Written By: Kimia Afzal
Awareness of neurodiversity has improved in the last decade and we are seeing a shift in society’s attitudes towards inclusion, as well as mental health and wellbeing. According to Spill Chat, 81% of workplaces have increased their focus on employee mental health after the Covid-19 pandemic where livelihood instabilities caused an increase in mental health problems.
Important conversations and educational resources are being pushed for with regards to neurodiversity and how to support one another.
However, in the workplace, neurodivergent employees continue to face an array of difficulties as the attitudes and services of organisations, surrounding mental health, aren’t quite meeting the demands.
A 2023 study at Birkbeck, University of London, found that 65% of neurodivergent employees fear discrimination from management despite UK businesses promoting neurodiverse workplaces. They often fear they will face hiring biases, be ‘othered’, and fail to move up the the career ladder due to traditional interviewing techniques.
What this tells us is that organisations need to do more to accommodate neurodiversity.
Neurodivergent employees have vital creative skills when it comes to their performance at work and many of these skills will be top skills valued by employers in 2025, according to the World Economic Forum. They are likely to demonstrate some of the following: innovative thinking, problem solving, good memory, attention to detail, creativity, the ability to hyper-focus and be authentic at work.
Not to mention, Neurodivergent employees are also proven to help businesses to thrive, particularly in IT and Tech, to overcome difficulties and increase output success.
According to the Harvard Business Review, German software company SAP and HP Enterprise reported examples of neurodivergent employees’ participating on teams that generated significant innovations (one, at SAP, helped develop a technical fix worth an estimated $40 million in savings).
So how can we offer inclusive hiring practices to encourage more neurodivergent individuals into organisations?
- The traditional interview methods can be excluding as they place importance on body language, confidence and traditional salesperson-type personalities. But a hiring process where you send interview questions to the candidate in advance to reduce interview anxiety or allow individuals to do a task independently, for example, will allow neurodivergent individuals to showcase the best of their abilities and skills.
- Educate staff on what they need to be aware of when it comes to neurodiversity and how to treat neurodiverse employees. There are hyper negative and positive stereotypes about neurodiversity and unpicking this can create a more open-minded workforce, encouraging collaboration and patience. Changing the bias starts internally!
- Adopting flexitime and working from home policies is also important is it means that neurodivergent employees can work at hours that suit them, and control their working environment and how often they socialise.
- Sometimes just asking a neurodivergent candidate if they need any reasonable adjustments can make a world of difference. Include them in the conversation so you can give them what they need, rather than what you think they need. It’s important to remember that neurodivergence is a spectrum and support needed can vary from person to person.
The hiring process plays an integral role in making candidates feel that they can bring their best authentic selves into the workforce. So disrupt how we recruit, listen to neurodiverse candidates and give them the chance they deserve to showcase their talent!
