Firms ‘should embrace neurodiverse workers’

Employers should “actively seek” neurodiverse workers, according to a careers specialist.

ONS figures show that only one-in-five neurodivergent people are in work, and employers are missing out, according to David Gibson, an early careers people manager at IT services company DXC Technology.

“Those who are neurodivergent often have characteristics associated with developmental differences such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia or Tourette’s,” he wrote in HR Magazine. “Unfortunately, for many neurodiverse individuals, these differing qualities are often not valued in the labour market.”

Neurodiverse individuals can bring great value to the workplace, having strengths such as attention to detail, focused concentration, pattern recognition, spotting deviations in data, and company loyalty, he stated.