70% of Neurodivergent Staff Don't Know Their Accommodations

By Daniel Okafor

70% of neurodivergent employees don't know what accommodations they're entitled to, and 60% don't know who to ask. That figure comes from the Neurodiversity at Work Survey by Understood.org, and it frames the core problem: workers lose productivity not because of their needs, but because the workplace hides its own solutions.

Fast Company asked members of its Impact Council what companies should do. Eighteen leaders answered. Their advice clusters around a few mechanisms.

Why don't employees ask for what they need?

Nathan Friedman of Understood.org argues the burden sits in the wrong place. Leaders should make accommodations known from the start — during interviews, at onboarding, and throughout employment — "rather than something employees have to uncover or disclose to get." He names cheap, universal fixes: flexible workspaces, meeting pre-reads, and transcription tools.

James Chester of WVN makes the same point from the operations side. Agendas sent before meetings, written follow-ups after, captions turned on, and a choice between written and spoken updates "cost almost nothing and help everyone, including people who will never ask."

What does communication actually change?

Kim Wileman, founder of No Makeup Makeup, describes a direct test case. She has an employee with autism who "taught me a great deal about how differently people process information." With clear direction, specific responsibilities, and complete expectations, that employee "is genuinely one of my best employees and consistently exceeds expectations."

Michele Walsh of UNICEF USA pushes clarity as policy. Her team's culture intention is "Clear is Kind." She shares agendas ahead of time, lets people weigh in live or afterward, and captions and records meetings.

Should flexibility be the default?

Several leaders say the deeper issue is structural. Ran Mullins of Psympl notes most workplaces were designed around a narrow definition of how people should think, communicate, and perform — a model he calls outdated. The fix is designing for flexibility from the start, rather than forcing exceptions.

George Kailas of Prospero.ai puts it in performance terms: judge people by the quality of their output, not by whether they work in the same style as everyone else. Matt Conlin of Fluent says managers carry the responsibility. It should be easy for an employee to say, "Here's what helps me do my best work," without justifying it.

Matt Mandrella of the City of Huntsville, Alabama, lists the differences concretely. Some people hit their stride at 6 a.m., others at 4 p.m. Some need silence, others background music. Don't put roadblocks in front of talent by assuming one way of working.

How do you design with people, not for them?

Gail Zauder of AbleFly Inc. states the design principle directly: involve people with diverse cognitive, physical, and learning needs from the beginning — in the physical environment, technology, communication, policies, and organizational practices. Accessibility should be a fundamental design principle, not an afterthought.

Namrata Yadav of Truist Foundation frames the payoff. "When we reduce barriers, we enable people to spend less energy navigating the workplace and more energy contributing their talents."

What role does leadership play?

Meredith Rosenberg of NU Advisory Partners, who lives with a vision disability, says systems designed for the "average" person leave talent behind. She calls accessibility and inclusion drivers of innovation and urges organizations to rethink who gets to lead. "Difference is a strength, not a barrier."

Yuping Huang of Quantum Computing Inc. warns against homogeneity: "If we build workplaces around only one way of thinking or working, we shouldn't be surprised when we get the same kinds of answers."

Muneer Panjwani of Engage for Good | The Halo Awards points to specific strengths — colleagues with dyslexia or ADHD as standout big-picture thinkers, colleagues with autism catching patterns others miss — and recommends partnering with Understood.org, 2Gether-International, and Easterseals.

What changes in process?

Colby Proffitt of Seekr targets stale policy. When the answer to "why" is "that's how it's always been," it's time for an update. He also rejects the untouched survey: active listening in one-to-ones, Slack channels, and team meetings works better. "A generic response that ignores what people said is worse than no response at all."

Andra Vaduva of SafeSpace describes redesigning an interview process after hiring someone with severe depression — offering different ways to demonstrate skills, written instructions, accessible tools, and time to process before responding. Manuel Freire-Garabal of Gioya HEI says inclusion should not be treated as compliance but as part of talent development.

Jaymes Black of The Trevor Project says remote work has proven invaluable for accommodating disabilities, chronic illness, and learning differences. Leaders must build a culture "where employees feel comfortable and empowered to request the individualized support they need to thrive."

The through-line across all 18 responses: the cheapest fixes — agendas, captions, flexibility, plain speech — are already in most companies' reach. The gap is that employees still have to ask.