Unleashing Neurodiversity: How to Harness Unique Talents in Your Workplace
The Value Of Inclusion
The Benefits of Hiring Neurodivergent Employees
Many people who identify as being neurodivergent, which covers neurological conditions such Aspergers, Autism, ADHD and Dyslexia, are reported as being under supported at work.
Australian and international statistics also indicate that between 52% and 60% of people with a disability or neurodiverse are unemployed. This does not include the large numbers that are underemployed (employed less than 32 hours a week) where they have the capacity and desire to work more.
With the often highly valuable workplace strengths that neurodivergent people possess, this represents a significant opportunity for organisations to access a capable and willing pool of talent.
How to Hire Autistic, Dyslexic or Other Neurodivergent Staff
The first and typically the last hurdle that most neurodivergent job candidates face is the recruitment process. From sometimes long, repetitive and occasionally ambiguous application forms to panel interviews and assessment centres that generally only serve to highlight the challenges these candidates may have with social interactions, there are a number of stages where job candidates will stumble.
However, there are many minor adjustments that organisations can make to their processes that will allow neurodivergent candidates to demonstrate their strengths and character.
6 Interview Preparation Tips For Autistic Job Seekers
Job seeking can be an intimidating and confusing time for anyone, but for Autistic job seekers, these feelings are often compounded.
However, with a few tweaks to your approach, you can not only lessen the stress and confusion of trying to find work but also increase your chances of being successful!
3 Neurodiversity Hiring Program Structures
When it comes to establishing a deliberate approach to increasing organisational diversity, creativity and performance, a neurodiversity hiring program is certainly a growing ‘go to’. The question for many organisations starting out though, is how?
In simple terms, there are really 3 primary formats that any organisation can take. In this post, I’ll explore each in turn along with some thoughts on the pros, cons and what considerations might be relevant for your organisation.
The Growth Mindset and How it Can Drive Performance
I’ve been exploring mindsets again of late and have circled back to the work of Carol Dweck and the Growth Mindset.
The idea of the Growth Mindset is the belief that your ability to learn and adapt is flexible. It is something that we have direct control over.
This leads to the view that your potential is limited by your effort and imagination.
Managing Performance of Neurodivergent Staff
Managing staff requires a mix of guiding through missteps and mistakes. Encouraging continued good work and dealing with the odd interpersonal challenge. This is no different when it comes to neurodivergent staff. But, this is often an area of uncertainty for many managers new to supporting a neurodivergent employee.
When establishing an inclusive workplace it's important to treat all people equal. Making distinctions on how one person is treated versus everyone else fosters exclusion.
How to Create a More Neurodiversity Inclusive Workplace
Having dealt with the challenge of how to recruit neurodiverse candidates and onboard them into your business, you’re now considering the next steps as part of your diversity and inclusion plans.
Or you may be in the camp where you have identified existing staff who have disclosed as being neurodiverse or are facing ‘stereotypical’ workplace challenges.
Making reasonable adjustments to the workplace is often a mandatory legislative requirement in most countries. But beyond that, having an inclusive workplace that caters for the needs of your staff will allow them to perform at their best.
How to Promote Neurodiversity in Your Company's Diversity & Inclusion Strategy in 2019
The neurodiversity concept or movement is gaining traction globally. Certainly as awareness increases, more people are coming to understand what it means and how to relate to neurodivergent people.
A follow on implication is greater understanding of the contributions that neurodivergent people can make. What also seems to stand out for me is the realisation people have when it comes to how many people are touched by it.
So whilst approximately 10-15% of the population may identify as neurodivergent, think of all the people directly connected to that individual. With the ‘average’ family represented by four people, there are potentially at least a further three people directly and closely connected to every neurodivergent person.
3 Ways HR Managers Can Learn More About Neurodiversity
Learning is, as they say, ‘a journey’, and something that we continue to do throughout our lives.
I suspect that like many people in the broader HR community, you’ve come across the term Neurodiversity. I’ve no doubt that you have definitely heard of terms such as autism, dyslexia and ADHD.
So, neurodiversity is then how we describe this idea of difference as it relates to the way a person thinks and processes information. It’s a cognitive or neurological difference.
Maybe, if you’ve been reading my blog for a while you’ve got a pretty good understanding and an appreciation of the strengths that neurodiverse people bring to work, but you’re looking for more.
5 Key Lessons from the Autism@Work Summit Melbourne 2019
Once again I attended the Autism@Work Summit in Melbourne, hosted by DXC Technology, ANZ Bank and the Autism Co-operative Research Centre.
This has proven to be a fantastic day (this was my second time attending) in the last couple of years and it’s hard not to learn something. With speakers from a variety of organisations and insights from many angles on a range of topics, there is plenty to learn about and loads of great connections to make as well!
I had previously shared a short video post on the key takeaway I had from the day, but let’s explore that in a little detail along with the other key takeaways.
The Way You Conduct Job Interviews Could Affect Diversity in the Workplace
Is there a connection between your recruitment process and the level of diversity in your workplace? Absolutely!
In this post, I’m going to show you how your interviews could be eliminating specific people from your recruitment pipeline and preventing you from hiring not only diverse talent but talent that could be driving real business results.
How Your Noisy Work Environment Impacts on Diversity in the Workplace
The sensory environment at work impacts not only neurodivergent people. You’ll be surprised by the number of people who aren’t autistic or dyslexic for example, who are also affected by the amount of noise and movement in the office.
I’ll explain a few common areas that create challenges when it comes to the sensory environment and work, along with a few simple strategies you can employ. The upside is, the cost of doing so doesn’t need to be high, and the benefit of having done so will be felt by many of your staff.
How Psychometric Tests Could Undermine Diversity in the Workplace
Certain assessments that are commonly used within recruitment selection processes can be very effective at filtering out candidates. The question is, how often are they filtering out candidates that might actually be ideally suited to the role?
Are these tests causing you to not only miss out on quality but diversity in your team as a result?
In this article, I’ll discuss some thoughts on why psychometric testing could be causing you to miss out on talented candidates.
Should you create jobs specifically for neurodivergent people?
This is a reasonable question. And one that often gets asked when an organisation is beginning to think about actively pursuing a broader diversity and talent agenda.
Are there roles that might better suit neurodivergent staff? In order to hire in, should new roles be created and carved out for them? What approach makes the most sense and will be more successful?
It is these questions that I’ll explore and offer some thoughts on in this article. I want to remove some of the uncertainty here and make it easier for you to start hiring neurodiverse candidates.
5 Easy Ways for HR to Tweak Hiring Processes to Foster Neurodiversity
Inclusion as a concept is not new and has certainly been around for quite some time. In contrast though, whilst the concept of Neurodiversity is not new, it’s place on the corporate Diversity and Inclusion or talent strategy agenda is.
The value of a diverse workforce has been the subject of research and analysis. Unsurprisingly, greater diversity of thought and perspective leads to be better business outcomes. The avoidance of group think resulting from hiring people like ‘us’ also leads to improved employee engagement and retention.
In all honesty, I don’ think that inclusion is complex, in fact it is often very simple. But be mindful that simple does not necessarily equate to easy. If it were easy, well, you’d not be reading this article because I’d not have felt any need to write it…
How to Create a Neurodivergent Inclusive Workplace
Have you ever had an employee that didn’t seem to work well with their team members? Have you come across those project teams that seemed to be dysfunctional and worked against themselves more than for themselves?
All too often you’ll have lost employees, they’ve just left or worse still perhaps is they have remained and ‘underperformed’ or being problematic. Imagine if you didn’t need to face the constant threat of attrition, poor performance or interpersonal conflict within teams.
Imagine how much more productive, effective and engaged your staff would be if they understood each other, the organisation and had a voice.
This One Strategy Could Solve Your Inclusion Challenges
When it comes to inclusion and supporting greater workplace diversity, many of us understand the rationale, the value proposition. The 2018 report released by Deloitte on the diversity and inclusion revolution is a heavily cited view of just how valuable real diversity can be for business.
Though it’s not easy.
You know that. Your daily experience of trying to find ways to lift diversity and support greater inclusion of the more diverse employees that come into the organisation is one of wins, fails and plenty of head-scratching.
How do you create inclusive environments, processes and practices when everyone is so different?
Could this one simple strategy be the solution you need?
How to Create a Great Neurodivergent Candidate Experience
Are you creating the best candidate experience for all job applicants?
Whilst there is a strong consensus for the rationale for providing a positive candidate experience, it’s not always clear on how to do that for all potential applicants.
I completely understand that you may not be confident how to treat and manage autistic or dyslexic candidates for example. You may find it confusing how to address their ‘differences’ and be worried about making mistakes.
Then there are the range of things you may be doing right, though just not in quite the right way for these particular candidates.