Many organisations recognise the impact of neurodiversity at work. They understand that people think, communicate, process information, and experience workplace environments differently, and are willing to put in some effort to make their workplace one where all types of minds can thrive.
Organisations may have run an awareness session, established an employee network, perhaps added neurodiversity to their diversity and inclusion strategy. Some have introduced manager neurodiversity training. Others might even look into a process for requesting reasonable adjustments. All of these are valuable foundations and we commend the businesses that are implementing them.
But some more challenging questions follow. These are an invitation to build on that foundation:
Is the work having an impact?
What do neurodivergent employees now experience day to day in your workplace?
Are there any areas of unnecessary cognitive friction affecting people’s productivity and wellbeing?
Current research suggests that a significant gap remains between what organisations believe they are providing and what neurodivergent employees actually experience.
The 2026 City & Guilds Foundation Neurodiversity Index drew on responses from more than 2,200 people in the United Kingdom, along with sector roundtables and case studies. It demonstrated that employers’ views of the level of neuroinclusion within their organisation often does not match up with the lived experiences of employees.
Employers reported confidence levels of 70-80% about their progress on neuroinclusion. Yet depending on the measure, only 32-38% of neurodivergent employees agreed that they felt psychologically safe to be themselves at work, trusted that promised adjustments would happen, or believed their organisation understood the reality of their needs.
That’s a significant gulf!
Although these findings come from the UK and should not be treated as New Zealand or Australian benchmarks, they raise an important question for organisations here: does strong neuroinclusive leadership intent coexist with an inconsistent employee experience?
Other 2026 research by Neurodiversity in Business and Birkbeck University of London identifies a similar challenge. Despite gains in support from line managers and colleagues, neurodivergent employees continued to report worse work experiences year on year. Psychological safety had not improved, and this was previously identified as the strongest driver of wellbeing, career satisfaction, and retention.
The issue is no longer simply whether organisational leaders understand the opportunities and challenges associated with neurodiversity. It is whether their good intentions have been translated into consistent inclusive practices.
Neuroinclusion is experienced through the cumulative effect of many small moments, rather than through one large organisation-wide initiative. This includes moments when:
A policy cannot anticipate every context. Implementation depends on the systems and culture around the policy and the confidence of the people applying it, and is therefore a very dynamic practice.
Common breakdowns happen when:
Efforts toward inclusion may sit with an employee network or inclusion lead, while recruitment, onboarding, learning, performance, career progression, technology, and workplace design continue unchanged. Barriers are then addressed only after they affect an individual, rather than designed out of everyday systems.
An organisation may approve reasonable workplace adjustments, but in reality employees and managers are unsure where to start, who makes a decision, what information is required, or how long it should take. The result is delay, repeated explanation of why the person has requested the adjustment, and avoidable stress.
Managers are often the first person an employee approaches about a support need or change to ways of working. They may genuinely want to help but feel uncertain about what to say, what is reasonable, how to preserve confidentiality, and how to balance individual needs with role and team requirements. Without practical guidance, responses vary widely.
Some managers fear that adjusting the way work is done means lowering expectations. Others avoid performance or feedback conversations because they worry about saying the wrong thing. A better approach is to separate the outcome from the pathway to achieve it. Keep role requirements clear, while exploring whether things like communication approaches, tools, check-ins, or the work environment can be flexible.
Information may be shared mainly in meetings, priorities may remain implicit, roles may involve constant interruption, or flexibility may depend on individual negotiation. These norms can create barriers, even if formal support is available when requested. True neuroinclusivity doesn’t default to one single way of working.
Organisations may ask employees about their experiences without communicating what was heard and what will change, or without giving thought or voice to how progress will be measured. Over time, consultation without visible action can reduce trust and willingness to contribute.
Webinar attendance, resource downloads, and training completion are useful implementation measures. They do not show whether employees feel safe asking for support, whether managers respond consistently, or whether adjustments improve sustainable performance.
Many organisations have pockets of excellent practice. These might take the form of an experienced HR partner, an employee network, or a manager who intuitively creates clear and flexible ways of working. The risk here is that the employee experience becomes a lottery, and depends on the managers and teams that they are working in. Or that when the champion changes role or leaves, the practice disappears with them.
A 2025 systematic review published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders examined 56 studies of neurodivergent employee and employer experiences. The workplace conditions most often reported as helping neurodivergent employees to thrive included:
The recurring barriers identified in the review can be grouped into four related areas.
Work and the physical environment: sensory difficulties, limited flexibility, poorly matched job demands, and workplace adjustments that are unavailable or do not meet the person's needs.
Relationships and workplace culture: communication mismatches, limited understanding of neurodivergence, stigma, masking, and fear of disclosing a diagnosis or asking for support.
Management and organisational systems: gaps in manager support, unclear support pathways, and policies that exist but are applied inconsistently in day-to-day practice.
Wellbeing impacts: anxiety and other mental health challenges which can be intensified by sustained sensory, social, or performance pressures and make it harder to participate and perform sustainably.
Two implications stand out:
First, both individual support and organisational design are crucial to a neuroinclusive workplace. Individual support caters to one person and their unique needs. Organisational design has a wider view. It means examining how jobs, processes, policies, technology, physical environments, communication norms, and management practices work as a system, so that avoidable barriers are removed rather than repeatedly managed and mitigated case-by-case.
Second, the practices that help are usually practical and easy to apply. Clear feedback. Flexible arrangements. Useful tools. Strengths-aligned work. A process people can navigate. Managers who know how to respond.
Organisations do not need to solve everything at once. They need a plan; a coordinated and relevant programme of prioritised improvements that removes areas of friction and makes good practice more consistent across the organisation.
An effective neuroinclusion strategy would include:
Understanding what employees experience
An anonymous employee neuroinclusion survey can help an organisation understand whether its policies, practices and support are translating into employees' day-to-day experience. It can provide a baseline, identify recurring issues or new ones, and help track change over time. Survey measures may include:
Equipping managers for real situations
Managers need to understand how neurodivergence can shape workplace experiences, recognise strengths and barriers, and reflect on how their own assumptions and leadership practices affect others. They also need practical skills to communicate clearly and inclusively, give constructive feedback, discuss workplace adjustments appropriately, and create team environments where different people can contribute and perform at their best.
Offering employees individual support options
General support through an Employee Assistance Programme may not always provide access to practitioners with specialist knowledge of neurodivergence or address challenges involving executive functioning, sensory load, or emotional regulation. Specialist coaching can help an employee understand themselves, explore how they work best, build practical self-management systems, and communicate their needs more confidently.
Assessing the whole system
Independent assessment can help an organisation see beyond isolated initiatives. It can examine all aspects of work and the employee life cycle as one connected system. An effective assessment can recognise what you are already doing well, identify areas that are not yet consistent with good practice, and prioritise the changes or initiatives that would have the greatest impact for your organisation.
Making good practice easy to find
Policies need usable resources around them: clear process documentation, manager guidance, conversation prompts, adjustment menus, employee-facing information, and accessible intranet content. The best resource is one that a person can find and use when they need it.
Neuroinclusion becomes impactful for both individuals and organisations when it is embedded in everyday systems, leadership practices, and employee experience. There is an opportunity for NZ organisations to move from sporadic well-intentioned activities to a more coherent approach.
Organisations ready to genuinely embrace and harness neurodiversity in their workforce should consider developing a clear neuroinclusion strategy with a coordinated series of improvement initiatives.
Looking for guidance on this? Human Fabric supports New Zealand and Asia-Pacific organisations with:
If your organisation has strong intent but is unsure what to prioritise next, book a free discovery call. We can discuss the barriers you are seeing, share what other organisations are doing and help you identify a proportionate next step.