{"id":6784,"date":"2026-05-20T21:03:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T21:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=6784"},"modified":"2026-05-20T21:03:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T21:03:18","slug":"companies-with-neurodivergent-workers-struggling-to-succeed-leave-performance-on-the-table","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=6784","title":{"rendered":"Companies with neurodivergent workers struggling to succeed leave performance on the table"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

A \u201cproudly autistic\u201d clinical psychologist, author, and workplace advocate, Wendler has spent his career arguing that most companies aren\u2019t failing their neurodivergent employees out of malice \u2014 they\u2019re doing it by default.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause most people are neurotypical, organizations are designed according to neurotypical needs, which means that people with neurodivergent needs get left out,\u201d Wendler said May 20 at Fortune\u2019s Workplace Innovation Summit.<\/p>\n

His go-to illustration: imagine taking a polar bear \u2014 an apex predator, unrivaled on Arctic ice \u2014 and dropping it in Austin, Texas. The animal doesn\u2019t suddenly become less capable. It\u2019s just been placed in an environment that wasn\u2019t built for it. Neurodivergent workers, he argues, are that polar bear every time they walk into a standard open-plan office.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the exact same principle that explains how we can unlock the talent of the neurodivergent team members within our organization,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The stakes are significant. Around 20% of U.S. adults identify as neurodivergent \u2014 a category that includes people on the autism spectrum, those with ADHD, dyslexia, and a range of other conditions. Yet a 2025 EY survey of more than 2,100 workers found that only 25% of neurodivergent employees feel included at work \u2014 and 39% said they planned to leave their jobs within the year.<\/p>\n

The same report found that 18% of neurodivergent respondents qualified as \u201csuppressed talents\u201d: highly skilled workers unable to perform at their potential because of structural workplace mismatches, not personal shortcomings.<\/p>\n

A 2023 Accenture report found companies leading on disability inclusion saw revenues and profits grow faster than peers, and were 25% more likely to outperform on productivity metrics.<\/p>\n

Wendler says the fix doesn\u2019t require reinventing the workplace from scratch. Universal design \u2014 accommodations first built for one group that end up benefiting everyone \u2014 is already all around us. Sloped curb cuts were built for wheelchair users. Closed captions were built for deaf audiences. Both are now used by millions of people who don\u2019t identify as disabled.<\/p>\n

Companies including JP Morgan and Microsoft have already moved in this direction, implementing specialized onboarding, adjustable lighting, and quiet zones. Wendler argues the business case for others to follow is straightforward.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf your company becomes a leader in this area, you\u2019ll immediately leapfrog over two-thirds of your competitors,\u201d he said, \u201cand you gain a durable competitive advantage in attracting the kind of talent that is looking for a place where they can make the best of their time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next time a team member is struggling, Wendler says managers should resist the instinct to question motivation or fit.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to ask: are they a polar bear in the desert?\u201d<\/p>\n

#Companies #neurodivergent #workers #struggling #succeed #leave #performance #table<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A \u201cproudly autistic\u201d clinical psychologist, author, and workplace advocate, Wendler has spent his career arguing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[245],"tags":[4951,1386,10820,215,615,12583,3921,5842,12582,2123,3572,9367,1232,624,12469,2791],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6784"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6784\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}