Workplace Guide: Neurodiversity Inclusion for Employers

As workforces are becoming increasingly aware of their own neurodiversity, employers need to work harder to attract and retain talent and ensure their competitive advantage. This guide is designed to inspire actionable recommendations for new and existing workplaces as we seek to build desirable, inclusive environments where all colleagues feel they can truly thrive.

Neurodiversity Explained

Neurodiversity refers literally to the breadth of human cognitive functioning - a blanket term that exemplifies the continuum of differences in ways that individual brains can function. The concept was pioneered by the sociologist Judy Singer as a way to describe brains that function differently to those seen as ‘typical’, or now referred to as ‘neurotypical’. These differences are on a sliding scale and can cover many different diagnoses and conditions, professionally referred to as ‘neurotypes’, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), dyslexia, dyspraxia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and tic disorders such as Tourette syndrome.

The term neurodivergent is used to describe individuals with one or more of these neurotypes and may also include a range of neurological challenges related to environmental causes, brain injury and mental health challenges such as bi-polar disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The ‘official’ list of neurotypes comes from DSM-5 (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illnesses – Fifth Edition, May 2013). Neurodiversity is becoming an umbrella term for wider conversations about different conditions (such as Long-Covid, PTSD and schizophrenia) and also speaks to a wider movement of understanding about diversity and complexity in our cognitive functioning.

Many people experience more than one neurotype or neurological challenge which can create a compounding impact on how they experience the world around them. Birkbeck University of London’s ‘Neurodiversity at Work 2023’ report found of its recently completed survey of 1,117 individuals, only 370 reported one diagnosis, 328 reported two and 190 reported three (the remainder of respondents preferred not to say). This supports the view that co-occurrence of neurotypes is relatively common, and presents with overlapping symptoms and experiences.

It is important to remember we all have unique brains, and so whilst it can be helpful for us to understand common traits in a particular neurotype, neurodivergence is infinitely varied and so even two people with the same neurotype will experience things differently.

When approaching workplace adaptation, this infinite variation of neurodiversity can seem overwhelming to consider. This article focuses primarily on autism and ADHD, but many of the considerations can be generalised as the focus is on the individual person and not a diagnostic label.  

AUTISM 1-2% OF ADULTS

Challenges:

• Rigid Thinking

• Restricted Behaviours

• Repetitive Behaviours

• Social Communication Challenges

• High Sensitivity for Sensory Stimulation

Strengths:

• Problem-Solving

•Logical Bottom-Up Thinking

• Data-Driven Approach

• Free From Confirmation Bias

• Aptitude For Assimilating & Retaining Detailed Specialist Information & Knowledge

ADHD 4-5% OF ADULTS

Challenges Inattentive ADHD:

• Easily Distracted

• Daydreaming

• Appearing Forgetful

• Constantly Switching Tasks

• Difficulty In Organising Tasks

• Making ‘Careless Mistakes’

Hyperactive/Impulsive ADHD:

• Need To Move Constantly & Regularly

• Challenge To Stay Focused on a Task

• Preference To Talk & Interact Socially

Strengths:

• Ability To Multi-Task

• Creative Thinking

• Problem-Solving

• Thrive On Change

• Adapt To Rapidly Changing Contexts & Environments

• Can ‘Hyper-Focus’ When in a State of Flow

The Law

In the UK, the Equality Act 2010 sets out the legal requirement for employers to make reasonable adjustments in the workplace for employees or job applicants who have a disability or long-term health condition. ADHD and Autism do qualify.

Employers are required to make reasonable adjustments, such as:

• Adjusting the working environment.

• Changing work patterns.

• Providing additional support.

• Adjusting recruitment processes.

Why Does Designing a Neuro-Inclusive Workplace Matter?

Worldwide, it is estimated that between 15% and 20% of the population is considered to be neurodiverse. That is a significant proportion of talent to be considered. The improved understanding and awareness that people have surrounding neurodivergence means that rates of diagnosis are only increasing.

Historical trends have shown that neurodivergent people have been disadvantaged in terms of employment. Unemployment rates among neurodivergent people can be as high as 40% and up to eight times the rate of those who are neurotypical. However, instead of seeing a natural variation of thinking as something ‘broken’ to be pathologised and ‘fixed,’ the rise of successful neurodivergent leaders like Richard Branson (Dyslexia), Elon Musk (Autism Spectrum Disorder) and IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad (Dyslexia and ADHD) have championed the strengths — and potential commercial advantage — of neuro-divergent thinking.

Creative insights, thinking outside of the box, problem-solving and visual-spatial capability are all being recognised as benefits neurodivergent people bring to the workplace. Even on recognised spectrums of ‘intelligence’ such as the 100-year-old IQ test, neurodivergent people often have recorded higher IQ scores (especially among those with autism) and studies have found that neurodiverse teams are 30% more productive than neurotypical ones and make fewer errors.

Savvy employers have already begun to see the competitive advantage with companies like JPMorgan Chase, Deloitte, Microsoft and Google having prominent neurodiversity programmes and recruitment strategies with results that justify the efforts. JPMorgan Chase reported that after three to six months of working in its Mortgage Banking Technology group, autistic employees were doing the work of people who typically required three years to train — and were 50 percent more productive!

Challenges

The challenge comes with creating workplaces and working norms that allow neurodiverse workers to thrive. Indeed, many workplaces prove to be environments that are exceptionally challenging for those that struggle to focus or deal with distraction, regulate emotion, cope with exposure to multiple stimuli or communicate immediately and effectively. However, this problem is not just limited to neurodiverse populations. Neurotypical populations also have their variances, tolerances and preferences!

This has been heightened by the recent changes towards hybrid and remote working. The fight to keep ‘home working’ is often about the ability to control the immediate environment, control how accessible you are to others, and the ability to do focused, uninterrupted work – all with the bonus of commute time back and the commute fare in your pocket. For neurodivergent employees, controlling these aspects of their working day are not just about comfort, but sometimes about the ability to function at all whilst maintaining physical and mental health.

The top three most helpful adjustments organisations could make

1.    Having a flexible schedule

2.    Being able to do part of the work from home

3.    Having a private space to work in when required

When designing a neuro-inclusive workplace, choice, flexibility, and autonomy therefore go from ‘nice to have’ to ‘must-haves’ to attract and retain top talent that may otherwise go elsewhere. Workplaces that provide a variety of settings to suit a range of preferences, coupled with a culture that enables choice and autonomy about where people are when they do their work (rather than prescribing a ‘fixed’ model), empower all colleagues to self-manage their own preferences and needs. Success comes with creating an office that removes the need to ‘work from home’ as a coping strategy to get work done and makes it a choice. This benefits all the neurodivergent people that make up a dynamic workforce; maximising productivity and comfort whilst fostering a sense of inclusion and accessibility.

One size doesn’t fit all is the sum of it — both for neurodivergent and neurotypical employees. We all have preferences and tolerances to temperature, light, sounds and smells. We have favourite spots, people that delight or irritate us when we sit next to them and places that instinctively make us feel safe and comfortable versus those where we feel lost or unwelcome.

Consideration: Smell

Most of us have probably had the experience of being blasted with the scent of bread at a supermarket or almost eye-wateringly overwhelmed when walking past multiple competing perfume counters. For some neurodiverse people, hypersensitivity to smell can make scent not just disruptive but intrusive, with potential side effects including anxiety and panic, nausea and dizziness. This can be further exacerbated if there are other sensory stimuli present, such as loud noises and large crowds.

There are also more involuntary smells or odours that may not be considered. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in common chemical contaminants found in office environments may be incidentally contributing to the scent-scape of the workplace. Paints, varnishes, adhesives, carpets, fabric materials and furnishings all have the potential to release VOCs. Aspects of building operations can be overlooked when considering the impact of smells, such as cleaning products and the ubiquitous automatically dispensing air fresheners that tend to haunt many toilets.

Neurodiversity-Inclusive Considerations:

·         Limit spaces where hot food can be purchased and consumed to limit the range of more pervasive and stronger smells.

·         Create food and drink free zones: This also supports inclusivity from the standpoint of employees with specific allergies by keeping potential allergens to specific spaces.

·         Consider a ‘scent-free’ workplace policy, an idea becoming more widespread to support the control of allergens and air quality.  

·         If scent-free feels a step too far, consider the worst offenders, which are usually automatic air-freshener dispensers in toilets and cleaning products and switch to fragrance free.

·         Consider designing into your office etiquette behaviours that are considerate of others — specifically draw attention to smell and raising awareness of how smell impacts us all differently.

Consideration: Sound

Noise and how it interferes with concentration and focus is one of the most common complaints about the modern office – particularly if open plan.

For neurodivergent brains, sound can cause significant cognitive stress. Excess sounds can be extremely debilitating and excessively draining, especially for people that have conditions with processing disorders, hypersensitivity, or that involve misophonia (an extreme sensitivity to pattern-based sounds such as tapping, ticking, humming, chewing, etc).

Neurodiversity-Inclusive Considerations:

·         Offer quiet areas, break out areas, appropriate spaces for calls and quiet focused work. The most useful distinction is often ‘calls at desks and focus elsewhere’, or ‘focus at desks and calls elsewhere’. 

·         Don’t assume quiet/focused spaces should be one-person booths which can sometimes feel claustrophobic — sometimes people want the company, just not the noise, so library zones can work very well in this instance.

·         Consider using spatial and behavioural design together to indicate a person’s ‘availability’ to be interrupted. We usually recommend some quiet spaces that are also ‘do not disturb’ spaces and a way for colleagues to signal their needs.

·         Consider describing the anticipated noise levels as part of the description of spaces: colour-code ‘loud/busy’ zones from ‘quieter/more separate’ zones to help people way-find.

·         Personal acoustic control can be provided by supplying noise-cancelling headphones or earplugs with varying degrees of decibel reduction — from ‘in my bubble’ style noise reduction (to reduce ambient noise but still hear something), to complete noise-cancelling.

Consideration: Colour, Contrast, Pattern and Texture

Certain colours resonate with our emotions, yet, not everyone experiences colour in the same way; colours can appear more vivid to those with hypersensitivity. Research conducted by PPG Industries looked specifically at how paint colours affected people with autism. The study found that reds, blues, and yellows in their full intensity should be strongly avoided. Vivid or fluorescent colours on the opposite side of the colour wheel, when used together, can create a shimmer or moving effect which can be disturbing or disorientating. Décor with strong contrasts in pattern or texture can also be uncomfortable and over-stimulating. Conversely, colours and textures found abundantly in nature are particularly calming and soothing; muted palettes and neutrals are neuro-friendly for all.

Neurodiversity-Inclusive Considerations:

·         Reduce visual content in areas where concentration is required or there will be other content that requires processing (such as displays, signage or transition spaces). 

·         Avoid repeating geometric forms of stripes, bars, and perforated materials that can appear to shimmer or move when viewed, particularly in stairwells or walkways.

·         Consider low-stimulation colour schemes and create deliberate specific areas of high stimulation.

·         Patterns that occur in nature, such as biomorphic shapes and curves, create less visual ‘noise’, thought to be due to human evolution within natural landscapes.

·         Create microenvironments that enable people to find the right level of visual stimulation for them.

·         Glass is both reflective and transparent, which can create distraction or over-stimulation; consider blinds and manifestations to support privacy and glare.

·         The most common form of colour blindness is red/green (1 in 12 men are colour-blind and 1 in 200 women) and ADHD adults tend to struggle with blue/yellow recognition — consider using a vision simulator and make a grey-scale version to consider palettes through a number of perspectives.

·         Neurodivergent brains may have low-contrast sensitivity. Colour blindness and even many neurotypical brains can be better supported with higher contrast designs

Consideration: Lighting

Daylight is usually the benchmark for design standards in workplaces. However, the nuance of lighting for those with neurodivergent brains, where the ability to control lighting and the level of stimulation, is infinitely preferable. Sunlight is variable, weather and season dependent, and although it should be available as an option, alternative spaces with controllable lighting empower the employee to make choices that work for them.

Neurodiversity-Inclusive Considerations:

·         Swap fluorescent lighting with LED to reduce flickering.

·         Ensure access to daylight and provide screens or blinds to reduce glare when required. 

·         Note that being near a window can cause sensory overload in some circumstances, for example, where there is visible activity outside which significantly affects concentration. 

·         Provide a variety of settings with differing lighting levels to create choice.

·         Ensure access to spaces where there is control over lighting levels to support autonomy.

·         Replace or shield any flashing devices and equipment.

·         Consider providing blue-light blocking glasses for those that may find it more comfortable

Consider: Comfort and Safety

People need to be able to recalibrate or decompress at work. In our busy, high technology, high stimulus world of work, a desire to ‘escape’ is echoed in neuro-typical as well as neurodivergent populations.  Building spaces purely to mitigate and provide contrast to ‘the office’ have been achieved by incorporating biophilia and natural materials into the environment, and demonstrate an echo of all of us having that desire to just…be.

Many of us appreciate small ‘comforts’ at work and will seek these out. The best coffee, the nicest meeting room, the desk with the view you like, the corner where no one disturbs you. We have individual landscapes of preferences that connect to our preferred levels of experience and stimulation across the senses we have just explored. The more we talk about these preferences, the more we normalise the sliding scale of experience of what it is to be human.

Workplace communication

Once the issues that people face are recognised, they often have a simple, practical solution that can be implemented. Employers often assume that creating a neurodiversity-inclusive workplace will be a time consuming and complex undertaking. Open and honest communication about requirements and best-practice can debunk this myth and create a wider healthy dialogue about healthy and inclusive workplaces.

Training

Educate your wider workforce and help them understand neurodivergence and what considerations would be helpful to their colleagues in the workplace, with the advantage of helping them consider their own needs too. By providing the right information and helping people be confident with the language and discourse, it removes some of the perceived awkwardness and fear of stigma or discrimination and provides a more supportive environment for neurodivergent colleagues.

Flexibility

People need to have the flexibility to choose how they work. If you are just starting to make your workplace more inclusive, building this flexibility and open dialogue helps when the design or operational options that would support in-office are not yet available.

Summary

Creating psychologically safe environments that allow neurodivergent employees to comfortably articulate reasonable adjustments creates inclusivity and safety. 

The recommendations to support neurodiverse employees overlap with good practice to support general well-being, health, and productivity. The greater the awareness and understanding of these needs, the greater the creative opportunities are for new inclusive solutions that optimise the incredible diversity of our workforce, creating incredible workplaces for us all to thrive. 

Useful Resources

This excellent resource from ADHD UK is a welfare pack that covers 1) an introduction to ADHD from the perspective of the employer, 2) a structured conversation between employer and employee, 3) ideas for workplace adjustments

https://adhduk.co.uk/reasonable-adjustments/

References:

https://floorseurope.milliken.com/en-gb/download-our-whitepaper-designing-a-neuro-inclusive-workplace

Birkbeck University of London’s ‘Neurodiversity at Work 2023’ report/