Neurodivergent employees may be welcomed as colleagues but still excluded from leadership.

An Australian company’s approach to neuroinclusion offers an interesting lesson for managers: identifying ADHD is only the beginning. The real question is what an organisation does with that knowledge.

The Digital Picnic, led by CEO Cherie Clonan, has attracted attention for funding autism and ADHD assessments for employees. However, arguably the more important part of its approach happens afterwards.

Employees can outline the workplace conditions that help them perform effectively. This shifts the conversation away from diagnosis alone and towards practical work design, communication and accountability.

One example reported by the company involved an employee who had previously struggled to remain in jobs for longer than approximately six months. She identified that starting work at midday would better accommodate her circadian rhythm. According to the company’s account, she subsequently remained with the organisation for six years and progressed professionally.

This is an individual case rather than controlled evidence. Nevertheless, it raises an important management question: How often is an apparent motivation or performance problem actually a mismatch between the employee, the task and the way the work has been designed?

For an employee with ADHD, apparently minor features of a role can have a significant effect on performance. These may include: constantly changing priorities, multiple verbal instructions, frequent interruptions, unclear ownership of tasks, unpredictable schedules, limited recovery time after cognitively demanding work and feedback that identifies a problem but provides no workable next step.

Adjustments do not have to mean reducing expectations. A manager can maintain the same performance standards while changing how priorities are communicated, when particular work is completed or how an employee receives instructions and feedback.

The distinction is important.

Lowering expectations changes the required outcome. An effective adjustment changes the route by which the employee can achieve that outcome.

There are also important boundaries. Employees should not feel pressured to pursue a diagnosis or disclose private medical information. Workplace support should be based, wherever possible, on functional needs: what creates a barrier, what might improve performance and how the effectiveness of the change will be reviewed.

A practical solution could be a one-page Work Enablement Plan agreed between the employee and manager. It could record: the employee’s key responsibilities and KPIs, how priorities will be communicated, which instructions should be provided in writing plus strategies for managing interruptions, agreed adjustments and responsibilities, how performance will be measured and when the arrangement will be reviewed.

This turns neuroinclusion from a general statement of goodwill into a repeatable management process.

The lesson for employers is not that every request should automatically be approved. It is that assumptions about attitude, commitment or capability should not replace a proper conversation about barriers and performance.

Sometimes retention does not require a major wellbeing programme. Sometimes it begins with one manager asking a better question.