IT Management

Opinion: How to help neurodivergent colleagues within your organisation achieve their best.

By enabling people to work in a way where their primary focus isn’t reducing distractions or feeling comfortable, rather it’s focusing on the task at hand, you’ll find productivity skyrockets.

Ryan Drake

9 Jan 2024 • 4 min read

Photo by Domenico Loia / Unsplash

Neurodiversity within IT is really common!

The reality is that neurodiverse people often gravitate towards a career in systems or technology. You shouldn't however think negatively of this, in fact these are people that you should desire to have as part of your winning team. Neurodiverse individuals offer fantastic skills and talents and are well suited to the industry.

Having a diverse team - not just in terms of background, ethnicity, etc - but also diversity in thinking and ideas, is really important for any organisation. Great things are achieved when people with different ways of thinking come together to produce a solution.

Neurodiversity isn't a limitation on someone's skillset, rather it is just that their brain is wired differently to neurotypical persons. Different people have different strengths and weaknesses, and this is true for colleagues with neurodiverse conditions such as ADHD, ADD, Autism or Asperger's (amogst others).

Neurodiverse people are individuals, just like neurotypicals, who simply have a certain diagnosis that explains some challenges they face. Therefore, managing those colleagues requires a nuanced approach where you're treating people as individuals with individual needs. There isn't - and never will be - a one size fits all approach. That’s true of colleagues who are neurodivergent — and those who are neurotypical too.

Everyone with a neurodivergent condition is different

Everyone with a neurodivergent condition is different and just because X strategy worked for one person with a certain condition, doesn't mean at all that the same strategy will work for another.

Neurodiverse people may have had their characteristics aligned with a certain box that they are then placed in, but that box never fits just right, even for the most textbook case - it's always a matter of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. It never describes someone perfectly. And it shouldn't.

This sounds confusing, but the one thing that you can count on: that those neurodiverse colleagues are likely more attuned to their strengths and weaknesses and how to overcome them compared to neurotypical individuals. They will already have various mecahnisms and strategies to help them play to their strengths. Their whole life has been spent doing so, oftentimes with professional assistance. Your organisation must be able to support them with those in order to achieve great things.

How can I help my neurodivergent team to work best?

Be honest and up-front

If you want something done in a specific way, say so. If you want something done with little to no further input from yourself, also say so. Don’t play mind games or politics. Many neurodivergent conditions involve feeling unclear and confused in what to do when things aren’t black and white. Bear this in mind when assigning out tasks.

Treat people as individuals

The main issues that I’ve seen neurodiverse colleagues face in a workplace tend to be around inflexible personnel policies/processes that whilst seemingly unassuming and oftentimes indifferent for a neurotypical — in fact present challenges for a neurodivergent colleague.

The solution to this really is simple: you treat people as individuals and help them with their specific requirements around their characteristics.

Empower people to be honest by demonstrating compassion

Secondly, you empower people to feel more comfortable bringing those characteristics to the attention of their manager or the HR/personnel team by demonstrating that the company is willing to listen and adjust.

If the issue is around the percieved reaction to revealing these conditions, you need to change the company's approach so that individuals feel that they can trust you with their oftentimes sensitive health information.

You can't change the company culture with meetings, sessions or focus groups. Sure those things can help if run appropriately whereby colleagues can be honest, and those colleagues feel listened to. You also need to follow up with teams to ensure that positive actions are being taken as a result of those meetings. Otherwise, it's just a meeting for meeting's sake. And will probably by viewed as an ineffective attempt to placate that really missed the mark.

If you’re not doing this, you’re not doing culture correctly.

But really, a positive company culture always is set by allowing people to be open and honest without fear of repercussions. This includes when mistakes have been made, demonstrably learning from those mistakes, and empowering staff by allowing changes to policy based on their individuals changing needs. That isn’t specifically about neurodiversity but applies as a whole. But by having this culture in place, you’re allowing neurodivergent colleagues to feel comfortable discussing their conditions in the workplace for the betterment of all.

Typical adjustments for neurodiversity aren't complicated or expensive

In many countries such as the UK, making changes to policy for neurodiverse individuals (making reasonable adjustments) is something that's actually legally required of all employers. Typical adjustments for neurodiversity aren't difficult or expensive. Typically the requests will be as simple as:

Can I work somewhere quieter?
Can I work somewhere where I am free to adjust the temperature of the room?
Can I work somewhere where I can close the blinds or turn off some lights?
Can I have a permanent desk instead of hot-desking?
Can I have software to assist me with my work?
When I'm not meeting clients, can I wear something more comfortable?
Can I get minutes for that last meeting?

Let’s be honest, these aren't exactly difficult requests to provide in a workplace where everyone is sat in an office.

But you'll notice so many of them are even easier to provide when a colleague is working from home. This is really the main reason why many neurodiverse individuals request at least a couple days a week to work from home.

You'll probably quickly notice those colleagues work better at home, and have enough social battery to work better on the remaining days that they do come into the office.

Support your colleagues to do great work

You should want your colleagues to feel that they can raise any concerns honestly and early. You should want to support your colleagues to achieve great work. Check in regularly with your neurodiverse team members to make sure that their workplace is supporting them correctly, remember needs and adjustments can and often do change over time.

Do so in the way that works for them, as well as your organisation.