Your Implementation Playbook

1. Make the commitment

Build neuroinclusion into how your organisation works.

Neuroinclusion can’t live in one program, policy or team.

Make a clear commitment to reducing barriers and building flexibility, clarity and accessibility into the employee experience, from attraction and onboarding through development, progression and retention.

That means looking beyond individual adjustments to the everyday systems and decisions that shape work: recruitment, performance, workplace design, technology, benefits and leadership expectations.

The aim is to make neuroinclusion part of how your organisation operates, rather than something people only encounter when they ask for support.

Start by asking

• Where is neuroinclusion already built into how we work?
• Where does it still sit within a separate initiative, policy or team?
• Where across the employee lifecycle could we build it in more consistently?

2. Gain leadership buy-in

Connect neuroinclusion to organisational priorities.

Leaders set priorities, allocate resources and shape culture. Their support can determine whether neuroinclusion remains an initiative or becomes part of how the organisation works.

Position neuroinclusion as a business and talent priority, rather than something that sits solely within wellbeing or compliance.

“If leaders understand that neuroinclusion is a business, talent and human issue rather than simply a wellbeing initiative, everything else becomes easier.” - Andy Golf, Capgemini 

Not every action needs a new budget. Look for changes you can make with what you already have, then use the results to strengthen the case for further investment.

Make the connection

Look at the priorities already on your organisation’s agenda:

Talent
How could reducing barriers help more people apply their strengths?

Performance
Where is unnecessary friction taking effort away from the work itself?

Employee experience
Where could greater choice and flexibility improve everyday work?

Retention
What experiences could be making it harder for people to contribute, grow and stay?

Ask:
Which business priority could neuroinclusion help us progress?

3. Find the friction

Listen to the people experiencing work. 

Before deciding what needs to change, understand where people are experiencing friction today. Listen to neurodivergent employees, employee communities, managers and teams.

“Ask, where are we creating unnecessary friction? Cognitive friction, sensory friction, emotional friction, any kind of friction that’s getting in the way of how work gets done?” - Jenny Turner, Human Fabric 

Think about:

Recruitment and onboarding
Are people given different ways to understand information and demonstrate their strengths?

Meetings and communication
Do your normal ways of working assume everyone processes and communicates information in the same way?

Workplace support
Is the adjustments process easy to find, understand and navigate? Is information available in different formats so people can access it in ways that work for them?

Technology and workplace design
Where could tools, physical spaces or workflows be creating unnecessary effort?

Benefits and wellbeing
Do employee assistance, healthcare and wellbeing programs consider neurodivergent needs?

Development and progression
Could existing approaches favor one way of communicating, learning or demonstrating potential?

Ask your people:

• What makes work harder than it needs to be?
• What helps you do your best work?
• What already works well?
• What would you change?

4. Start with a quick win

Show that change is possible.

Not every improvement needs a new program or budget.

Use what you learned from listening to find something you can change now.

It might be changing how meetings are run, making an existing process easier to understand, improving communication, giving people greater flexibility or making useful support easier to access.

The important thing is to create visible progress while building towards wider change.

Early progress can build confidence and give you evidence to support bigger changes.

Your quick-win test:

• Is it a real source of friction?
• Can we change it now?
• Will people notice the difference?

If yes, start there.

5. Equip people leaders

Give managers the confidence to act.

People leaders have a significant influence on employee engagement and everyday experience. But raising their awareness of neurodiversity isn’t enough.

We need to build managers’ capability to flex to different ways of thinking, communicating, processing information and experiencing the world.

They don’t need to become experts in every neurotype. They need to know how to have useful conversations, where to find support and how to create flexibility in everyday work. 

Your first actions

• Give managers practical neuroinclusion training.
• Focus on behaviors, not lists of diagnoses.
• Create one clear place to find policies, tools and support.
• Give managers examples of what good looks like in practice.

Managers are balancing neuroinclusion with many other responsibilities, so good support needs to fit into the reality of their working day.

Ask:
Would our managers know what to do tomorrow if someone needed a different way to work?

6. Normalise different ways of working

Make “How do you work best?” an everyday question.

Support shouldn’t always start with someone disclosing a diagnosis or asking for an exception.

Make conversations about how people work best part of everyday management. Ask about preferences, strengths and barriers across the whole team.

That can make it easier for someone to say they prefer information in advance, need time to process an idea or communicate more effectively in a particular format, without feeling like they’re asking for special treatment.

It also creates space for people who don’t have, want or need a diagnosis to consider the same question:

How do I work best?

Make different ways of working expected, rather than exceptional.

7. Start where your organisation is

The right next step depends on your context.

There isn’t one sequence every organisation should follow.

In some organisations, awareness needs to come first. Where neurodivergence is still understood mainly through a medical or deficit-based lens, education and lived experience can help shift understanding towards difference, strengths and potential.

Elsewhere, awareness may already be relatively high, but workplace support is inconsistent or informal. The priority might be creating clearer processes, equipping managers or understanding where employees experience friction.

Regional legislation, cultural understanding, existing employee communities and organisational maturity can all influence where you need to start.

Use the Playbook as a guide, not a fixed sequence. 

Find your starting point

Understanding
How well do people understand neurodiversity today? Are strengths recognised alongside challenges?

Community
Do neurodivergent employees have a way to share their experiences and influence change?

Support
Is there a clear, consistent way for people to access what they need?

Experience
Do you know where employees are experiencing friction?

Context
What do local culture, legislation and expectations mean for your approach?

Then use the answers to decide what comes next.

8. Remove the roadblocks to scale

Make good practice easier to repeat.

Good practice in one team isn't the same as organisation-wide change.

Build inclusive practice across recruitment, onboarding, development, performance, workplace design, technology and leadership expectations.

Connect the functions that shape employee experience too. HR, IT, accessibility, facilities and managers may all be doing good work while still creating a disconnected experience if their approaches don’t join up.

And think about who your initiatives are reaching. Voluntary resources can disproportionately reach people who already understand the value of neuroinclusion. Think about how you reach the people who aren’t yet engaged.

Watch for three common roadblocks:

1. Silos - Good work happens in different functions but doesn’t connect.
2. The already engaged - Resources reach the people already motivated to find them.
3. Time and complexity - Managers are expected to do more without easy access to the guidance and tools they need.

Ask:
Where does neuroinclusion still depend on one person knowing, caring or asking enough to act?

9. Measure experience, not just activity

Know whether anything is actually changing.

Training delivered, policies published and programs launched tell you what you’ve done.

Measure neuroinclusion as whole-system maturity, rather than relying on one metric. 

Measure at three levels

1. Activity: What have we done? Training, resources, policies, tools and program milestones. 
2. Experience: What are people experiencing? Belonging, psychological safety, accessibility, workplace friction and confidence asking for support.
3. Impact: What is changing? Look at relevant people and organisational outcomes, alongside practical measures such as how effectively workplace support is delivered.

Ask:
If our activity increased but employee experience stayed the same, would we call that success?