For this year’s Neurodiversity Celebration Week (NDCW), embrace the power of neurodiversity in the workplace.
Embracing neurodiversity in the workplace is often framed as a way to accommodate neurodivergent employees. In reality, it is a means of making the workplace more accommodating for all employees.
While neurodivergence is often characterized by perceived social ‘deficits’ when compared to neurotypical behavior, a growing body of research reveals such deficits not to be deficits at all, but rather mutual miscommunications that all neurotypes must work together to overcome. As one recent UK study found, autistic individuals, for example, communicate amongst each other just as effectively as their neurotypical peers; it is in cross-group communication that both neurotypes tend to struggle.
This is just as unfavorable for neurotypical employees as it is for their neurodivergent counterparts, both of whom miss out on opportunities to create and innovate alongside peers who would otherwise help them to realize their full potential and bring their ideas to life if only they could find better ways to work together.
Cue the power of neurodiversity.
Embracing neurodiversity is all about finding ways to bridge this mutual shortcoming. As with any other challenge impacting workplaces today, the solutions lie in establishing a work environment rooted in the ethos of:
Specifically, this involves:
Flexibility:
- Providing neurodivergent employees with the flexibility or accommodations necessary to tailor their work environment to meet their sensory and access needs.
Empathy, Patience, & Curiosity:
- Offering training sessions, developing employee resource groups (ERGs), and instituting mentorships or ambassador programs that aim to foster empathy, respect, understanding, and awareness of neurodivergent individuals’ needs, and create a culture of care, kindness, and compassion.
Psychological Safety:
- Providing neurodivergent and neurotypical employees with the security needed to experiment with different ways of working that enable both to more effectively share ideas, exchange knowledge and skills, and work together in pursuit of common goals.
- Granting employees the ability to speak up when something isn’t working and the opportunity to be heard—and heeded.
Inclusivity:
- Establishing—and enforcing—a zero-tolerance policy against bullying, harassment, or abusive treatment of any kind.
- Providing management and leadership training to ensure those in charge possess the knowledge and skills necessary to deliver effective, equitable support to all staff—promptly identifying various signs of distress, discrimination, and disorder to maintain a safe and inclusive environment for all.
Equality:
- Ensuring all staff have equal access to the opportunities, resources, and support they need to personally and professionally thrive, including access to any and all accommodations and benefits offered by the organization, and equal access to employment.
Simply put, the same (fundamental) conditions that make the workplace safe, accommodating, and empowering to neurotypical employees are the same conditions that create an inclusive work environment for neurodivergent employees.
A part of that, of course, means possessing—and demonstrating—an adept understanding of the common types and characteristics of neurodivergence, and what neurodivergent individuals’ various strengths and needs are.
Just as leaders presume to know how neurotypical employees ‘operate best’—“on-site, with opportunities for face-to-face collaboration, in-person socializing, and better work-life balance,” as many would say—a crucial aspect of embracing neurodiversity is recognizing that such ‘optimal conditions’ may look different for neurodivergent employees.
For example, while neurotypical employees may benefit from and desire the increased opportunities for social interaction that on-site work allows, some of their neurodivergent peers with sensory sensitivities or sensory processing disorder (SPD) may find it more difficult to concentrate or relax at work, and may benefit from accommodations such as:
- Quiet zones or office spaces
- Noise-cancelling headphones
- Private or quiet eating areas
Similarly, for neurodivergent employees who are sensitive to the bright, often LED overhead lighting common across most workplaces, providing accommodations like adjustable light settings and warm lighting fixtures can help create a more comfortable on-site environment for all.
Whatever the case may be, the best accommodations will ultimately include the adaptations or transformations that leaders undergo to better understand, empathize with, and support neurodivergent workers.
When leaders embrace neurodiversity—and in doing so, reject neuronormativity—they not only pave the way for better treatment and acceptance of neurodivergent employees in the workplace, but open the door to more creative, innovative, and high-performing teams.
To learn about how Workplace Options can help leaders harness the power of neurodiversity in their workplace, head to https://www.workplaceoptions.com/contact-us/.
