemed as an essential service because it was people with physical disabilities that needed this additional support for university.

SPEAKER_03 14:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

So we spoke to the head of SLC Student Loans Company at the time and said, Look, can we do this? And he said, Look, as long as it's signed off by your clients to go out and do that, absolutely. You know, we only want to support people if it's in the right environment, but for the right equipment as well, and that was key. So for ergonomics for me, that was the bit where I really brived because it was physical equipment that I could get my hands on, and I could try and test all these physical pieces of kit instead of software where it wasn't as kinesthetic, I think the word is. So you've thrown out all the things that that was a massive one, but uh yeah. So for the ergonomic equipment, because you you can see the smile on people's face when you put it right. I think that's the key thing for us. So the way we have always done it, and this was pre-COVID, but still to this day, is we don't go out and do an assessment where it's just a checkbox exercise. Yeah, you can do them in businesses where it's a basic DSE assessment, and someone in the organisation knows about how to sit in a chair, whatever, and it's a load of tick boxes, you can download it off the government and what have you. But the people we're supporting typically got escalated or complex needs. So they've got physical disabilities, they've got back pain, whatever it might be. So, what we have always tried to do is to bring that support to them as best as we can. We started back in about 2005, I think it was now, 2006, and taking out showroom in the van to people when we do an assessment.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:58

So the van will have all of the equipment. What you could come into our showroom, which we've not even got a showroom, let's face it, but these are all in the vans. But you could come into a showroom and try out a load of chairs, a load of keyboards and mice, and all that kind of stuff to get the right physical products for your requirements. So I know you mentioned to me that you had a mouse for you.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Yes, yeah, I had my ergonomic mouse when I was given it. I literally was like, I don't know what this is. It was like topsy turvy and everything, but literally life-changing.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

Yeah, but it could have been the wrong mouse for you. You know, if you wasn't assessed properly for it and you've not had a chance to try all the different ones to make sure this was right for your hand and your elbow and shoulder, yeah, you know, it may not have been suitable, which meant you would have then had to go through the rigmarole of returning it and getting another person to come out and try different equipment. So the way we try and do it is bringing everything in in one place, in your home, in your place of business, in your university halls, wherever it is, and try that equipment in your environment instead of it all being a theory, instead of it being online or a tick-box exercise or a brochure or something like that, you're trying that equipment there in your home. And then we'll try the chair out, we'll get the chair right for you, hopefully, and then we'll have a go through all the other kit. But you've then had a chance to sit in this chair, which is hopefully by that point perfect for you. And if you've been there ten minutes and you go, you know what, Chris, can't stand this, is it bad? We'll try it, we'll adjust it, and again, we'll try it again for another few minutes. No, it's not the right chair. And this might take two hours, might take three hours sometimes, you know. But as long as both you and I are happy at the end of it, this is the right stuff for me or for you, you know, it means that when we come back four weeks later, six weeks later, or however long it might take, you're getting that equipment, you're getting the familiarisation again. We're showing you how to use all tools properly in your environment. It means it's right from day one. We've done that due diligence to make sure it's perfect for you, hopefully perfect.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Yeah, you've made it about the person rather than it being about their diagnosis, which is extremely important. And obviously, you do a lot of work with neurodiverse clients, and with the with the autism well-being project, we do support neurodivergent adults. But obviously, when it comes to anything to do with when you hear access to work and you hear stuff to do with DSA, obviously there's a lot of talk about it at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

And I think the wait list for access to work is up to 38 weeks for a decision at this point of um recording. What are you able to do from your end? Because I know that you've been mentioning about you are looking at developing a way of trying to help people with getting through this process.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

That's right, yeah, absolutely. And 38 weeks, that number itself just seems ridiculous. But I've heard a lot of people say it's a lot longer, to say the least, including one of my colleagues, in fact, my operations manager, when she started at Ramtech about nine, ten months ago, she applied for access to work at the time. But she did it after she started work. If she would have done it a few weeks before, different story because she gets fast tracked, but she started after she started at Rentec. Um, she didn't actually know about access to work, she knew about the DSA, she got DSA support while she was at uni. She didn't know about access to work until we'd mentioned it. In fact, it was in it was in the onboarding brochure of services. So this is the type of stuff we do. And she came to us and said, I'm gonna apply for access to work more than anything because she learned about the delays and she thought, you know, I want to see firsthand. She's still waiting ten months later, she's still waiting. So, what RemTech are trying to help people with is a more privatised way of getting the same level support, calling it AOP, which is an accelerated output programme. And essentially, it is the equivalent of access to work support or the DSA, because this is the type of support we offer, and we know we can do it well through these two schemes. But if an organization wants support their staff faster, we want a fast-track approach, basically, and they're keen on funding that support themselves, you know, they can come to us and we can offer an assessment through to the delivery, the installation, the familiarisation, the training. Typically, in about six weeks, from that point of um referring. We're doing it all day, every day, anyway. So it's nothing different for us. It's just the fact that we can get people supported faster, more accurately, in our opinion, doing the assessment where it's then it's not discrediting the assessments from Access to Word or anywhere else, not at all. You know, it's a tricky system what they're working through, especially with the amount of backlog what's there. But if even if we help five percent of the people on that waiting list and their organizations are helping and want to fund that, it's taking five percent off the waiting list, so it's taking the strainer factors to work as well. Yes, you know, in an ideal world, everyone would be supported within four or six weeks or less. You know, I'd you know in a more ideal world, it'd be all be universally embedded into organisations. My eldest daughter's school, they've got read and write, so what we're talking about before, they've got that across the board for absolutely every student. And do they use it? Maybe not all the time, but I know my daughter's um year seven exams. Her and six of her friends were studying upstairs, and there's a lot of studying that they had to do. None of them are neurodiverse or have been diagnosed, at least with neurodiversity. But my daughter, because she knows where work and what we do, she came down and said, Dad, I've got this program on my Google Drive called Read and Write. What is it? So I explained it to her. She's like, Can you show us all how to use it? So I went upstairs, did a little training session with a bunch of 12-year-olds, showing them how to use the software, and they all did all of their revision using read and write.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

And the little trick I used to use when I was working through people at uni, and when I was training them, I stuck with it and thought, this is a great way for you guys to work, right? So they've got this software where it'll read everything back off the screen to you. Fine if you're on a computer, great. Little bit more difficult on a phone book. So what we did was we got all of their notes and they basically converted them through a couple of ways of doing it, but they converted the notes into an audiobook. So they just saved it as an MP3, they threw it on the phones, and then they just listened back to. When they were walking to school and it just made a massive difference to them.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

Which is fantastic. And can't believe this, but we're gonna be wrapping up, but you're gonna have to come back.

SPEAKER_02 22:08

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

Well I'm not because I was just getting immersed and talking about access to work as it's a very hot topic. But you've been doing something very important recently, being a main sponsor for the National Neurodiversity Show, which AWP will actually be at on the 11th of June in Wigan, uh, the Edge Conference Centre.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

Edge Conference Centre, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

With that, obviously being the main sponsor, that's something pretty major considering it's four different shows. I can imagine your schedule's being absolutely hacking.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

Oh, yeah. We went to two of the National University shows last year, and I think compared to a lot of the other shows out there, it was such a better experience for us as an organization because I've said this a lot recently, but the right people were in the room. You know, we were having conversations, not from a purely corporate HR return on investment point of view, it was talking to the humans and the people who either needed some support themselves or were genuinely there to engage with companies like ourselves who were actively supporting people. There was a lot of DEI initiatives from organizations, from some big organizations as well, which was quite a surprise. It was the people who genuinely wanted to support their staff, and we felt that it was an initiative that we wanted to get behind. There's so many exhibitions that I go to where there's a little corner in the side of one of the halls where there's a couple of stands we can talk about neurodiversity or inclusion or support. And at the National Neurodiversity Show, everyone was on the same wave, like we're all in this business to support, you know. So we we felt that it was the right time for us as Remtech to try and promote as much as we possibly can. Great new show, which is in its second year, and hopefully it will be there for a long time, and we can be supporting them along the way.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

And it'd be great to see you guys there as well.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

Yeah, well, we can't wait to be there. I'll definitely be going with my PA, so we're excited to like have a look around and just see what's there before we say goodbye. Is there anybody that you like to send a message to? Obviously, you've sent a message to Ellie for her birthday, but is there anybody that you'd like to thank?

SPEAKER_02 24:15

You know what? Yeah, actually, I'd just I'd like to thank the management at Remtech for giving me the opportunity to support as many people as they have over the years. Sounds weird doing a shout-out at the end of some like this. But huge shout out to Mark Farrer, who's our ex-director, who trained me in ergonomics for all these years and really gave me that chance to thrive within that part of the business. And John Farrer, our director, he's the catalyst for the changes that we've been making over the last few years into the workplace side of the business as opposed to purely student side, you know, because we wanted to bring it over into the workplace side because the business that we do within the DSA and the business that we now promote in within the workplace, it's the same support, it's the same. The only difference is that you've got your university support through the DSA. You finish your degree, you've got that nice certificate, and you're in the workplace. And it's like I said with uh Whitney earlier, she got to RemTech and she didn't have a clue about access to work. So, whatever we can do to promote that, absolutely, you know, that's that's where we want to be. So, yeah, thanks to Mark and John for helping me all these years. And uh can't not thank Nick who got me the job in the first place, uh, who's our CEO now and looks after us all and makes sure all the moving parts of RemTech can help support everybody. Yeah, so yeah, thanks for emtec.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

I love that because um a lot of people, when they uh asked that question, they go, um that was unplanned, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 25:39

A lot of this was planned. Have my phone on me to go through my notes. I've not gone through any of the notes. And then I went to Edmond, it's one of them I didn't do anything, I just we'll save all the notes from this for next time.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

Yeah, exactly. So thank you, Chris, for coming all the way over here and to come and visit us. The National Neurodiversity Show is going to be in Wigan on the 11th of June. And Chris will be there, and the autism wellbeing project will be there. We hope that you'll come to the show, but if you won't be, you can um listen to the next podcast episode. So we'll just wave and say goodbye. Goodbye, everybody.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

Bye, everybody.