New research has found that some neurodivergent people feel discrimination and negative bias in the workplace, particularly in the recruitment process of some jobs.
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00:00Some of the key findings from the report by Pern Candola found that when job hunting,
00:05neurodiverse candidates faced bias and negative attitudes from employers. Interestingly, it
00:11was found that 6 in 10 managers in the workplace have never had any training on how to manage
00:15a colleague with neurodiversity.
00:19There's lots of things, but also very simple, low cost or no cost things that employers
00:23can do. One of the first is actually awareness. So we know that, I touched upon earlier, there
00:28are lots of stereotypes and myths around what it means to have neurodiversity, but
00:33actually the research is really clear that there's a number of strengths that neurodiverse
00:37candidates or role holders can bring around things like creativity. So literally seeing
00:42the world differently, things around, for instance, having special interests or developing
00:47particular skills, really in-depth skills and expertise.
00:50So one thing is that sort of education piece so that managers, employers really can see
00:55the benefits of being inclusive and having a sort of diverse sort of staff from that
01:02point of view. So actually providing candidates with things like options. Would you prefer
01:07this to be an online interview, which we're all very used to now, or an in-person interview?
01:12We know that for some neurodivergent individuals, having that online option is really great
01:17because it's a predictable environment. You've got your own technology, you can control the
01:20lighting, you can control the temperature. Certain things, which again, in a different
01:24environment, differences in temperature, etc. and lighting and noise can be quite disruptive.
01:30According to research by Pern Candola, 6 in 10 neurodiverse employees mask their condition
01:35from colleagues and more than 2 in 5 admit to feeling uncomfortable asking their employer
01:40for adjustments to accommodate their neurodiverse traits.
01:4340% of people from our research said they haven't sort of asked for things like reasonable
01:48adjustments and that's partly for fear of actually, you know, sort of almost revealing
01:53too much of themselves and maybe being exposed to biases.