Four steps for inclusive neurodiverse recruitment
Research indicates a significant disparity in employment rates for neurodivergent adults.
Unemployment for neurodivergent adults runs at least as high as 30-40%, which is three times the rate for people with disability and eight times the rate for people without disabilities.
These underemployment statistics underscore that there is a pressing need to prioritise and enhance employment opportunities for neurominorities and has prompted a number of major corporations – such as SAP, Virgin and Microsoft – to implement targeted inclusion initiatives.
What can recruiters do to make their recruitment practice, and those of their clients, fairer?
A need for greater focus
The first step to address the employment disparity is to commit to putting greater focus on neurodiversity, especially during recruitment. Around 15-20% of the population is neurodiverse, impacting almost a fifth of the candidate pool. This is not really a niche issue.
To help ensure organisations tap into this potential talent, they need to re-evaluate how they recruit.
This means reviewing their current processes and also ensuring people have the right knowledge and awareness of neurodiversity in the workplace.
The use of assessment and neurodiversity
The reason many organisations use psychometric and pre-employment tests is to enhance objectivity, validity and fairness during recruitment, thereby avoiding over-reliance on manager intuition and gut instinct.
This is typically achieved by measuring job-relevant behaviours and capabilities, which can increase predictiveness of future performance, increase objective decisions and reduce the chance of bias. The use of online testing has been shown to improve fairness outcomes significantly, as they are designed to reduce the very significant biases that other, more traditional and subjective recruitment methods, have.
However, despite the increased fairness these tests can help deliver, there is also a risk. Once a set of decision criteria is set, it can potentially impact some of the inclusion goals they are actually designed to deliver, especially if those decisions are ill-thought-out and uninformed.
With emergent topics such as inclusion and neurodiversity, there is still a lot to learn. However, researching best practice, and reviewing a company’s existing recruitment process, is a good place to start.
But what does best practice look like? The cyclical ‘foundations of fairness’ is a useful means of helping to plan out potential action.
This approach starts with aligning recruitment to organisational diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) goals, putting good practice into action, analysing the outcomes, and then acting on the learnings to improve the process.
1. Align to DEI goals
Carry out a thorough job analysis. Understand the job being recruited for, the actual skills required, and the competencies needed.
Ensure neurodiverse stakeholders and employees are included to shape, define and inform the approach you are going to take.
2. Achieve recruitment solutions that have DEI at their heart
Be trained. Ensure recruiters are trained in objective assessor skills and are using objective measures in the recruitment process, learn more about the different neurodivergent conditions and understand how they can impact candidates at all stages of the recruitment process.
Review all communications, job descriptions and supporting materials. Ensure that candidates can easily request any reasonable adjustments to be made to the process.
Ensure the assessment process deployed achieves objectivity and maximises the likelihood of fairness.
3. Analyse to ensure fairness and efficacy
Monitor the impact of the recruitment solutions. Look at, and analyse, the data to ensure the process is not impacting negatively on neurodiverse candidates.
Encourage feedback. Ask candidates about their experiences and be open to how the processes can be improved.
4. Act to enhance quality and improve DEI outcomes
What is neurodiversity?
The term neurodiversity recognises the strengths and the natural differences in human neurology. Individuals who classify themselves as neurodivergent include conditions such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia.
The term has been embraced by people across education and work, due to its positive focus and emphasis on these differences being a part of normal human variation, relating to how people think, learn, and process information.
Substantial evidence shows that embracing neurodivergent talent leads to increased innovation, productivity, and improved decision-making within organisations. By making recruitment processes more inclusive, it’s possible to tap into a wide range of talents, perspectives, and problem-solving approaches that may not be present in a neurotypical workforce.
These conditions can also make it difficult to navigate some of the processes around recruitment too. Recruiters should consider differences in sensory processing, communication and managing stress and anxiety, for example, allowing neurodivergent individuals to request reasonable adjustments if it helps to make the recruitment process more accessible and inclusive.
Useful background
Neurodivergent: Definitions, Examples, and Support (verywellhealth.com)
Neurodiversity Is a Competitive Advantage (hbr.org)
Neurodiversity | Definition, Movement, & Affirming | Britannica Embracing and understanding neurodiversity in assessment Neurodiversity in the Workplace | Statistics | Update 2024 (mydisabilityjobs.com)
Learn and act. Take any feedback and learning from the process as a whole, and put any suggested changes into action.
Make informed decisions about the assessment tools you are using and whether they need to be changed.
Taking proactive action may involve reviewing the recruitment process again, altering job descriptions, improving communication and providing more supporting materials. The point is, this is a cyclical process that will improve the DEI of the recruitment process, on an ongoing basis.
It is also important to better understand the needs of neurodiverse candidates, how the specific conditions may impact those individuals and their lived experience. Knowledge is power, and there is now a wealth of information about neurodiversity via social media, YouTube, articles etc, which can help develop a better understanding of the candidates and their expectations.
Overall, to address and support neurodiversity in the workplace, recruiters need to ensure neurodiverse candidates can access work opportunities and that they are supported effectively. By improving processes and ensuring DEI is integrated practically and pragmatically during recruitment, recruiters will be best placed to help organisations and their talent thrive.
Ali Shalfrooshan, head of international R&D, Talogy.
Image credit | iStock