Leaders’ Insights On Embracing Workplace Neurodiversity

At the core, welcoming diversity into the workforce is the real inclusion ofalternative ways of thinking, agility to address the changes and, boost individual's innovative capabilities. Everyone is to some extent differently-abled as we all have different capabilities and thought processes.

“Most New and Innovative ideas always come from a diverse range of employees,” Shivam Puri, CEO, Cipla Health states while discussing the core relevance of bringing in Neurodiversity in the workforce.

Celebrating its 4th anniversary, BW People has successfully concluded a day-long virtual CEO & CHRO Conclave 2021 in association with Randstad India on 29th May 2021. Thought leaders, change-makers, and lead CHROs have joined the panel discussion from across the industries to address the concept of neurodiversity and the panel was chaired by Noor Fathima Warsia, Senior Editorial Director, BW Businessworld.

Neurodiversity is not a commonly used term and hence people need to have more understanding that the companies are on a journey to create a more inclusive environment by introducing different policies and programs.

Companies are headed to include more people who are facing existing conditions like dyslexia, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, etc. As the human brain is and supposed to be different; this set of people in some cases are brighter especially in the area of innovation and breakthrough solutions.

“Neurodiversity is not just an HR initiative alone and shouldn’t be even counted as an experiment. It should be embedded within the organizations in a top-down approach,” Rakesh Bhutoria, CEO, SREI Infra strongly mentioned while pondering over the complexities of implementing the inclusion on the ground. While adding on the same lines he addressed a real issue of biases at the workplace and said, “We have to try to be less judgmental.”

The panelists agreed on one same point that this inclusion will surely pose a number of complex challenges in front of leaders and managers but one thing for sure that it’s not impossible to execute. HR leaders would immensely focus on eradicating the conscious or subconscious biases at the workplace, to be able to listen and understand their needs at the wholesome level, and to be able to provide suitable tools and infrastructure that will enable an organization to “welcome more neurodiversity”.  

Highlighting the importance of listening to neurodiverse people and understand their different needs with openness Ramkumar Narayanan, VP Technology and MD, VMware India mentioned, “ Listen to people and don’t go with an agenda into meetings. That way conversations become truly open.”

In the Indian market, Neurodiversity is new terminology and a sensitive subject to talk about. Many companies are still not completely settled in embracing diversities ranging from gender, LGBTQ community, age, sex ratio, and more and here the question arises that in the list of priority where the neurodiversity lies? One of the panelists responded beautifully and said, “The holy grail is cognitive diversity.”

Aruna Jayanthi, MD, Latin America and Canada, Capgemini emphasized the importance of revisiting and re-evaluating and said, “We have to relook at soft skills and see if we really need them.” Sharing her experience on implementing this inclusion drive in the UK, Jayanthi mentions that, “The common stereotype of the best employee is the one who is networking or strong in communication but some of the people simply do not fit into those sub-consciously standardized norms.” 

The beginning of neurodiverse inclusion will undoubtedly push leaders to rethink, re-strategize and, redesign the norms and execution. Speaking on terminology and designing for neurodiversity in an organization, Naghma Mulla, CEO, EdleGive Foundation says, “If we design for their inclusion, then we achieve equilibrium.” 

“Bill Gates is Bill Gates not ‘despite’ he is dyslexic but ‘because’ he is dyslexic,” quoted Naghma Mulla, while urging people to be more open and accepting in nature. “I urge everyone to change their lens to look out for incredible people doing incredible work,” she strongly asserts.