can engage with individuals who understand the neurodiverse community but are also paid to dedicate 100% of their working time on these topics. Structured Process for Internal Engagement. This component formalizes internal processes within the organization or university, ensuring ease of access and reduction of need for self-disclosure. This is reinforced by recommending a consistent and seamless ease of transition from applicant to candidate and eventually employee within the employer space, as well as a process where all employees or students are proactively directed to an accommodations team or process, reducing self-disclosure demands for access. Finally, it sets a standard that all managers, supervisors, or professors are provided foundational knowledge in the mechanisms and processes behind accommodations and how they should or should not impact evaluations and considerations of employee and student performance management. Creating a formalized and structured process is a critical component of this model, as it guides toward equitable outcomes. By ensuring all employees go through the same process to seek accommodations, employees are not isolated or denied through arbitrary departmental or managerial whims. Similarly, by centralizing these processes, the budget allocated to financially-backed accommodations can be spent in a more efficient way through pooled resourcing and better access to corporate discounts on various products and tools. Resulting Comprehensive Understanding and Support. These two components then promote a comprehensive understanding and support of neurodiversity in the workplace or higher education environment, finally normalizing on a neurodiversity-forward people strategy for employees and students. Ideally, if the organization considers all factors appropriately and integrates them successfully, the result is a neurodiversity-forward people strategy that is supportive of neurodiverse employees and students and reduces or removes barriers to success. This framework is not intended to be used one time and set aside but instead to be revisited at critical inflection points within the organization’s trajectory to ensure that as the organization grows, the support systems for neurodiverse employees also continue to grow. The continued use of the framework is largely dependent on the incorporation of meaningful metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs). This step is crucial for assessing and improving the effectiveness of the framework. Companies and institutions can hold team check-ins and one-on-one meetings to receive feedback from employees and students regarding their thoughts on engagement processes. A dedicated engagement survey tool can also be utilized to gauge the value of the processes developed from the framework. Measurable data is necessary to create insightful action to ensure the Neurodiversity Engagement Framework produces the intended
return on investment (ROI).
CALL TO ACTION As higher education and industry leaders look to invest in strategies and practices to support a sense of belonging and inclusion in their respective organizations, those efforts must include time, space, and place for all community members and their varied identities; support for those identities is paramount to harnessing the collective talent of all team members. Our aim was to shed light on what is known about neurodiversity, as informed by an interdisciplinary lens, and to advance an agenda focused on increased collaboration between higher education and industry to better enable neurodiversity accommodations. Further, via our Neurodiversity Engagement Framework, we provide guidance on how to critically evaluate existing neurodiversity processes and policies, which we argue should be an on-going process. We hope that the implementation of these recommendations, and the use of the Neurodiversity Engagement Framework, will improve higher education and industry inclusion as well as the success of neurodiverse individuals. REFERENCES Aitken, D., and Fletcher-Watson, S. (December 15, 2022) ‘Neurodiversity-affirmative education: Why and how?’ The British Psychological Society. https://www.bps.org.uk/ psychologist/neurodiversity-affirmative-education-why- and-how Anwar, M. (May 5, 2022) ‘The future of diversity and inclusion on corporate America.’ Forbes . https://www.forbes.com/sites/ forbesbusinesscouncil/2022/05/05/the-future-of-diversity- and-inclusion-in-corporate-america/?sh=111c6af07ccf Austin, R. D., and Pisano, G. P. (2017) ‘Neurodiversity as a competitive advantage: Why you should embrace it in your workforce.’ Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2017/05/ neurodiversity-as-a-competitive-advantage Blake, J. (December 14, 2023) ‘Creating career pathways for neurodiverse students.’ Inside HigherEd. https://www. insidehighered.com/news/diversity/disability/2023/12/14/ creating-career-pathways-neurodiverse-students Casey, C. (2020, March 19) ‘Do your DandI efforts include people with disabilities?’ Harvard Business Review. https://hbr. org/2020/03/do-your-di-efforts-include-people-with- disabilities Dixon, D. L., & Lee, B. D. (2023). ‘The role of sponsorship in developing diverse leadership talent.’ Management in Healthcare, 7(3), pp. 250-260.
26
www.closingthegap.com/membership | June / July, 2025 Closing The Gap © 2025 Closing The Gap, Inc. All rights reserved.
BACK TO CONTENTS
Made with FlippingBook Ebook Creator