Industry Insights5 min read

Managers: how to hire and keep neurodivergent talent

David Okonkwo
22 November 2024

Most managers who struggle with neurodivergent employees are not hostile. They are managing by unspoken norms: assuming that people understand what "proactive" means without definition, that a vague piece of feedback will translate into a specific behaviour change, that "fitting in" is a reasonable expectation rather than a loaded and unmeasured one.

Neurodivergent employees often cannot read these norms. Not because they lack intelligence or commitment, but because the norms are genuinely unclear and because the social signals that convey them are not being processed in the same way. The result is misunderstanding on both sides, performance issues that have nothing to do with capability, and attrition that costs you a good employee and costs them a job.

This article is practical. It is not about running an awareness workshop. It is about the specific management practices that determine whether neurodivergent employees stay, perform, and develop, or leave.

Key Facts

  • The Equality Act 2010 requires employers to make reasonable adjustments for disabled employees, including those with ADHD, autism, dyslexia and dyspraxia: this is a legal duty, not optional goodwill
  • Most reasonable adjustments cost nothing or very little; the main resource is management attention to specificity
  • Neurodivergent employees who receive appropriate support report significantly higher engagement and retention than those who do not
  • ACAS guidance on neurodiversity and disability in the workplace recommends early, open conversation about needs rather than waiting for performance issues to arise
  • Access to Work (GOV.UK) can fund specialist equipment, coaching and job support for neurodivergent employees at no cost to the employer

Writing job descriptions that do not filter out good candidates

Job descriptions are the first point of exclusion for many neurodivergent candidates.

Phrases like "must thrive in a fast-paced environment", "excellent communication skills", "strong team player", and "comfortable with ambiguity" are screening criteria without definition. They measure neurotypical social norms, not job performance. A candidate who communicates differently but writes the clearest technical documentation your team has ever seen will self-screen out because "excellent communication skills" does not describe them, even though it should.

What to do instead:

Describe the actual demands of the role. Not "thrives in fast-paced environments" but "responds to changing priorities, typically up to three project changes per week, with advance notice where possible." Not "excellent communication skills" but "writes clear written summaries of technical decisions for non-technical stakeholders."

Remove criteria that are not actual requirements. If the role genuinely does not require presenting to senior leadership, do not list "confident presenter" as a requirement. If the team works mostly in writing, do not list "excellent verbal communication" unless you have a specific reason to.

Remove social performance language. "Good sense of humour", "sociable", "easy to work with": these are not job criteria. They encode the expectation that the candidate will be enjoyable to be around for the existing team, which correlates strongly with neurotypical social performance.

Making adjustments that actually stick

A one-off adjustment at onboarding that nobody follows up on is not an adjustment. It is box-ticking.

Adjustments that stick have these features: they are written down, they are communicated to everyone who needs to know about them, they are reviewed after a period to check if they are working, and they are treated as normal rather than exceptional.

Common adjustments in tech and professional roles, and what makes them fail:

  • Working from home or quiet space: fails when a manager makes it feel contingent on performance, or when team norms create social pressure to be in-office
  • Written meeting agendas in advance: fails when the manager's own calendar is chaotic and prep happens the day before, not three days out
  • Written instructions for new tasks: fails when verbal briefings continue alongside the written ones and the written version is incomplete
  • Extended deadlines for non-urgent work: fails when the extended deadline is given but not communicated to other stakeholders, who still chase on the original date
  • Reduced back-to-back meetings: fails when the employee does not feel able to decline ad hoc invitations without social cost

The failure mode in all of these is that the adjustment requires ongoing active behaviour from the manager, and under workload pressure, that behaviour stops. Build the adjustment into process rather than relying on individual memory.

Giving feedback that works

Vague feedback is nearly useless for anyone. For many neurodivergent employees, particularly autistic employees who process language literally, vague feedback is also confusing and often anxiety-inducing.

"Your presentation could be more polished": what does this mean? The slides? The delivery? The pacing? The content structure? If you cannot answer that question specifically, the feedback will not change anything.

What specific feedback looks like:

  • "The slides had a lot of text on each one: aim for one key point per slide, with the detail in your verbal explanation"
  • "You went over time by about eight minutes: try to leave five minutes for questions, which means stopping at slide fifteen rather than the end"
  • "When you said you were 'thinking about it', the client interpreted that as uncertainty about whether we could deliver. In future, if you need to check something, say 'I will confirm that by end of day' rather than leaving it open"

Specific feedback is not harsh. It is useful. The alternative (a vague comment that the employee has to interpret) is the thing that feels harsh when they realise, after a performance review, that something was expected of them that was never explained.

Also: positive feedback should be specific too. "Good work" tells nobody what to repeat. "The client follow-up email you sent yesterday was exactly right: you summarised the key decisions clearly and set out next steps with owners and dates" tells someone what to do again.

Team activities and social inclusion

Standard team-building activities (pub nights, escape rooms, Christmas parties, away days with large group activities) are exclusionary for many neurodivergent people and for people with other disabilities, caring responsibilities, alcohol-related health issues, religious observances, and social anxiety.

This does not mean you cannot do anything. It means you should not make these activities the primary vehicle for team cohesion, and you should not create social pressure to attend.

Inclusion in team social life is built in the day-to-day working environment: whether people feel heard in meetings, whether contributions are attributed correctly, whether one-to-one check-ins happen regularly. A team that functions well day-to-day does not need a forced social event to feel connected.

If you want to run team events, offer options. Not everyone should have to attend the same activity. Budget for alternatives.

The business case

Neurodivergent employees who are well-supported stay longer, perform at a higher level in the domains their role requires, and often bring specific cognitive capabilities (sustained depth of focus, pattern recognition, attention to detail, unconventional problem-solving) that have direct professional value.

The cost of losing an employee, factoring in recruitment, onboarding and the time before someone is fully productive, is typically six to twelve months of salary. The cost of reasonable adjustments is almost always a fraction of that.

Retention, in short, is the business case. You do not need a more complicated argument than that.

Where to go next

Tags:
ManagementInclusive HiringTeam Building