Celebrating Neurodiversity in the Workplace

I built my advertising career for 10+ years — specifically in digital marketing. As such, I worked at some of the top advertising agencies in Kansas City before spinning off on my own to build a 100% virtual agency and moving to Chicago.

The reason that I ultimately decided to go off on my own was threefold:

1. I truly felt that I have an entrepreneurial spirit, and I had always wanted to be self-employed.
2. I personally felt that there had to be a better way to make a living than sitting at an office for 8 hours (surveys estimate that the average employee actually only works for ~4 hours per day), dealing with office politics, working on projects you don’t like with people you don’t enjoy, counting down the minutes until 5pm or until the weekend. We have come too far technologically and intellectually to justify being bound by antiquated ideas of work!
3. As a neurdivergent individual, I found the office environment, with all of its rigid goals and expectations set by neurotypical folx, bright lights and sounds, forced social interactions, and non-sympathetic leadership, to be absolutely exhausting. As time wore on, I eventually found it nearly intolerable.

I feel very passionate about all three of those points, but for the sake of this particular article, I am only going to focus on the third point.

The Office is Designed for the Neurotypical Worker

As I implied above, the office environment is usually created for what is referred to as a “neurotypical” (NT) individual. To put it simply, this means someone who functions well in complex social settings, has little trouble managing sensory inputs (such as lighting, sounds, crowds, scents), behaves in “expected” ways, performs well under pressure in fast-paced environments, carries on with peers in an expected and socially appropriate manner, etc.

This word is not meant as a knock to someone’s originality, ability to discover and listen to off-beat music or read unique, underground literature, or creative competency. In fact it has nothing to do with personal preferences, personality traits, or attributes.

Instead, “neurotypical” is used to describe someone whose brain has developed according to more typical modes of functioning, and who exhibits standard developmental, cognitive, and intellectual abilities.

This term is of course in opposition to “neurodivergent,” which is the term used to characterize those with neurological differences — in other words, whose brains are wired a little differently than the general population. Neurodivergence presents itself in a number of ways. Most commonly, this includes Autism Spectrum Disorder (or “ASD,” a blanket diagnosis now also encompassing the formerly acknowledged Asperger syndrome), ADHD, OCD, dyslexia and other learning disabilities, and certain behavioral/mood disorders.

In my experience, going into an office environment felt like a constant assault on my senses, and required a great deal of energy to get through a day. For illustration purposes, a couple examples of what made me uncomfortable were things like:

• The “open office” design concepts that became popular in the mid-to-late 2010s (and still are increasing in popularity as more companies make the switch in 2020). While many of my peers believed these concepts to be amazing because they eliminated cubicles and dividing walls and were meant to encourage easy collaboration and camaraderie, as someone with ASD and ADD, this new design created enormous challenges for me.
  
  Suddenly I could no longer retreat to the privacy of my desk for solitude; instead, I had to sit 12 inches from the next person, listening to their calls and workplace banter, and being subject constantly to interruptions beyond my control. A couple of the ‘open concepts’ I encountered also did away with any traditional offices, so I couldn’t even use my normal trick of going into someone’s office (with pre-approval of course) who may have been out of town for the day or week, or finding an empty closed-door office to sit in for a while when I felt overstimulated or lacking focus.
  
  To me, these spaces are less about encouraging “collaboration” (which can be facilitated just fine through culture if leadership takes the time) and more about A) making a traditional workplace look “cool and edgy” for younger employees coming into the space, and B) about companies being able to make more profit-per-head by fitting more employees in one space, vs. giving them adequate desk sizes and privacy. Whatever possible benefit is gained from doing this likely comes at the expense of many people’s ability to focus and perform in an environment that is most conducive to their preferred working style.
  
  
  
• Planned social activity. My least favorite things about being traditionally employed were probably team building exercises, company-wide retreat days, and the obligatory happy hour. I imagine that 90% of people reading this are probably thinking, “Jeeze, what a boring loser!” but that’s exactly my point.
  
  Like most people who fall somewhere on the spectrum, I struggle with social interaction on a daily basis. This doesn’t mean that I’m not friendly, never talked to people in my office environment or can’t make friends, but conversations and events that an average person wouldn’t think twice about require me 10x the amount of energy to engage in, and — depending on the venue — often are way too overwhelming for me. At times I would end up needing to leave the event early due to being on the verge of a meltdown, or found myself avoiding things altogether so that I didn’t wind up in an uncomfortable situation.
  
  And yet, in many companies (and particularly in the alcohol-and-party-heavy culture common in the advertising world), to not participate is basically career suicide. You won’t get fired for not participating, but you’ll be excluded from the “big player’s table,” and will almost certainly not advance in your career as fast as “Brad” who attends every happy hour, stays out until 2am at the company holiday party, and goes golfing on the weekends with the top execs.

The problem with an office being designed for only neurotypical people is that it excludes those who may be extremely talented, capable, intelligent individuals.

I’m not trying to toot my own horn, but I firmly believe that any of my former co-workers or bosses would back me up on the fact that I was nearly always a top-performer on my team, made significant contributions within the organization, and that I was very good at my job. And aside from how the previous section may have made me sound, I was (and still am) actually a damn good presenter and speaker as well — to clients, at conferences, to peers, etc. I’m an educator at heart and prided myself on my ability to give a great speech/presentation.

The problem was that I wasn’t always “on” and I had trouble filling in the gaps between being great at my job and being able to give rehearsed presentations, and all of the “micro interactions” that have to go along with advancing in your career at a company (i.e. the networking, game play, office politics, etc). And because of these limitations, working in an office environment was very difficult for me, as I’m sure it is for many other neurodivergent individuals.

Honoring Neurodiversity at Work

What if instead of expecting every single employee to “fit in” perfectly to a design created by a small group of (likely NT) executives, options were given to those who don’t exactly fit the mold? What if being different wasn’t just reserved for the “creative” teams, but was celebrated throughout the company?

Here are some ideas for honoring neurodiversity in the workplace:

• Create “low-stim” spaces throughout the organization that could be used as recharging stations for people. Ideally, these would be areas that were lower light, away from the general busyness of the office (private), quieter, and presented options for how that employee needs to work at that time, whether it be standing, sitting, or bouncing on a ball.
• Offer a variety of ways to get involved across the organization that don’t only involve parties, happy hours, sporting events, or forced team bonding. For instance, encouraging people to connect over special interests like video games, comic books, literature, movies/film, art, board games, or animals can be a great way to involve those who are neurotypical, or even just those people who are a bit more shy or who don’t enjoy commonly popular forms of entertainment. This could be facilitated through specialized Slack channels at work, Google Sheets or Forms (to keep track of what people are interested in outside of work), or specialized after-work clubs.
• Don’t limit employees to “just” their job. Many neurotypical people are extremely creative and big thinkers, and if given the right opportunity they could likely present some pretty amazing ideas to improve the organization, work streams, culture, technology, etc. Give everyone a chance to learn about different departments and try different things, and to be heard regarding their ideas and whims, instead of slapping their wrists every time they have a suggestion that doesn’t necessarily align with their key job functions.
• Take the time to learn about each of your employees interests, strengths, weaknesses, dreams, ambitions, personality types, and triggers. I ran my own company for years and I know that a boss is not a psychologist. However, some of the best bosses I’ve had are the ones who take the time to administer things like the Myers-Briggs personality test, What Color Is Your Parachute, StrengthsFinder 2.0, DISC, and so on. And then they actually sit down and discuss the results with you. I know, right? What a concept. These can be key ways to not only make any employee (even NT individuals) feel seen and heard for what they are uniquely bringing to the organization, but I think it’s especially important for those neurodivergent employees because it helps you better understand what makes them tick, what gets them excited, and what areas are going to be more difficult for them. You can use this information to have meaningful conversations and form professional and developmental goals together which will be mutually beneficial for both parties.

My hope is that one day work places will be equipped to lift up the neurodivergent individual, instead of forcing unrealistic expectations upon them. I also hope that companies will begin to seek out neurodiverse talent and celebrate that neurodiversity in the workplace by offering options, truly listening to differing opinions, and finding unique ways to let their talents shine at the organizational level.