Neurodiversity: How it works, and why it will benefit your business

Neurodiversity relates to individuals with an atypical cognitive variation. While the term is often used in respect of autistic individuals, it can also encompass conditions like dyslexia and dyspraxia, as well as attention deficit disorders.

Neurodivergent individuals can bring significant benefits to businesses. To investigate these issues further, PageGroup recently hosted an on-demand webinar, hosted by Eithne Hynes, Senior Manager at Michael Page, with a panel of expert speakers:

·????????Jade Fuller, Programme Manager, Ambitious about Autism

·????????Simon Clements, Senior Director and Head of Workforce Transformation, CapGemini

·????????Charlotte Valeur, Founder, Global Goverance Group

They discussed key aspects of neurodiversity in the workplace, including autism, dyslexia and other conditions, as well as the business case is for neurodiverse workforces and proactive tips on how to attract neurodivergent candidates. They also covered other important topics, such as creating a culture of inclusion, and accessing untapped talent in a skills-short market.

Here are some of the highlights:

Understanding neurodiversity

Ambitious about Autism Programme Manager Jade Fuller began by playing a video of young autistic people explaining autism in their own words. Here are some of the quotes from the individuals whose names have been made up to protect their anonymity:

“Autism is like a long ruler, and everyone on the planet is a part of that ruler” - Josef

“It’s hard to listen and keep up due to accents, low voice or face pace.” - Joshua

“It’s as if neurotypical people were born with a manual on how to socialise and I’ve only just become aware of it.” - Josefina

Understanding neurodiversity can help you to improve your recruitment process, from avoiding cliches and writing job descriptions in clear, communicative language, to a different kind of interview process altogether, with less focus on face-to-face interactions.

Recruiting neurodiversity

As part of our webinar, those attending were asked how confident they felt about recruiting and retaining talented autistic employees:

·????????3% said they were very confident

·????????34% were moderately confident

·????????63% said they were not confident at all

An expert Q&A

The webinar ended with questions from the audience to the panel:

Q: What measures can high-pressure businesses implement to support neurodiverse candidates?

Simon: “One thing to focus on is neurodiversity throughout the supply chain. It’s not enough just to look at what we’re doing in our own firms. How do we make sure that it flows through our supply chain and into our clients? One thing we try to put out there is that everybody is an individual and stereotypes can be very misleading. We’ve got members of our team who are autistic and thrive in a high-pressure environment, where high targets are focused on achieving.”

Q: How can neurodivergent individuals bring unique value to supply chains?

Charlotte: “I don’t go to the pub after work. I go home because I’m working for 12 hours constantly at a high level and the pub doesn’t make me relax; it does the opposite, it’s stressful, because I have to do small talk and I don’t do small talk. In the supply chain, everyone has connections with neurodivergent people. When I call people, they always pick up the phone for me because I don’t chit chat, they know I’m very clear on what I want to tell them. And then the conversation is over and we move on.”

Q: Do automated CV filters put neurodivergent applicants at a disadvantage?

Jade: “Yes. It’s been recognised that a neurodiverse candidate may not pass those tests. It’s a big issue for us to tackle. We’ve heard about automated interviews where it tracks and measures your eye contact and how you’re conversing. This could be for a data analyst role, where eye contact is not important at all. We try to push more task-based assessment, looking at skills the individual needs and how they can demonstrate them.”

Q: Should there be training for managers with new diverse people in their team?

Charlotte: “It’s good to have trained inclusivity agents for each different diversity. Ideally the whole workforce will get training in diversity of all kinds: gender, ethnicity, neurodiversity, and more. Inclusivity agents can cascade down to the rest of the organisation. We need to be very, very careful that we don’t just hire people with no understanding of the organisation. I would advocate for training from neurodiverse people, so that they can talk about who they are. There’s a number of neurodiverse individuals doing that, going into businesses and opening up to questions anyone might have.”

Register today to watch the full webinar session and access many more useful insights and observations from first-hand experience of working with, and as, neurodivergent individuals.

What next?

The easiest way to make sure your business is more attractive to neurodiverse talent in 2022 is to work with an expert recruitment company who know exactly where to find this untapped talent market. Here at Michael Page Human Resources we can find you the talented professionals your business needs to drive growth and success in 2022.

Get in touch with myself or the rest of my team today for more information on how we can help.?