Investing in Neurodivergent Talent: Strategies for Neuro-inclusive Recruitment
Throughout Autism Awareness Month, we have explored ways to celebrate our differences, highlight the unique skills and strengths autistic individuals can bring to their teams, and empower individuals to thrive in their workplaces and beyond. With an estimated 15-20% of the UK population believed to be neurodivergent, and 1 in every 100 individuals believed to be autistic, we need to ensure that hiring managers and recruiters have a good knowledge and understanding of autism and other neurodifferences, and that we are creating assessment processes that enable autistic individuals to fully demonstrate their unique strengths and skills.
The Benefits Neurodivergent Talent Can Bring to Businesses
At Lexxic, we often see the valuable skills that neurodiversity brings to the workplace. These strengths can include:
When focusing on autism in particular, there are several common skills and strengths that many autistic individuals possess that can add significant value to the workplace:
Preferences for routine and process that can help with reliability in following plans and good at time keeping.
Having strong knowledge in areas of interest that can help individuals recall key details.
Being analytical and detail orientated can support tasks that require precision or pattern recognition.
Direct communication styles can help individuals to give honest feedback to colleagues.
The Importance of Neuro-inclusive Recruitment Processes
Organisations may be missing out on benefiting from these skills. However, as many autistic individuals experience challenges accessing the world of work due to outdated recruitment practices and processes that inadvertently filter-out neurodivergent talent. Although approximately 1-2% of the UK population are autistic, only 22% of autistic adults are believed to be in paid employment, despite 79% wanting to work.
This is a common situation that we often hear about, where an autistic candidate knows they have the skills to do a role, but they are worried about getting through the application and interview process. According to Anka Wittenberg, Former Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at SAP, many recruitment practices are designed to be standardised and easily scalable, which cannot be adjusted or tailored to individual needs.
At Lexxic, we often see biases in recruitment tools used to assess candidates, but there can also be bias or a lack of acceptance from the interviewers or hiring managers themselves (Morgeson et al, 2005). Nicholas et al (2017) found that 75% of neurotypical candidates were asked to come for a second interview, compared to only 30% of neurodiverse candidates. This stigmatisation and discrimination is often felt by neurodivergent candidates, to the extent that they can often be reluctant to ask for adjustments and may mask their differences. The ‘My Disability Jobs ND Employment Survey’ found that 46% of neurodivergent employees only disclosed that they were neurodivergent after they had started their job out of fear of how they may be treated during the recruitment process.
If we think about standardised application processes, from job descriptions and completing application forms to assessment tools and interviews, we can start to imagine the different challenges that could arise for autistic candidates and the potential barriers in place that prevent these individuals from demonstrating their best strengths. As a result, not only does the individual feel dejected by the process, but this can lead to organisations missing out on these valuable skills that can bring significant benefit to their businesses and gaining a ‘competitive advantage’.
To combat this, we need to shift our attitudes away from trying to catch people out in assessments, and to how we bring more people in, and give everyone an opportunity to truly express their authentic selves and the skills that they can bring to the workplace. If we can add this flexibility to recruitment processes, then we can help attract and recruit the best talent for a role.
In positive news, there are already a growing number of organisations now embracing neurodiversity and understanding the importance of fostering neuro-inclusion throughout the hiring process by making sizable changes to their practices. Some examples include:
How Lexxic Can help
No matter what stage you are at in your journey of becoming a neuro-inclusive workplace, Lexxic is here to support you!
We have a range of services to help you create environments where neurodiversity can flourish, and individuals feel supported and empowered.
These include:
Workshops and webinars on The Value of Neurodiversity in the Workplace and Neurodiversity Smart Recruitment
Neurodiversity Audits on your current recruitment processes
Neurodiversity Smart®️ assessment and accreditation, so you can understand how neuro-inclusive your current practices are and identify areas for improvement
And more!
Book in a chat with one of our team today to see how we can support you and help you attract the best talent for your roles.
We are also proud to be hosting a Q&A session on neuro-inclusive recruitment on April 30th, 2024. In this session one of our experts will be answering your questions about neuro-inclusive recruitment, and sharing his expertise and professional insights into how organisations can support neurodivergent candidates. Visit the event registration page to find out more and sign up.
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