How to comply with neurodiversity legal obligations.

Failure to provide a safe, inclusive workplace for different thinkers has far reaching consequences, for employees and for organisations.

• Employee wellbeing
• Employee and team performance
• Legal risks

As an HR professional, you are in a unique position to set the bar for neuro-inclusion. You can create a neurodiversity policy within your ED&I strategy that not only accommodates, but celebrates neurological differences.

In doing so, you will not only promote an inclusive workplace culture, but protect the legal rights of employees with neurological differences and ensure your organisation’s compliance with legislation.

Current processes for obtaining reasonable adjustments rely on employees either having a formal diagnosis or a good depth of understanding about their own cognition to self-report their neurological differences. But there’s a large portion of the workforce that may have hidden needs.

Organisations have an ‘anticipatory’ duty to provide such adjustments, meaning they must put measures in place in advance, to mitigate the potential barriers that those with neurological differences may face.

A recent survey of over 800 employers and employees found that although nearly half have Neurodiversity Champions or mentors in place, a third felt as if they can’t disclose their neurodiverse diagnosis in the workplace.