Why Employers Must Embrace Neurodiversity in the Workplace

To say Justine Capelle Collis is a high achiever would be an understatement. Her advertising career spanned across three continents, and her clients included government bodies and Fortune 500 corporations. She didn’t realize she’d done it all with undiagnosed ADHD until helping her two sons navigate their diagnoses. 

Parenting children with ADHD required “a different kind of parenting,” Collis told Fast Company, challenging her in ways she didn’t expect. “I couldn’t make sense of it,” Collis said. “I can have a successful career, I can achieve all of these incredible things. Why am I failing at this thing that I’m biologically wired to do: which is to have kids?” Collis has since retrained as a neurodiversity coach, and got an ADHD diagnosis of her own.

She’s come to understand that she’d had the autonomy and freedom to customize her professional life to suit her strengths – an option too many neurodiverse people don’t get. Many of them are left to navigate environments designed for others, held back from being their best selves.

 As awareness of neurodiversity grows, a change advocates credit in part to social media, major corporations like Microsoft and EY are beginning to introduce accommodations to support neurodiverse staff. These include changes to work arrangements and spaces as well as simply providing educational resources. Gijo Matthew, chief product officer at Spring Health, said his company launched a neurodiversity hub because “traditional mental health benefits often fall short for this community.” 

Standardized solutions can only go so far, though – neurodiversity exists on a spectrum, and no two people are identical. A dedicated neurodiversity coach can help each employee with their needs and strengths, tailoring work environments to boost performance, motivation, and overall well-being. This might look like designing inclusive roles, sensory-friendly workspaces, and a culture that minimizes interruptions and keeps expectations clear.

“If your job is repetitive admin in an open-plan office with Slack on fire all day, no amount of coaching will turn that into a good fit for an ADHD brain,” explained Roman Peskin, CEO and co-founder of ed-tech startup ELVTR, who was diagnosed with ADHD in adulthood. Ultimately, Peskin believes that when given the proper tools, neurodiverse employees can be a “competitive advantage.” 

“We don’t need ‘fixing,’” Peskin added. “We need the rules of the game adjusted so our strengths actually count.” That chimes with Collis’s thoughts – now that we’re better recognizing the different ways neurodivergent people operate, we can help them “function in a way that harnesses that capability, rather than forcing it into a box.”