REWARD
Ensuring neuroinclusivity at all stages of the employee life cycle Part 6: A lookback and reflection
Cybill Watkins MCIPP, Group Product Legislation Manager, Zellis, looks back at the important messages shared throughout this series and considers how employers can look to the future, and ensure they’re neuroinclusive
T his is the last in the series I’ve written regarding ensuring neuroinclusivity at all stages of an employee’s life cycle. To finish it, I’ve been reviewing my previous articles. There’s been so much to discuss in such a short space. (And for those of you who’ve met me, you know how I can talk for hours on this subject.) So, I thought it would be good to just recap, and to reiterate that everyone must be treated as an individual, regardless of whether they have a disability, a health condition or there’s anything that means they have struggles in their life. Employers must give everyone the chance to thrive. Before I started writing this series, I opened up to the world on my struggles, along with the strengths I could bring. I looked at the neurodiverse community as a whole and how we are the perfect employees – we may just need a few adjustments and a bit of extra support to get there.
process in this space since then. The first thing I highlighted was the job description and the barriers that having just desirable and essential criteria raise for many people, not just those who are neurodivergent. We also looked at some very basic traits, and examples of why someone with those traits may not apply or may struggle with writing a CV that would be automatically discarded as it had spelling or grammar mistakes in it. There was also the issue of ‘years of experience’, and whether that truly defined someone’s knowledge, ability or their learning potential. If an employer asked for three years’ experience, and I had two years and 10 months, I wouldn’t apply. We explored how applicants need to apply, so whether there are multiple access areas which could open up roles to neurodivergent individuals, and how employers can support these potential employees to have a successful journey into the business. The one sentence that stayed with me from writing that article was “don’t judge what you cannot see”. The second article focussed on the application process. The original plan was to include this in the first article but, as always, I had so much to say on it. Half of the employer’s hurdle is getting the
applicant into the business, which is why I think there was so much to say. We looked at some challenges surrounding job applications and called out the static online application and all the challenges this brought, as CVs seem to be a thing of the past for many companies. We considered the legal requirement for reasonable adjustments to be made even before someone is given an employment contract. Could an employer offer video applications, or even someone to assist with the system application? Finally, we looked at what’s being asked and how there’s such a massive disparity between employers. Having had so many jobs over the years, I’ve become quite knowledgeable in this area. Applying for one management job needed my life history, my CV written out in different boxes, an attachment of the actual CV and the answers to multiple scenario- based questions – none of which had any relevance to the role. Another similar role wanted my CV and a conversation with a human – which would you choose to do, neurodivergent or not? To sum it up, employers should only ask for what’s needed and offering a phone call to have an initial chat can go a long way.
Looking back In article one, we considered job
descriptions and the application stage. I’m wondering how many companies have been proactive in changing their whole
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | July-August 2025 | Issue 112 28
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