By Leanne Maskell
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives promised workplaces where everyone feels valued and supported. However, for many neurodivergent people, these promises remain unfulfilled.
3 in 10 neurodivergent employees have been found to hide their condition from their managers, fearing stigma, misunderstanding, or exclusion.
Neuroinclusion isn’t a DEI checkbox or a ‘nice to have’ – it’s the law. As neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism and ADHD can be disabilities safeguarded by legal protections against discrimination and harassment, failure to take this seriously can be very expensive for employers.
If an individual is neurodivergent, their brain wiring works differently to ‘most’, making it difficult for them to meet neuronormative standards in the same way as their colleagues are able to.
When neurodivergent employees feel unable to bring their unique perspectives and talents to the workplace, employers miss out. If they feel unable to ask for support, employers don’t know how to help. Neurodivergence isn’t an excuse for challenges, but an explanation, meaning that tailored support can be put into place. Neurotypical solutions won’t work for neurodivergent brains.
What’s more, the pressure to suppress their symptoms to ‘fit in’ can use up significant energy, impacting productivity and performance.
Neurodiverse talent is not an optional add-on for employers. As 1 in 7 people is neurodivergent, it’s very likely that employers already have neurodivergent employees within their workforce, even if they don’t know it.
This includes the neurodiverse talent themselves. For example, it’s thought that 90% of autistic people over age 50 are undiagnosed, and ADHD has only been diagnosable in UK adults since 2008.
These people may feel excluded from the workplace because of the day-to-day stigma and judgements they may receive for being ‘different’. They may struggle with tasks everybody else finds easy, without being able to understand why, or find certain aspects of a role harder than others, such as administration.
Entry to the workforce itself can also be a barrier for neurodiverse talent, such as by being held to ‘one-size-fits-all’ thinking standards through psychometric tests or stringent CV requirements, such as years of experience in a certain area.
This excludes those with squiggly career paths, cross-sector learning, transferable skills and out-of-the-box thinking skills, just because they don’t conform to arbitrary standards.
DEI initiatives have likely failed for similar reasons; concepts such as belonging and equality are very difficult to measure in ‘SMART’ goals. When inclusion becomes an obligation, everybody misses out.
The answer to this is a shift towards a neuro-affirmative approach, with the focus on genuine intention, rather than appearances and visibility. Instead of limiting initiatives to particular groups of people, include everybody – we all have a role to play.
Ultimately, this must come from leaders, who can create psychological safety at work. Here’s what they can do about it:
1. Embrace their own differences
Although leaders may feel pressure to present a ‘strong’ front for employees, there’s real value in vulnerability. Sharing that they are just as uniquely human as everybody else, including sometimes making mistakes and getting things wrong, empowers others to accept their own differences.
By reflecting on their own challenges to fit in throughout their careers, leaders can connect with the motivation to create workplaces where things can be different for others.
2. Listen with curiosity
DEI cannot effectively be measured by an employee wellbeing survey or focus group. Belonging is about every individual, who needs to feel safe enough to share how they truly feel.
Leaders can create safe spaces for this to happen, such as by having an anonymous feedback box. Although it can feel uncomfortable to have such conversations, taking responsibility for having these conversations and providing reassurance as a leader instead of outsourcing them out to a team demonstrates true commitment.
Leaders don’t need to have the answers, but can use the underrated skill of listening to understand how people are truly thinking behind their ‘professional’ mask.
3. Collaboratively identify solutions
Involving key people across an organisation is important for actions to be effective and aligned. For example, instead of HR simply creating a reasonable adjustments policy, engaging employees and inviting feedback and contributions on this can result in a far more useful piece of work.
This can also help to demonstrate who needs to be involved, and at what point, which may not be immediately apparent. For example, the processes for disclosure may be unclear, with employees feeling more comfortable disclosing this to HR as opposed to their manager.
4. Engage in neuro-affirmative training
Instead of rolling out one-off, condition-specific training, employers can up-skill employees on a range of transferable skills to foster true inclusion and belonging. Neuro-affirmative training may cover topics such as providing feedback sensitively, handling difficult conversations, and managing conflicting needs.
Tools such as empathy and clear communication are extremely useful across a range of circumstances, especially given the increasingly polarised world we are living in. Instead of trying to influence how people think, leaders can share the skills to do so for themselves.
5. Focus on neurodiversity – which includes everybody!
Including everybody in DEI initiatives helps to avoid accidental discrimination and resentment. We are all neurodiverse, as we all think differently from one another. Leaders can shape a workforce that works for employees as individuals.
By creating environments that work for them, employees can thrive within their ‘zone of genius’, benefitting everybody. The global pandemic demonstrated the importance of companies to be adaptable and flexible, including at an individual level.
Moving away from legalistic terms, fear, and bureaucracy towards trust, empowerment, and support, enables everybody to feel as though they belong, exactly as they are.
Leanne Maskell
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