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CIARAN RYAN: Just like people come in different heights, personalities and backgrounds, our brains also work in different ways. There’s no single right or normal way for a brain to function. Human brains are naturally diverse. That’s called neurodiversity.
Some people have great attention to detail; others are better at creative tasks.
There’s now an abundance of research showing measurable gains in productivity and innovation from neurodiverse hiring, and that’s particularly relevant in the AI age.
It’s an interesting subject that goes beyond the narrow confines of the HR department. We’re now joined by Dr Sarah Babb of the Gordon Institute of Business Science, GIBS, to discuss this.
Greetings, Sarah. A good place to start would be to explain what exactly is neurodiversity.
DR SARAH BABB: Greetings, and I think you hit the nail on the head. None of us think in the same way or process information in the same way.
So, just as we’re looking at the screen, I might be picking up environmental noises, temperature noises, be more sensitive to visual displays than somebody else – which means that I’m processing information, communication and my environment very differently.
There are strengths and their benefits to this too – that we can interpret things differently and work with them differently. So neurodiversity is simply that – that how we process the world around us differs.
And within that we have clusters of certain behaviours, so neurodivergence, which would mean that there are people who have processing around information detail – and that would be your autism spectrum or ADHD, pattern recognition, really good at picking up environmental cues – ADHD Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder through to dyslexia.
There is a challenge in reading and spelling. So a huge range in terms of differences in how our brains work. Exactly that.
CIARAN RYAN: All right. Now let’s talk about the research on this, because there is quite a lot of fairly recent research showing the benefits of neurodiverse hires from a productivity and innovation point of view. So tell us about some of that research.
DR SARAH BABB: If we start off, the Stanford professor I love, Doctor [Lawrence] Fung, talks about the ‘spiky’ profiles.
So the strengths of neurodivergence bring abilities like ADHD to really think creatively, to be able to focus on innovation, creativity, loving novelty – because that brain is needing dopamine – through to the autism brain, which focuses on hyper detail, hyper focus, dealing with data, critical thinking.
So these are the skills if we just generalise that the World Economic Forum talks about in terms of future capabilities, creative thinking, resilience, flexibility, agility.
Ernst and Young did some research among 2 000 participants last year across 22 countries [and] eight organisations. They found, for example, that there is 31% more proficiency, 31% more proficiency, among the neurodivergent brains when they’re included.
So when their brains can think the best and when there are environments that can support that, through to organisations like Ernst and Young, which have over 23 centres of excellence – neurodivergent centres of excellence, where they bring intentionally neurodivergent brains to solve complex problems.
They are reporting things like a 92% improvement in retention rates, up to a 1.5% improvement in productivity, quality, timeliness of output.
And they have put a value of it – of $1 billion value creation – from just allowing brains to think and work the best they can.
Through the organisations like JPMorgan Chase, which talks about 48% faster, 92% more productive, companies like SAP, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Deloitte, Microsoft, Dell, Wells Fargo go even further to look at that.
So when they have Go Counter against group think – typical ways of viewing the world – and allow people to actually bring their critical thinking, engage in their creativity, we can really see the benefits of that.
So I do want to point out it’s not only new hires. There is actually about 20-30% of our population that is currently neurodivergent.
That means your existing staff are being overlooked, because they’re either not diagnosed or don’t feel safe to disclose.
But that means you have women at the peak of their careers who are often getting late diagnoses, as they see their children being diagnosed, as they recognise trends. You are seeing executives who are coming to the fore. You’re seeing teams, new intakes, new generation. So it really is something we’re looking at.
One in five of us is neurodivergent and so we’re missing out on talent.
When it’s not included there is disengagement. There are team dynamics that get affected. There’s the cost of replacement of talent and essentially just missing out on these really unique ways that can help us build future-fit organisations.
CIARAN RYAN: It does seem to be a little bit counter to the accepted narrative that companies want to employ people in a fairly narrow spectrum. You deliver what you’re expected to do. They don’t really harness this divergence.
So how can organisations tap into this potential in terms of maybe workplace design?
DR SARAH BABB: I think you’re right. We still have processes of onboarding, of selection, where we expect people to behave in a certain way – and when they may be a bit more socially awkward, or perhaps are being quite critical or being very innovative, we tend to see it as an outlier, when in our recruitment we could be doing simple things like sending out questions before for the autism brain.
We could be onboarding in terms of looking at how we really can be specific in the skills that are required, and how to bring our strengths into our teams.
We have managers that are just recognising that there are different ways of thinking and having environments where individuals can engage – through to the work design that is really about saying, ‘How can we have inclusion for all?’ So we don’t need disclosures.
As for the person with the wheelchair, we don’t wait for somebody to join our organisation that needs a wheelchair before we put in ramps, before we put in accessible toilets, so the simple accommodations like having quieter work zones, like having noise-cancelling headphones, like having tech-assisted technology.
If you’re a dyslexic, voice-to-text technology is readily available. So we can make this at little or no cost available to all our employees.
In fact, in the research they found that it’s often the neurotypical people that want exactly those accommodations. Can I have hybrid working? Can I have a quiet zone when I need to really focus in on a job done?
And companies like Zurich in the UK, just indicated they had a sensory map put online of their workplace settings. And when they just put that online, they already had a 31% increase of people coming to their careers’ page.
So simple things actually benefit everybody and not just the neurodivergent brain, but it’s being aware that those environments make all the difference to whether you’re going to really raise the collective intelligence of your employees as a whole.
So work design can really support that, and having a manager who can see where there are people that are being excluded.
I love the way that a report in the UK, the City and Guilds, put it. They said this is not about inclusion. They said it’s actually about productivity strategy. It’s actually about a health imperative, because our employee disengagement is 70% in sub-Saharan Africa.
Our organisational maturity – how mature we are, as you say, in a time of AI when we actually need to leverage our critical thinking.
We need to leverage our human intelligence to partner with AI and create new ways of working. This is the time to actually be including our neurodivergent talent.
CIARAN RYAN: I’m just curious when you talk about ‘staff disengagement’. What do you mean by that?
DR SARAH BABB: I mean the Gallup Survey – they do a survey every year across the globe, and the figures are getting worse from employee engagement.
So they found in sub-Saharan Africa in 2025 that 62% of our employees are not engaged. That means you come to work, you do enough not to get fired, and you leave again. Over and above that, 18% are actively disengaged.
So I’d guess those are the ones active on LinkedIn during work hours or scrolling, et cetera. That’s a huge number. Life-evaluation people who are struggling in life. This is a Gallup survey of sub-Saharan Africa – 72%.
So our mental wellbeing is under enormous pressure with the stress of the world we are in and the context we are in.
On top of that, then, if I happen to think a bit differently how much more I’ll be battling to mask and camouflage and try and fit in, I’m astonished how many adults have an adult diagnosis of dyslexia, which means they’re finding ways to manage through life at huge pressure and stress. But they’ve done it.
So there is resilience, there is agility. If you have a work practice which says, ‘I see what you bring as a strength, I see the skill that you have,’ we can simply recognise and have environments where one can thrive.
Your engagement figures will go up, which means you do have more discretionary effort, more ideation, more social engagement, more commitment and less turnover. So there are huge consequences of that, let alone neurodivergence, that need attention of all managers, actually.
CIARAN RYAN: All right. Finally, Sarah, let’s just get the message out to business leaders and executives. They may be completely unfamiliar with this subject of neurodiversity. What do you say to them? How do they start to engage – if that’s the right word – with the subject?
DR SARAH BABB: Yes. Well, I think firstly it’s to recognise that it’s worth it to really consider your cognitive strategy. How do you engage people to bring their best to selves. You need that for your organisation to survive – for new ideas, to be solving critical problems, to be working together.
So start off thinking about your strategic drivers and then really looking at are we across our whole talent cycle, actually engaging and bringing in the base that we can so that we can grow into the future?
I think awareness is a good starting point.
Have training for your managers. Have awareness sessions. What is this? How do we see it? Create spaces where people can share because I promise you, whenever I talk with corporate corporates, I call it the ‘Me Too’ movement – as soon as one person shares a story, like ‘I’m late-diagnosed ADHD, I talk openly about that.
It has been a strength in my life in terms of being an entrepreneur and creating new ventures – and being an academic as well’, I find that so many people say, ‘me too’, ‘me too’, ‘me too’.
So as soon as I think you open the space for those conversations, you’ll find that the needs can be found. Then you ask questions. What do you need? What supports you? How can we make sure that we’re actually engaging in a positive way so that everybody can thrive?
And that’s what’s exciting. I’m seeing that happen more and more in South African companies.
So there are more requests for awareness, team sessions, training, coaching, coaching perhaps managers that have been neurodivergent and are now looking at the way forward.
And you’ll see the returns come. Also in your reputation and being a top employer of choice this is becoming much more prevalent for us to consider. How do we include all of those talents and opportunities that we have already, actually.
CIARAN RYAN: Well, there you have it. Neurodiversity. Something new for me, and I’m sure something new for many of the people listening to this.
Thank you very much, Doctor Sarah Babb of the Gordon Institute of Business Science.
DR SARAH BABB: Thank you.
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