Stop waiting for someone to struggle: design better work from the start

Most workplaces handle neurodivergence the same way. Someone struggles, they work up the courage to say something, and then the organisation starts a process. There's a form, a conversation, maybe a report from a clinician, and eventually an adjustment.

By then the person has usually been struggling for months. Sometimes they've already left.

The problem with fixing things after the fact

Retrofitted adjustment puts the burden on the person who can least afford it. They have to notice what isn't working, work out why, disclose, and then argue their case. All of that happens while they're already depleted from coping.

It also relies on people asking. Plenty won't. They don't have a diagnosis, they don't trust the process, or they've learned that asking marks them as "difficult."

The reframe: adjustment is a repair job. Design is prevention.

When a meeting runs without an agenda, every person who needs one has to ask for it individually. When a job ad is full of vague phrases like "strong communicator" and "thrives in a fast-paced environment," every candidate has to guess what's actually being assessed.

None of that is a personal accommodation problem. It's a design problem, and design problems get fixed once, for everyone.

Better work design means building roles, meetings and spaces so that more people can do good work without needing to ask for basic things individually. Individual workplace adjustments still matter, but they become the exception rather than the only way in.

The systems challenge

If your whole approach to supporting neurodivergent people depends on people self-identifying, your system is working as designed. It's designed to find out who's struggling after they're struggling.

There's a compliance angle too. Australian WHS/OHS frameworks increasingly require organisations to identify and manage psychosocial hazards, including risks created by the way work is designed. That means looking at things like unclear role expectations, poor change management and low job control before they cause harm.

"We'd have adjusted if they'd asked" is a weak position when the hazard was sitting in the design of the job.

What this looks like in practice

None of these need a budget line or a new policy. Most are free.

Meetings

• Send the agenda at least 24 hours ahead, with the decision or outcome you need stated up front.

• Name what you want from people. "Input needed on X" is very different from "FYI."

• Keep the chat open so people can contribute in writing.

• Send a short written summary of actions afterwards, so nobody has to rely on memory.

Roles and recruitment

• Describe the work, not the personality. Replace "strong communicator" with what the person will actually communicate, to whom, and how often.

• Share interview questions or topics ahead of time where you can. You're assessing someone's ability to do the job, not unnecessarily testing how quickly they can process an unfamiliar question.

• Be explicit about how performance is measured.

Spaces

• Offer a genuinely quiet option that doesn't need to be justified or booked through a manager.

• Let people choose where they sit where you can, and give them some control over lighting and noise.

• Make it normal to take a call or do focused work away from the open-plan floor.

Onboarding

• Give new starters a written "how we work here" guide covering meeting norms, communication channels, and who to ask for what.

• Spell out the unwritten rules. If they're only learned by osmosis, they only work for people who absorb things that way.

A quick test

Pick one regular meeting, one role description, and one shared space in your team. For each, ask: what would a person have to know, guess or ask for in order to succeed here?

Anything on that list that could have been built in from the start is a design gap.

Where adjustments still fit

Design doesn't replace individual workplace adjustments. People's needs vary, and no default will suit everyone. The point is to stop making adjustment the front door.

If you've also seen how much paperwork can pile up around adjustments, this is the other half of that story. Less remediation is needed when there's less to remediate.

How many of the adjustments requested in your organisation last year were really requests for something that should have been standard?

The ND Professional. Better workplaces start with better questions.