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Neurodivergent workers have often been overlooked as a key source of talent, but more employers are waking up to how important that talent pool is. One company has been investing in its neurodiverse employees for nearly a decade—and it’s proving to be a huge business win.
Workers who are neurodivergent can fall within a broad spectrum of conditions, including dyslexia, ADHD, and autism. Some may have trouble with visual, text, and auditory cues, which can make it challenging to work in traditional office environments.
Karyn Twaronite, global vice chair of diversity, equity & inclusiveness for EY, tells Fortune why accessing and supporting neurodivergent workers became a huge focus of her inclusivity and talent acquisition efforts.
“My first rationale was, I wanted to have the greatest access to the talent pool and technology skills. I wanted to expand our access beyond what we had,” she says. “They happen to be a very highly underemployed population around the world. The primary benefit was that I wanted greater and better technology skills within the EY workforce, and this has afforded us that.”
EY has been offering special tools and support groups for its neurodivergent workers since 2015, under its “Digital Accessibility Program.” The company first invested in a program called Texthelp, a literacy support platform it offers to all staffers. The program offers both speech and writing augmentation to those who may struggle with communication—features include helping users to listen to text out loud, compose messages, and dictate information rather than type.
One year later in 2016, the company created its Neuro-Diverse Center of Excellence (NCoE), a technology and innovation team comprised of employees who self-identify as neurodivergent. This group is primarily tasked with building intelligent automation and complex analytics models. EY says they often work within larger sectors of the company, like cybersecurity, procurement, finance, and risk and operations. Within the past eight years, NCoE has expanded to 23 EY location centers across 10 countries with more than 500 members.
EY has 40 managers trained in executive functioning and neurodiversity, and gives employees access to three full-time neurodiversity job coaches as well as. These trainers pair up with staffers to develop strategies in areas neurodivergent people may struggle in, like time management and communication.
EY says that neurodivergent staffers have developed solutions that saved the business almost $1 billion in value creation, and NCoE employees have a 92% retention rate.
“People work really hard, and if we can make their lives a little easier, if we can expand their skills, so they could spend some time on things that they’re better at, why not? It’s great for business and great for them,” she says.
Emma Burleigh
emma.burleigh@fortune.com
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Watercooler
Everything you need to know from Fortune.
Mind the gap. Last year the CEO of Ross Stores took home a pay package that was 2,100 times more than the average employee, highlighting intense pay disparities between executives and frontline workers. —Sydney Lake
Parting presents. Struggling Volkswagen will have to cut 20% of its administrative personnel costs, which will likely result in significant layoffs, so they’re paying staffers upwards of €450,000 to leave. —Ryan Hogg
Tragedy. A railroad employee says the death of his coworker could have been prevented by having an extra employee on duty to check for hazards, but railroad employers likely wouldn’t be on board with staffing up. —Josh Funk, AP