Trying to recruit and retain talented workers who can help produce and deliver high-quality products and services, leading to business growth and higher profits has always been a formidable challenge. Hiring teams typically look for people who not only more closely match the letter of the job description, but are also anticipated to be a good fit within the organization. In other words, companies want employees who can perform what has been determined over time to be an optimal level compatible with the company’s culture of performance.
For the purpose of this article, let’s set aside an admittedly enormous consideration, talent, and hiring ability, and ask whether there might be an inherent and unforeseen flaw in settling for only those candidates who appear during the hiring process to be consistent with employment practices. traditional and operating practices. structure? By limiting a hiring search simply to those who advertise themselves as team players, could organizations potentially restrict their ability to introduce and benefit from innovative thinkers and value-added achievers? A growing number of talent managers and human resources departments say that this conventional thinking can be a handicap.
There is a largely untapped element in the general candidate pool that may be worth a closer look. This cohort is becoming known as neurodiverse. Neurodiversity refers to those workers who have conditions often labeled as disorders, including autism, dyslexia, attention deficit disorder, and social anxiety. You may be inclined to think that these kinds of job candidates should be removed from the search process because of their disruptive potential, but others risk reframing common perceptions of neurodiverse people and pointing to positive traits where others see potential burdens.
So what might be the favorable attributes of coworkers that may be seen by many as idiosyncratic, aloof, ambiguous, or just plain different? Consider for a moment an organization made up of workers who think primarily in terms of doing things the way they’ve always been done. The change is minimal because it is seen as messy and therefore unnecessary. Risk aversion and homogeneity are commonplace. Company culture and individual behaviors are driven by such values and will perform accordingly. It sounds like a potential recipe for competitive disaster given the current market requirements for innovation and agility. Neurodiverse employees could bring new perspectives and skills not normally present in the workplace.
Neurodiverse skill sets can include high levels of intelligence, pattern recognition, systemic approaches to problem solving, demanding attention, comfort with repetition, deep analysis, and even customer service. Numerous industries can use resources with these skills, particularly the technical and data-driven ones. Another advantage can come from workers who are not motivated by office politics and writing opinions and conclusions in the form of groupthink. As hard as it may be to hear, sometimes the straight truth is the best information to communicate to colleagues and management. Neurodiverse employees may be the best at relaying such news.
Of course, recruiting and positioning neurodiverse talent can present difficulties, perhaps new ones, for human resource managers and other departments. Instead of using traditional interviews, it can be helpful to set up teamwork simulations, case studies, or actual problem-solving sessions to see how productively all the candidates are performing. Strategically integrating staff who may provide unique services, but also potential breaches of protocol, may require careful planning, diplomacy, and tact. The company culture may need to embrace flexibility and agility, characteristics that are in short supply in many established organizations.
We have reached a historical point where differences between people are more accepted than in the past. In fact, this seems to be a desirable attribute of the millennial generation. Developing such an ethic could help businesses while encouraging a more humane treatment of all people.