While diversity and inclusion initiatives have made great strides in terms of gender, race, sexuality, creed, nationality, and more, there is one population that is still conspicuously absent from most D&I strategies: neurodivergent workers.

And yet, 15-20% of the population is neurodivergent. Which means you are likely managing and/or working with neurodivergent colleagues, whether you realise it or not.

Despite the prevalence of neurodiversity, most companies don’t include it in their broader D&I agendas. In fact, according to the NDGIFTS Movement, a 2018 poll by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development “shows 72% of HR professionals do not consider neurodiversity in their people management practices.”

This is a massive wasted opportunity. If a large portion of your workforce is struggling to reach their full potential—or worse, they never even made it through your neurotypical-oriented hiring process—your business will suffer.

Here are a few ideas to help you build a workforce strategy that accommodates neurodiversity.

What is neurodiversity in the workplace?

When we talk about neurodiversity at work, we’re usually talking about invisible cognitive differences. This can include autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, Tourette Syndrome, and more.

As Dr. Nancy Doyle, Chief Research Officer at Genius Within and Co-Director at the Centre for Neurodiversity at Work, said in a recent episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast: “The idea of neurodiversity is that there is neurological diversity in the human species, in the same way that there is diversity in our height, in our agility, in our athleticism, in our personalities.”

As a result, neurodivergent employees bring many in-demand skill sets to the workplace, including innovation, creativity, unfiltered viewpoints, analytical thinking, systematising, and technical capabilities, and more.

Ask yourself: As an HR leader, can you afford not to learn how to better accommodate the needs of neurodivergent employees who bring those hard-to-find skills and make up a large part of the talent pool?

How can you accommodate neurodiversity in the workplace?

There are many ways to accommodate neurodiversity in the workplace, and sometimes it can be hard to know where to start. After all, some accommodations for some autistic employees may conflict with accommodations for some ADHD employees, for instance. Or, for example, if you put more focus on interviews in your hiring process to better accommodate dyslexic candidates, you may end up making things harder for those autistic candidates who struggle in traditional interview formats. As with all employees, the key is in accommodating needs on an individual basis.

 It’s also important to remember that accommodating neurodiversity in the workplace goes beyond hiring. It’s also about interrupting bias in your workplace and helping the neurodivergent people you already have who might be struggling without the right adjustments—who may not have disclosed their disability because of stigma or prejudice

Accommodations might include a mix of technology and human-centered approaches, including:

• More flexible work hours and deadlines for employees with ADHD

• More time to complete projects for employees with dyslexia

• Alternative forms of communication (like email, Slack, or text messaging) for employees with autism

• And more

But perhaps the most important thing you can do as an HR leader is to partner with and learn from subject matter experts. This could include groups, projects, and research like:

• The Centre for Neurodiversity at Work

• Genius Within

• Specialisterne

• The NDGIFTS Movement

• Neurodiversity in Business

• The Institute of Neurodiversity

• Stanford Neurodiversity Project

• Neurodiversity Network

• The UK government’s national strategy for autistic children, young people, and adults (2021-2026)

• And more

Regardless of the challenges, such as adapting standardised processes, the benefits of a neurodivergent employee’s unique and highly-sought talents far outweigh the simple accommodations you can make to optimise their performance at work.

What are the benefits of neurodiversity to the business?

In general, companies that have a strong diversity & inclusion culture have better business outcomes. They attract great talent, have higher retention rates, report higher employee engagement, are more innovative, have higher customer satisfaction, and more.

Plus, if one in five people are neurodivergent, that means a significant chunk portion of your target audience is neurodivergent. If you only hire neurotypical workers, or if your hiring and retention practices are in any way excluding neurodiversity, you risk making products and services that aren’t accessible to 15-20% of your target market.

This is where people analytics comes in. PA and HR leaders are uniquely positioned to use data (like an organisational network analysis) and D&I technology to make this business case, improve diversity and inclusion in the workplace, track progress, and then tie it to the bottom line.

In fact, recent research from Insight222 confirms that diversity and inclusion and employee engagement and listening are two of the areas in which people analytics teams are experiencing accelerated growth.

What are some company examples of a neurodiverse workforce strategy?

More and more companies are beginning to focus on being more inclusive to neurodivergent people. In many cases, these efforts include specific hiring and success programs for neurodivergent workers, often in partnership with leading experts and organisations that specialise in neurodiversity at work.

Here are a few examples of companies with neurodiverse workforce strategies:

1. Microsoft

Microsoft is a great example of addressing the needs of neurodivergent individuals in the workplace. Dr. Nancy Doyle, whom was cited above, works with Microsoft on their diversity and inclusion initiatives.

On the product side, they’ve added more inclusive features to their tools, e.g. automatic, real-time closed captions or subtitles in PowerPoint, which can be helpful for deaf people and people with ADHD. On the hiring side, Microsoft offers their Neurodiversity Hiring Program (originally launched as the Autism Hiring Program in 2015) that Doyle said has been successful and is evolving to be more intersectional and inclusive of all neurodivergent individuals.

2. Goldman Sachs

In 2019, Goldman Sachs launched their Neurodiversity Hiring Initiative, an eight-week paid internship program for neurodivergent people. Goldman Sachs partners with Specialisterne, a nonprofit focused on integrating neurodivergent people into the workplace, to source candidates, provide training, and build the (currently virtual) program.

3. SAP

SAP launched their Autism at Work Program in 2013. According to SAP, the program “taps into an under utilised talent source, reducing barriers of entry so qualified individuals can fully develop their potential.” SAP is also one of four companies with autism hiring programs that partnered with the University of Washington Information School to create the Autism @ Work Playbook.

4. Deloitte

Deloitte also partners with Specialisterne to identify and train candidates for their three-month apprenticeship program (Neurodiversity@Deloitte), which includes an opportunity for full-time work upon successful completion of the apprenticeship. Deloitte also published an interesting article recently about why hiring and nurturing neurodivergent talent is good for business.

5. Google Cloud

Google Cloud launched their Autism Career Program in 2021 and partners with the Stanford Neurodiversity Project, which provides consultation services to employers and helps to coach neurodivergent individuals in the workplace. One of Google Cloud’s main goals with this program is to “train up to 500 Google Cloud managers and others who are involved in hiring processes.”

With the neurodiversity at work movement gaining more traction, there will undoubtedly be more excellent examples to follow soon.

Final Thoughts

Neurodiversity awareness is on the rise when it comes to diversity and inclusion and modern HR—for good reason. Finally, organisations are starting to realise the moral, social, and business benefits of having a cognitively diverse workforce. Now is the time to build a workforce strategy that sets neurodivergent employees up for success in your hiring, retention, and beyond.

Note: A word on language used in this blog. Preferences and terminology are constantly changing. I have chosen to use identity first rather than person first language (e.g. autistic person rather than person with autism), as this is more commonly favoured by the neurodiverse population. Whilst I am neurotypical, neurodivergent friends and colleagues were involved in the writing and review of the content, to stay true to ‘nothing about us, without us’.

Is neurodiversity a priority in your workforce strategy?

If you’re looking to build a more robust workforce strategy our newest course “Building a Neurodiverse Workforce Strategy” will help you to understand the business benefits that you gain by building a neurodiverse workplace strategy. It will support you to link the skills and strengths available from neurodivergent employees to the capabilities needed for your workforce strategy. It will enable you to go beyond hiring alone and look at the whole employee experience of neurodivergent employees, looking beyond just autistic tech workers when considering a broader neurodivergent workforce strategy.