'I actually felt like they heard me:' Companies work to include neurodivergent employees

For roughly a decade, Laura Rogers worked for herself, experiencing more success running her own business than she had getting a job working for someone else. 

“I had a few job interviews, and they went well enough, but I just never got offers,’’ says Rogers, 36. “I had made the assumption that, for some reason, I was just unhireable.’’

Then, shortly before her 32^nd birthday, Rogers was diagnosed as autistic, and with that knowledge and the support she received, she felt encouraged to dive back into the job market. In March 2022, she began working for Wells Fargo, which has made hiring employees who are autistic or who have varied cognitive profiles a priority.

“The biggest thing is just having people be understanding and not judge me based on neurotypical standards,’’ says Rogers, who's already received a promotion to the role of institutional investment portfolio analytics consultant. “That has really helped me thrive.''

Like Wells Fargo, a growing number of companies are focusing on hiring and better supporting employees who are “neurodivergent” – individuals who have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, are autistic or have other cognitive profiles, and who communicate, behave, and perceive differently than many others.

The University of Connecticut and a group of other universities and colleges are creating a pipeline for neurodivergent students to connect with employers. Handbooks and corporate roundtables are offering employers guidance on how to be more inclusive. And hiring processes and workplace cultures are being tweaked to tap and bolster what advocates say is a vast talent pool that has been underemployed.

“There was deep recognition of the disproportionately unemployed and underserved nature of that community,’’ says Stephen A. DeStefani, a Wells Fargo senior vice president who oversees its neurodiversity inclusion program. The program began in April 2020 as one piece of Wells Fargo's broader effort to create a pipeline of diverse talent, and the company has hired nearly 260 individuals.

“We’re focused on improving representation across as many lines of business and as many critical skills as we can accomplish,'' DeStefani says. "We’re seeing skills gaps close. We’re seeing higher employee satisfaction.''

Such efforts enable those who've often been misunderstood because they may think, act, or communicate differently to more fully offer their talents and bring their authentic selves to work.

“Masking is a big thing for people with neurodiversity because it’s an invisible disability,’’ says Josh Crafford, vice president for technology learning and development for the financial services company Synchrony. "Masking," he explains, "refers to the practice of people hiding their neuro different traits to better fit in with society.”

Crafford didn’t tell his colleagues he had dyslexia, high anxiety and dyscalculia (a learning disability that makes it difficult to process numbers) until 2019 – 13 years after he'd joined the company. He later found out that he also had ADHD after being tested for it during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Once you have that freedom to not have to hide it, you can take all that energy and put it back into your work,'' he says. "Your productivity goes up. Your creativity goes up…Everything that is important to being a successful employee increases.’’

At least 3 in 10 autistic individuals with college degrees are out of work or underemployed 

Reliable employment statistics for the broader neurodivergent community are scarce, but about 30% to 40% of autistic individuals who have college degrees are not working or are underemployed, according to Judy Reilly, Director of the University of Connecticut’s Center for Neurodiversity and Employment Innovation.

Meanwhile, roughly 1 in 36 children are autistic according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A study by professors at Oregon Health & Science University released last year estimated roughly 3.5% of Americans have ADHD. And the Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity says 20% of the population has that learning disability.

What is the goal of the Americans with Disabilities Act?

The Americans with Disabilities Act bars employers with at least 15 employees from discriminating against people who have a disability and that includes "invisible'' disabilities like autism and ADHD.

The federal law also mandates that employers provide "reasonable accommodations" so that staffers with disabilities have the same treatment, opportunities and benefits as their other colleagues. Reasonable accommodations are also required during the job application process.

But many company managers who oversee hiring and accommodations for staffers "are not educated in these conditions and how to provide compliant accommodations,'' says Miller.

Additionally, if a job candidate doesn't disclose their condition or learning disability, a hiring manager may reject them because they misinterpret their behaviors or answers as indicating they’re not suitable for the job as opposed to being connected to their cognitive profile.

Recognizing that many individuals with cognitive differences have the talents and skills businesses are looking for to fill an array of roles, the University of Connecticut launched its Center for Neurodiversity and Employment Innovation in May 2021 to help bridge the gap.

The center leads a group of more than 60 colleges and universities that share guidance on how to best provide career development and support to neurodivergent students and alumni. It also works with employers on how to be more inclusive and helps connect businesses with neurodivergent job candidates.

“We have a lot of employers who come to the center … who say, ‘We’re ready. Just send candidates.’ But it’s not just about sending a candidate,’’ Reilly says. “Changing the education and the awareness for individuals in companies really goes a long way to change their reactions when a neurodiverse person behaves in a way that they would otherwise misinterpret.’’

A manager shouldn't assume for instance that an employee with dyslexia who doesn't immediately respond to an email is ignoring them. Dyslexia can make combing through emails arduous. Instead of waiting for a written reply, the manager might suggest hopping on a phone call.

Other adjustments to better accommodate those who are neurodivergent might include giving a job candidate the interview questions they’ll be asked in advance to ease their stress level and reducing the number of meetings an employee has to attend in a given day so that they don’t feel cognitively overloaded.

A successful interview is more than a firm handshake

DeStefani at Wells Fargo says the interview process is often the main stumbling block when it comes to hiring someone who is neurodivergent.

“That’s because typically …  hiring managers value largely social priorities and considerations – great verbal communication, a firm handshake, eye contact, body language, self-promotion,’’ he says.

For job candidates who struggle with such interactions, those metrics may not capture what they bring to the table, advocates and hiring executives say. But there are other ways their talents can be evaluated.

People connecting to Wells Fargo through its neurodiversity inclusion program for instance spend four days with hiring managers and the initiative’s staff. During that time, there are team building and problem-solving exercises that help establish a comfort level and give candidates a reference point to discuss how they might handle a situation even if they haven’t had prior work experience.

Candidates are also asked questions such as what they think a good working relationship would look like and given information about Wells Fargo and its various lines of business. Finally, there are skill assessments and an interview re-dubbed a “one-on-one.”

Rogers says the process, including word puzzles and other exercises that enabled her to showcase her problem-solving skills, was a departure from what she’d experienced previously with other potential employers.

“It was really laid back,'' she said, adding that roughly a week later she received a job offer. "It was a much more inclusive process. It was more accessible, more accepting.’’

Support for neurodivergent employees : If you're neurodivergent, here are steps to make your workplace more inclusive

Internships, training can be key

Once on board, there are other steps employers can take to ensure their neurodivergent employees are successful.

“A great example is recapping meetings with notes so that individuals can take what happened in the meeting and process it offline and come back with questions,’’ says Neil Barnett, director of inclusive hiring and accessibility for Microsoft.

In 2015, the tech giant announced an autism hiring program that aimed to bring in more autistic candidates. Since then, the program has broadened to focus on all types of neurodiversity and has hired 225 full-time neurodivergent employees.

Microsoft has many more neurodivergent staffers who've come to it beyond that pipeline and as of last year, 7.8% of the company’s workforce self-identified as a person with a disability. (The company doesn’t break out employees with a disability by specific category.)

Barnett says meeting the needs of employees who have different cognitive profiles has been helpful to staffers across the board.

"Asking your employee what’s your preferred communication style, recapping meetings with notes, providing more feedback, those are great for everybody, not just your neurodivergent individuals,’’ he says.

Barnett also leads the Neurodiversity @ Work Employer Roundtable, a group started in 2017 by Microsoft, SAP, JP Morgan Chase,  EY, Ford, and DXC to increase the number of businesses prioritizing hiring neurodivergent employees. The coalition, which now includes more than 50 businesses, also shares practices on how best to recruit and nurture those staffers.

“I probably talk to two or three large employers a week,’’ he says, adding that the companies are in a variety of industries and are not just pigeonholing neurodivergent individuals in tech roles. “It’s not just tech companies. It’s manufacturing. It’s retail, banking, finance. It’s across sectors.’’

Synchrony recently worked with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of Connecticut to support a summer internship program for neurodivergent students. Last year, the company worked with the University of Connecticut to develop a five-week training course for businesses to make managers more aware of the talents in that community and ways to be more inclusive.

Crafford understands the pressures neurodivergent people deal with firsthand. He was unable to read or write in the second grade and remembers his parents being told that he might not graduate from high school.

"The next thing I heard was my mom breaking down and crying, so that confirmed 'I'm bad. I'm broken. There's something wrong,’ so I hung out with kids who would accept me for who I was,'' he said. "Freshman year in high school I was an unruly punk.''

But a high school science teacher encouraged Crafford to aim for college. His GPA rose to 3.0, and not only did he go to college, he went on to earn a master's degree and to have positions at four Fortune 200 companies.

“The great thing is when you put things in place for people with different needs, everybody wins,’’ he says.

What is autism : Here's how autistic advocates say you can support the community responsibly.

'Neurodivergent individuals are the leaders of the 21st century'

When Danielle Washington, 38, starts working for Wells Fargo in September as a systems operations associate, it will be her first full-time job.

Washington, who has three degrees, including a Master of Science in Information Technology, has ADHD and mobility issues stemming from a car accident in 2013.

She often felt she had to hide her ADHD diagnosis out of fear that it would prevent her from being hired or would lead an employer to find an excuse to lay her off.  

But she was able to be open with Wells Fargo. “The process was very different,’’ she says. When hiring managers learned of Washington's particular skills, the company switched gears and had her apply for a different job that would benefit from her knowledge. “I actually felt like they heard me.’’

Washington says she appreciates the employers that are leading the way in hiring more neurodivergent people though there remains a need for more to do the same. If they don't, she adds, they are missing out.

“I feel neurodivergent individuals are the leaders of the 21^st century,'' she says. "We’re always adapting to society because we don’t think as other people do or act like society views as the norm. We're the innovators and inventors because we're always innovating and inventing ways to be ... and to live as normal as we possibly can.’’