What Is Neurodiversity?

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Workplace design choices encode assumptions about people that are rarely examined.

Designing for the average fits nobody.

Open offices and back-to-back meetings tax many nervous systems.

Removing barriers for neurodivergent employees can improve outcomes for all.

There's a question that comes up almost every time in an initial conversation about neuroinclusion at work. Sometimes it's asked directly. At other times, it hangs over the room, unspoken:

Isn't this just special treatment?

The question deserves a straight answer: No.

The Workplace Was Never Neutral

Every workplace is designed. Someone made choices about the physical space, the schedule, the communication style, the meeting format, the lighting, and the way performance gets measured. Those choices encode assumptions about what matters, and whose brain, body, and nervous system is the default.

Open-plan offices assume a nervous system that can filter noise and maintain focus amid constant movement without crashing, and that it's reasonable to spend cognitive energy on managing the sensory environment that could otherwise be spent on the actual work.

Back-to-back meetings assume a brain that does not get deeply involved with one topic, and that breadth is more important than depth.

Networking events assume social energy is abundant, small talk is easy, and quantity over depth in relationships makes sense.

Nine-to-five schedules assume a body clock that hardly exists.

None of these assumptions are natural laws. They are design choices. And for decades, they were made for a fictional average person who does not actually exist, based on assumptions that don’t actually work.

The "Average Person" Problem

In the 1950s, the U.S. Air Force measured thousands of pilots and designed cockpits for the average dimensions. When they checked how many pilots actually fit that average across 10 measurements, the answer was zero. Not a few. Zero. Designing for the average fit nobody. 1This same principle can be applied to psychological diversity.2

The "standard" worker—standard attention, standard sensory tolerance, standard communication style, standard social energy—is a fiction. Designing for that fiction doesn't create a neutral workplace. It creates one that works somewhat for some people and taxes everyone else.

Neurodivergent employees, those whose nervous systems are wired differently—autistic people, ADHDers, dyslexic individuals, and many others—pay that tax most visibly. But they are not the only ones. Caregivers, people managing chronic pain, people managing grief, introverts, working students, older workers—anyone who in some way doesn't fit the impossible mold—pays some tax.

What Neuroinclusion Actually Does

Neuroinclusion doesn't add special infrastructure for “special” people. It removes the assumption that the current infrastructure works well for actual humans.

Here is what does work:

Flexible schedules to remove the penalty on anyone whose best thinking doesn't happen between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Clear communication in different formats (e.g., spoken and written) to make information accessible to everyone.

Quiet spaces alongside collaborative ones to acknowledge that sustained cognitive work requires conditions that open-plan offices structurally prevent.

Agendas before meetings to respect everyone's time and make gatherings more effective.

Multiple ways to contribute one’s thoughts beyond real-time verbal performance to capture all the knowledge and perspectives.

Networking opportunities designed for non-surface connections to build true affinity.

Performance reviews with clear criteria based on work outcomes, to support both fairness and performance.

Are these "special accommodations"? No, this is what good organizational design looks like when we stop pretending that humans are clones of each other. And these are only a few suggestions. My book, The Canary Code: A Guide to Neurodiversity, Dignity, and Intersectional Belonging at Work, explains how to make every step of the human resources cycle work for different minds and nervous systems.

How intentional is your workplace design? Was it built to bring out the best in the full range of human talent, or inherited along with a set of assumptions that were never examined?

Examine those assumptions. Ask your people what works and what does not. Experiment with building work that fits actual humans.

What Is Neurodiversity?

Find a therapist near me

Is neuroinclusion just special treatment?

No. It's thoughtfully designed infrastructure. For dignity. For all of us.

1. Rose, T. (2016). The End of Average: How we succeed in a world that values sameness. HarperOne.

2. Praslova, L. N. (2023, August 15). The radical promise of truly flexible work. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2023/08/the-radical-promise-of-truly-flexible-work

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