Neurodiversity at work: how to create the conditions for a high-performing team

The most useful question an employer can ask is simple: what is the environment you need to work best? Support for neurodivergent colleagues is rarely about a single special measure. It is about the everyday conditions that help anyone do good work. Three of those conditions do most of the heavy lifting: psychological safety, low friction, and less uncertainty.

This is a business question as much as a people question. When inclusion sits at the heart of performance, teams do better work, and the cost of getting it wrong shows up in lost time and lost people.

Start with psychological safety

Google's Project Aristotle studied what makes teams succeed, and the number one driver was psychological safety. That means people feeling able to speak up, ask questions, and admit a mistake without fear. When that safety is missing it is harder for everyone, and harder still for an autistic colleague or someone with an ADHD brain.

Reduce friction and uncertainty

Research from Amy Edmondson at Harvard Business School points to uncertainty and friction as some of the biggest hidden costs in a business. A lot of it comes from unwritten rules that nobody says out loud. Make those rules explicit: how decisions get made, how feedback works, and what good looks like.

Flip the question

Most support conversations start from what do I need to do to meet your needs. A better starting point is what is the environment you need to work best. That puts the person's own knowledge of their brain at the centre. If part of the work does not suit how someone thinks, look at whether they can spend more time on the parts they do brilliantly.

Put it in writing with a working manual

A working manual is a short, honest page about how one person works best: focus hours, how they like to be contacted, what good feedback looks like, and where they need support. It turns the flipped question into something a whole team can use, and it is the heart of the Working With Me method. If you are new to the idea, start with what a working with me manual is.

What it looks like in practice

At UHI Inverness, managers were introduced to the Working With Me toolkit in 2025 as part of a Collaborative Leaders programme on leading neurodiverse teams. They went on to use it in one-to-ones, team meetings and team building. Managers reported clearer insight into planning their teams and improved workflows, and staff welcomed the chance to express their preferred ways of working.

Expect to get it wrong, and keep talking

There is no single template, because if you have met one neurodivergent person, you have met one neurodivergent person. A trial and error approach can feel uncomfortable. You get closer to the answer every time you speak to the person in front of you.

Remember the cost of not doing it

People do not stay in a job when the conditions are not met, and for small businesses already under pressure that turnover is expensive. Creating the conditions for a high-performing team is the practical, straightforward choice. It helps your neurodivergent colleagues, and it helps everyone else too.

Working With Me co-founder Jill McAlpine gave evidence on neurodivergence at work to the Scottish Parliament's Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee in February 2026, representing the Federation of Small Businesses Scotland.

Common questions