Working with Neurodivergent People
Neurodiversity in the workplace
Being neurodivergent means being different from a neurotypical person. These are some of the things a neurodivergent person may experience in the workplace: it may look like you get in trouble for asking questions, bringing things to management, or letting them know that something may be going on within the company.
Neurotypical people may think their colleague struggles in their job, doesn't socialise with the team enough and has high outputs that outperform others. People who are neurodivergent find they can be given extra work because of their high performance and an inability to say no.
These are some of the things that a neurodivergent person may experience within the workplace. These are some of the qualities of neurodiversity:
Honesty
Sense of justice
Perfectionistic attention to detail
Highly focused
Aims for quality of work more than social relationships.
These are positive qualities and traits. These can have different impacts on different people. For example, a person may not mind doing extra tasks at work because it aligns with their ethics and personal sense of justice to be involved and help lift those around them.
Tips for neurotypical people:
Ask open questions to clarify what you heard
Be able to admit when you are wrong and be accountable
Show patience. That attention to detail takes time
Show interest in the person's process and encourage discussion over instruction
Celebrate good work and don't pressure anyone to socialise beyond their comfort
What you can do is to understand that not everyone is the same and people work differently.
Check out this LinkedIn post which highlights a video that describes how neurodivergent individuals navigate the workplace. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/caroline-mrozla-toscano-phd-bb457618_this-tiktok-video-describes-some-of-the-nonsense-activity-7016395942010519552-ckkf