70% of neurodivergent staff do not know their accommodations

Seventy percent of neurodivergent employees do not know what workplace accommodations they are entitled to, and 60% do not know who to ask. Those figures come from the Neurodiversity at Work Survey run by Understood.org, whose co-president Nathan Friedman published them as part of a new collection of executive guidance on supporting diverse cognitive, physical and learning needs.

Fast Company assembled 18 members of its Impact Council to answer one question: what should workplaces do to support people whose needs stay hidden, overlooked or brushed aside? Their answers converge on a small set of repeatable practices.

What does the survey change for employers?

Friedman argues the accommodation process fails at discovery, not delivery. "Leaders can change that by making accommodations known from the start, rather than something employees have to uncover or disclose to get," he writes. Employers should state what is available during interviews, at onboarding and throughout tenure. He names three concrete measures: flexible workspaces, meeting pre-reads and transcription tools, each of which benefits the entire workforce.

Which practices do the 18 leaders recommend?

The collection clusters around a common playbook:

• Design with people, not for them. Gail Zauder of AbleFly Inc. calls accessibility "a fundamental design principle," not an afterthought, and urges involving affected employees from the start in shaping the physical environment, technology, communication and policies.
• Adjust communication. Kim Wileman of No Makeup Makeup describes an autistic employee who "consistently exceeds expectations" when given clear direction, specific responsibilities and complete expectations. Small adjustments in communication style, she writes, make an extraordinary difference.
• Make flexibility the default. Ran Mullins of Psympl says workplaces designed around a narrow definition of how people should think and perform are outdated; flexibility should be built in rather than granted as an exception.
• Standardize low-cost adjustments. James Chester of WVN lists agendas sent before meetings, written follow-ups after them, captions turned on and a choice between written or spoken updates. "These changes cost almost nothing and help everyone, including people who will never ask," he writes.
• Ask, then follow through. Michele Walsh of UNICEF USA shares a team culture intention, "Clear is Kind," and recommends sharing agendas ahead of time and letting people weigh in live or afterward. Andra Vaduva of SafeSpace adds that employers should offer multiple ways to demonstrate skills: written instructions, accessible tools or time to process information before responding.

How far do the recommendations go beyond accommodation?

Several contributors push past process into structure. Meredith Rosenberg of NU Advisory Partners, who lives with a vision disability, says systems designed for the "average" person leave talent behind and frames accessibility as a driver of innovation rather than a compliance obligation. Yuping Huang of Quantum Computing Inc. warns that workplaces built around one way of thinking will keep producing the same kinds of answers.

Muneer Panjwani of Engage for Good cites specific strengths: colleagues with dyslexia or ADHD are standout big-picture thinkers, and colleagues with autism often catch patterns others miss. He points employers to three partner organizations, Understood.org, 2Gether-International and Easterseals, for research and expertise.

Colby Proffitt of Seekr targets policy hygiene: when the answer to a new hire's question is "that's how it's always been," the policy is due for an update. He distinguishes active listening, in one-to-ones, Slack channels and team meetings, from surveys whose feedback sits untouched for months. A generic response that ignores what people said, he writes, is worse than no response at all.

Jaymes Black of The Trevor Project frames remote work as an accessibility measure, calling it "invaluable for accommodating disabilities, chronic illness, and learning differences." Namrata Yadav of the Truist Foundation closes the loop on measurement of a different kind: when employers reduce barriers, people spend less energy navigating the workplace and more energy contributing their talents.

The collection's practical question for any employer is simple to state and hard to execute: what does this change for Monday morning? The shared answer from all 18 leaders is to move accommodations from an exception granted on request to a default configuration of how work is designed.