Neurodivergent people continue to struggle to overcome barriers to employment. Removing these barriers requires revamped talent processes, employee training, and recognizing that people with neurological challenges can bring creativity and innovation. - BY Belinda Jones

Diverse recruitment and hiring first focused on demographics like minority status, ethnicity, and gender status. Then, it was expanded to include sexual identity, veteran status, and disability. Missing is neurodiversity, though that is changing. Companies leading the way, including Deloitte and Microsoft, may not seem like organizations that would be obvious employment opportunities for people with neurological issues. Yet, they are actively recruiting and hiring people with neurodiverse conditions like ADHD, dyslexia, PTSD, autism, Tourette’s syndrome, and more.

Why the change? Hiring neurodiverse people creates a work environment where everyone is welcomed for their potential and capabilities, but another benefit exists. Neurodiverse people can also bring new perspectives, creative thinking, and innovation, elevating the organization’s competitive status.

Laying the Groundwork to Hire Neurodiverse Talent

Some of the same hiring challenges for diverse talent apply to hiring neurodiverse people. One of the first issues to address is conscious and unconscious bias. Studies demonstrate that even the most carefully crafted HR policies intended to ensure non-discriminatory recruitment and hiring can be bypassed when the recruiter or hiring manager is biased. People who are neurodiverse are frequently viewed through a lens of bias because their life experiences are not understood.

Holding recruiters and managers accountable is another way to successfully hire neurodiverse talent. Accountability is a data-driven approach to avoiding bias, but it depends on other factors. For starters, recruiters must find new channels for reaching neurodiverse people. There are staffing agencies specializing in helping employers recruit neurodiverse employees, which can help firms unfamiliar with sourcing talent in this space.

For example, Exceptional Individuals in the United Kingdom is a neurodiverse recruitment agency offering services on designing roles to attract neurodiverse people, advertising, and conducting neurodiversity audits of the application process. The agency matches each neurodiverse person with their ideal employers based on the candidate’s unique talents. For example, people with autism may be detail-oriented, have great memories, and are detail-oriented. People with ADHD may be creative and innovative and can build in-depth knowledge on a topic of interest. They may be creative and passionate about their jobs. Employers must understand what neurodiverse people can bring to their organizations before they are likely to be willing to hire them.

This leads to the next important step. The workplace culture must be inclusive of people who are neurodiverse. Managers can hire people with neurological conditions, but their coworkers must embrace the inclusion and belonging of all people. The workforce, like the recruiters and managers, needs training on neurodiversity.

Dismantling the Neurotypical Organizational Talent Structures

The European Commission funded the Neurodiversity Project because research found that most organizations are “physically and structurally set up for ‘neurotypicals’ and neurodiverse experience huge problems to access a job, from the interview to their daily work.” The Project strives to raise awareness and understanding of neurodivergent people and aims to develop a handbook with technologies, methodologies, and tools for managing neurodiversity in the workplace.

Hiring people with neurological issues will not be successful if the workplace culture is not supportive and the workplace is not prepared with accommodations. Deloitte has a program to increase career opportunities for neurodiverse candidates. Neurodiversity@Deloitte is a strategic initiative to attract, host apprentices, and hire neurodiverse candidates. There is a 12-week apprenticeship program where the person gets hands-on experience, networking opportunities, and client project work. The apprentice has an assigned mentor. There are training sessions for hiring teams and coworkers to deepen understanding of neurodiversity and promote the benefits of recruiting and hiring people who think differently.

Microsoft also has a neurodiversity hiring program. Recruiters identify potential hires to determine if their skills and qualifications match available positions. The organization provides accommodation early in the process by allowing job candidates to complete an online technical assessment or schedule a phone screening interview. Based on the assessment, eligible candidates attend a hiring event to learn what it is like to work at Microsoft and meet with the interviewing team, employees hired through the program, and members of Microsoft’s neurodiversity community. The result of this process can lead to a job.

Removing Exclusions

Though not all companies can offer apprenticeship programs, any organization of any size should prepare for the inclusion of neurodiverse people and develop an accommodating hiring process before bringing neurodiverse people on board. Most standard recruiting and hiring processes will exclude neurodiverse people for several reasons. The language in job postings is exclusionary because it is too complex, presented in a format that is difficult to grasp, or worded in a way that makes neurodiverse employees ineligible. For example, the requirements may say excellent verbal communication skills, but can excellent writing skills be just as good for the position? The technology used for the recruitment or hiring assessments can be barriers to access. Does the recruiting website have features like flashing elements that make it nearly impossible for some neurodivergent people to read? Have recruiters and managers conducting the hiring interviews been trained to communicate with neurodivergent people? Someone with autism may not look the manager in the eye, get impatient, and demonstrate other mannerisms they should not be assessed on simply because these behaviors would not be acceptable in interviews with non-divergent job candidates.

Redefining “Normal”

The same principles apply once the person is hired. Managers and employees not trained on neurodiversity will assess people based on what is “normal.” Yet the neurodivergent person does not need fixing. They need a fair opportunity to succeed.

As Kailash Ganesh so aptly wrote, “But here's the catch: to harness the power of neurodiversity, we need to create inclusive and supportive environments. It's not about fitting square pegs into round holes; it's about reshaping the holes to accommodate pegs of all shapes and sizes. That means offering flexible work arrangements, fostering understanding and empathy, and providing the right tools and technologies to help everyone thrive.” He goes on to say neurodivergent traits should be perceived as “natural variations of the human mind.” The implication is that neurodivergent people possess unique abilities and strengths and bring fresh perspectives and problem-solving skills, high focus levels, and creative thinking. These are qualities employers need for success in today’s dynamic business environment.