Why neurodiversity matters in every workplace

Recently I was hugely flattered to be invited by Sudha Singh of The Purpose Room to guest on her podcast, The Elephant in the Room , and deeply disappointed by the final outcome.

Hugely flattered because of the breadth and depth of Sudha’s work to champion diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I), social purpose and sustainability in comms, PR and beyond.

Deeply disappointed because a collision of work and personal pressures meant I fell short of completing our scheduled recordings, despite Sudha’s understanding and patience.?

A few weeks after the non-event, with more time to reflect on the topic of neurodiversity we were due to discuss, I wanted to salvage something from the missed opportunity.?

Hopefully this Q&A does some justice to Sudha’s pertinent questions. It certainly feels apt (and a bit autistic) to set out eager to embrace something new and end up engineering a workaround to unforeseen obstacles.

Neurodiversity is an essential subject with meaning and relevance for everyone. I was an expert in ignorance until recently, so I’m grateful to fall back on written words to arrange my thoughts. Thanks Sudha for the platform and thanks to anyone who takes the time to read.

Let’s start with a quick introduction to who you are and what you do

I’m a communications, marketing and brand reputation specialist, with almost 20 years of experience across sectors including financial and professional services, tech, manufacturing, engineering and the built environment.

I began my career in-house in the north of England, working in business development and sales for a fast-growing, data-devouring fintech, before moving into marcoms and public relations for a vocational skills body.

On moving agency-side I worked my way through the ranks at a specialist Midlands micro-agency, an award-winning independent London corporate boutique and latterly a top UK and international consultancy, spanning insight and integrated comms.

My role includes advising a large client portfolio encompassing private, public and not-for-profit organisations, and often involves reputation management and purpose-driven campaigning on issues like financial inclusion, the ageing population, digitisation and investing for a sustainable future.

The focus of today’s conversation is on neurodiversity. As someone who was diagnosed fairly late, what was the impact of not being diagnosed on your personal and professional life?

I was diagnosed as autistic three years ago, 30-odd years after first becoming aware of some kind of difference or ‘otherness’. In one sense the impact of being undiagnosed was all-encompassing, but also barely recognisable in the sense that I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

Being unconsciously neurodivergent made certain episodes of life a white-knuckle ride with steep climbs and sharp descents. At other times, coping mechanisms helped smooth out the journey but also took too much of the edge off some of the upsides. For all the friction, it’s been an unsolicited gift in terms of building resilience, perseverence and adaptability.?

It’s really important to call out the many parallel privileges which have worked in my favour as a white cis male from a family who encouraged me educationally. Despite financial challenges, they supported me through university, including when I initially dropped out to work in hospitality and travel, and later moved to the US for an extra study year to find/escape myself.

In old autistic language, I might be described as ‘high functioning’. It’s a horribly outdated and broad-brush term, but importantly alludes to the more severe experiences of autistic people who are non-speaking or managing other acute impairments.

Reflecting on the personal and professional impacts I’ve encountered, being autistic can feel like a maze of contradictions linked to having a 'spiky profile' and executive malfunctioning challenges. For example:

• I find prolonged eye contact physically excruciating and mentally exhausting at times, but relish making personal connections through conversation.
• I find large social groups stifling, but get a buzz from public speaking and am happiest as part of a crowd at gigs, festivals, clubs and sports events.
• I can focus for hours on complex tasks, but will easily misplace things or forget something simple I was asked five minutes ago.

As my career developed, I know some colleagues made negative judgments for a perceived lack of contributions when I first joined management meetings. My schoolteachers would sympathise having made similar classroom observations. In both settings, the internal reality was my brain was working overtime to decode the theatre, agendas, rules and politics involved.

All these things have got easier with more practice and self-assurance, but I recoil when people say it’s better to work smart than hard to get ahead. That’s fine in theory, but working smart is doubly hard when it feels like you’ve missed the pre-event briefing and have different social cheat codes to many of your peers.

Did getting diagnosed help and how? Was it an ‘A-ha’ moment?

Diagnosis was an unexpected lightning bolt, but no-one gives you a manual or coaching afterwards to map out what happens next. The discovery/rediscovery process that followed has been more of a slow burn, and a heavy grind at times, albeit with a general sense of purpose and progress.

In some respects, being diagnosed is like leaving the opticians with new lenses which suddenly bring everything into focus. In others, it brings to mind the Shawshank Redemption scene of chipping away bit by bit to get around an impenetrable wall.

In basic terms, I've found a diagnosis can help to better understand or reframe disjointed, confused or traumatic life experiences. It can become an energy source, by granting permission to cast off exhausting masking rituals, so more positive thoughts and actions can surface in the space vacated by worries about what-if scenarios.

Equally, the ongoing challenges include managing the urgency to make up for lost time; figuring out if and how to give freer rein to suppressed character traits; and getting to grips better with enduring limitations.

There’s also the uncertainty of knowing whether open disclosure has invited negative, stereotypical and prejudicial judgements for the rest of my career (albeit it’s a little late to worry about that now!). I took the leap after deciding change will be slower if everyone plays safe, and if you sit back you leave others to enjoy the fun of finding out what’s possible.

Our workplaces tend to put us into boxes, they like to slot people neatly. What does fitting in/culture fit mean to you? How relevant is it for the workplace?

I’ve been fortunate to work in settings where the culture has been nurtured and cherished, and also helped to administer intensive care when it’s been needed.

A good workplace culture should be strong enough to have shared values and behaviours which people can find their own ways to buy into, rather than being forcibly imposed or requiring that everyone conforms to type. One-size-fits-all doesn’t work, but neither does anarchy or anything-goes.

A good culture allows room for people to add their own elements and make their own mark without fear of undermining the collective. A culture so rigid or brittle that it can’t flex to accommodate challenge or change, like skyscrapers in an earthquake, is never going to last.?

Neurodiversity is an umbrella term to describe neurological brain characteristics present in people who have ADHD, Autism, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia etc. These terms are often used interchangeably by people. How frustrating is the lack of awareness and education among various stakeholders including parents, teachers, workplaces etc?

A common misconception is that neurodiversity is only about those labels, whereas the core concept encompasses the entire human population and all its neurological variations. Within that expanse, there are various minority groups whose cognitive functions and means of relating and communicating are sufficiently different from the majority to be given a ‘neurodivergent’ label.

It’s beyond frustrating to count the missed opportunities which every late-diagnosed adult is likely to have endured to get assessed, let alone apply the learnings to everyday life. It’s taken time to acknowledge and start to process the trauma of knowing I could have been better enabled in many areas of life at the age of five, 35 and every day in between. It’s also become a great source of motivation.

The idea that diagnoses are being freely handed out to random chancers makes a mockery of the trials involved in navigating the system. Without the means to go private, there’s a good chance I would still be on the NHS waiting list even now.?

Until the point of diagnosis, I was firmly in the ‘unaware and uneducated’ box: I’m not sure I’d even heard the word ‘neurodiversity’ and certainly hadn’t given it much thought.?The range of neurodiversity is vast and no two individuals are the same. Understanding and accommodating people’s differences doesn’t have to mean knowing the subject inside out or memorising every definition.?

It’s just as constructive to listen to and observe others’ needs with an open mind to understand how they perceive and relate to the world. Too often we default to generalisations and biases, including the assumption that everyone’s cognitive experience is the same as our own. That makes any workplace harder to navigate than it should be, and is critically important in communications.

Every stakeholder can find excuses not to give neurodiversity sufficient attention. The teaching and medical professions are beset by financial difficulties, as are many businesses. At the same time, the concept is a child of the late 90s and enough time has passed for it to be far better understood by now.?

As many as one in five people may be neurodivergent . Not understanding what that means and how to apply that knowledge to create accessible education, work and healthcare is negligent in a way that amounts to a crime against humanity.?

If that sounds melodramatic, consider that UK government data shows autistic adults are nine times more likely to die by suicide than the general population , and autistic children are 28x more likely to attempt suicide.

There are a number of awareness days in the UK and worldwide, including Neurodiversity Celebration Week and World Autism Acceptance Week . All the noise around awareness days in general gives us a false sense of complacency, of achievement, when there may be very little actual progress. Would you agree or disagree?

Someone once told me neurodiversity was their favourite DE&I workstream because corporates find it the easiest or most realistic to address. I think it was tongue in cheek, but the grain of truth behind it highlights the risk that businesses focus on celebrating the already-present. Far more important are the actions required to improve inclusion. Research suggests autistic adults face the lowest employment of all disabled groups .

It’s easy to be cynical about celebration days when there is a huge benefit to the spotlight and validation they bring. Equally, the wider issue of exclusion can’t be addressed from inside an echo-chamber. A casual observer of my algorithmically curated LinkedIn feed would get a very false impression about neurodiversity awareness across the wider workforce.

Similarly, an organisation which only focuses on neurodiversity during Neurodiversity Celebration Week is completely missing the point.

I read a summary of the Buckland Review of Autism Employment and was staggered by the findings. Seven in 10 autistic people are unable to access the independence and fulfilment that employment can bring. Neurodivergent people also face the largest pay gap of all disability groups receiving a third less than non-disabled people on average. At the societal level, what are your thoughts on strategies to reduce the stigma around neurodiversity? Do we really need to make a business case? And what can organisations do to enable neurodivergent people to have a fair chance at getting jobs and having a fulfilling career path?

Schools have a vital role to play, for parents and families as well as children. I’ve been encouraged by early impressions of my daughters’ primary school years, where mental health, resilience, growth mindsets and related topics are far more openly discussed than I remember.

Equally, the reality for many families with neurodivergent children is that the education and healthcare systems present unintentionally hostile environments to navigate and are in dire need of reform.

Arguably workplaces should also embed universal neurodiversity training as standard, even making it a legal requirement. Businesses routinely train and audit staff on all manner of workplace behaviours, from cyber security to the correct desk posture. Why not coach people on good human interaction and make annual refreshers a basic requirement? It’s bizarre and inhumane to educate staff to handle personal data with care and not personal relations.

I totally agree that requiring a business case feels horribly reductive. It implicitly suggests neurodivergent people deserve to be included at work because their autistic, ADHD, dyslexic, dyspraxic or other superpowers can boost growth and innovation. That might be true to some extent (hello, future employers!) but being ok at your job is good enough too.

Creating more fair chances needs accessible recruitment processes, but also jobs designed for inclusion and accommodating cultures which minimise friction and trauma. None of this should be optional or a ‘nice to have’.?

Name some people/organisations within and outside the industry who are actually doing a good job and you admire?

At the risk of excluding important names, there are plenty of pioneering figures to take inspiration from.

A lot of neurodivergent influencers seed contentment as well as content for their followers by explaining, destigmatising and celebrating difference. Tristan Lavender 's writing and photography never fails to brighten my day. Similarly, more businesses are getting their house in order and can help to drag the wider corporate community along with them.?

My own discovery journey started by looking at organisations such as GAIN (Group for Autism, Insurance, Investment & Neurodiversity) and Neurodiversity in Business (NiB) - the Neurodiversity Charity for ideas and a sense of community. The changes which people like Dan Harris FRSA and Johnny Timpson OBE are advocating for through these charities are potentially priceless to individuals and society.

Another sign of recent progress is that the best books I’ve found on the topic have only been published in the last 12-18 months. Untypical: How the world isn’t built for autistic people and what we should all do about it by Pete Wharmby and Unmasked: The Ultimate Guide to ADHD, Autism and Neurodivergence by Ellie Middleton are both brilliantly accessible, insightful and informative reads.

If you prefer sound and visuals over written words, the first season of Chris Packham’s Inside our Autistic Minds documentary series for the BBC was fascinating to watch: both the presenter and case studies pack lifetimes of lived experience into two hours of essential viewing.

In communications, marketing and PR, I hope Iain Preston and James Gordon-MacIntosh won’t mind the random namechecks after their personal experiences struck a chord when they featured in Campaign and PR Week respectively. I’m yet to attend their events – third attempt lucky, hopefully – but love seeing the work of initiatives and networks like The Future is ND .?

The Advertising Association’s All-In campaign is well worth exploring and Ishtar Schneider is leading a passionate team on the PRCA ’s Equity & Inclusion Advisory Board, building on Sudha Singh FPRCA Chart.PR 's founding work.

On the broader topic of mental health, Alexander Clelland 's recent article for the PRCA on PR culture and mental wellbeing is a must-read for agency leaders and in-house employers.

Jon Dunckley of About Neurodiversity and About Consulting Group delivered a fantastic session for PRCA EIAB members and contacts last year on the benefits of neurodiversity in the workplace . Follow him, sign him up as a speaker and, if you don’t have a seminar or event platform available, read his book Rewritten : you won’t regret it.

What would progress look like to you, e.g. within the next five years there would be no pay gap between neurotypical and neurodivergent employees?

We need to be realistic about where society is starting from with improving awareness and understanding. Momentum is building but past efforts have frequently been handicapped by dumbed-down, infantilised and ableist misrepresentations of neuro-minorities in popular culture.

The pay gap is shocking, but so is the fact fewer than one in four autistic adults are in any kind of employment . For many, even having a pay gap is aspirational as it means they’re at least earning something to begin with.

I recently met someone who, within five minutes of being introduced, mentioned they happen to be dyslexic. Everyday conversations like that give a burst of oxygen to the topic: nothing to shout about, no big reveal needed, just a straightforward disclosure of something which is a routine reality for millions of people.

The pay gap might close quicker if we can tackle the underlying prejudices and biases. Progress would mean that anyone could be similarly open about a neurodivergent condition at work without fear of judgement or recriminations. Then everyone can focus on finding ways to work with their differences rather than wasting time and energy concealing them from view.?

What advice would you give to an 18-year-old neurodivergent person contemplating their future?

I can only base this on my own experiences and hope there is some broader relevance here. My key takeaways would be:?

Don't be ashamed.?

Don't think you're being difficult by speaking up.?

Don’t assume you have to cope on your own.?

Don’t accept that you alone have to change to accommodate others.

• Tune into Sudha's podcast, The Elephant in the Room , and subscribe via your favourite channel
• Find out more about the work of PRCA's Equity & Inclusion Advisory Board