The Expert Academic Panel on Neurodiversity: Final Report and Recommendations report ("the Report") notes that neurodivergent traits and challenges can present in many ways, making identification of the best way to support neurodivergent individuals complicated and challenging. This often leads to a focus on the diagnosis an individual has, rather than what they need to support them.
Looking beyond diagnosis
As Dr Stephen Shore, an autistic professor and autism activist, once said, "If you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism". The tendency to try to support all individuals with the same diagnosis in the same way does not take that insight into account.
People with the same diagnosis may have very different needs, while individuals with different conditions may encounter similar workplace challenges. Support should therefore be based on functional need rather than medical labels.
What does the Report recommend employers should do?
The Report argues that employers and policymakers should focus on the practical workplace barriers experienced by individuals. Many neurodivergent people continue to face significant barriers throughout the employment lifecycle.
The Report highlights shortcomings in recruitment processes, which often fail to identify or accommodate neurodivergent talent and can unintentionally exclude capable candidates. It also notes concerns about the increasing use of technology and automated systems, warning that these may reinforce bias if neurodivergent needs are not considered during design and implementation.
According to the Report, relatively small and timely adjustments are often absent, contributing to reduced confidence, poorer performance and, ultimately, a deterioration in the employment relationship.
Creating more neuroinclusive workplaces
For employers, the Report makes a series of recommendations aimed at creating more neuroinclusive workplaces. These include the need to build a safe culture, reframe adjustments as tools for performance optimisation that are open to all and, where possible, co-design improvements with neurodivergent staff.
Support should be prioritised according to urgency and level of need, and the support that is available should be clearly communicated. Third-party service providers, such as those used for recruitment or training, should be scrutinised to ensure bias or practices that disadvantage neurodivergent candidates are not introduced.
Data should be used to monitor retention and identify where gaps in representation or progression might exist.
Recognising common workplace challenges
The Report also recommends that employers focus on common areas of challenge such as communication; planning and self-organisation; movement and coordination; sensory processing; emotional/stress regulation; and fatigue.
It goes on to provide practical strategies for employers on how to meet these common areas of challenge. This includes examples of how these challenges impact the workplace and suggestions of adjustments that can be made to meet them.
Designing inclusion from the outset
The Report promotes the wider use of "Universal Design" principles. Rather than creating adjustments only after difficulties arise, Universal Design seeks to build workplaces, processes and environments that are accessible and inclusive from the outset.
This includes considering different communication styles, flexible ways of working, sensory needs and the design of physical and digital workspaces. The Report suggests that embedding inclusivity into workplace design will benefit not only neurodivergent employees but the wider workforce as well.
Focus on individual needs
The Report's overall message is clear: increasing neurodiversity in the workplace is about creating working environments that recognise individual strengths, respond to individual needs and remove unnecessary barriers to participation and success.
