WEALTH October 11, 2025 0 Comments

Unlocking the Hidden Profit Factory: How Inclusive Workplaces Are the Ultimate Game-Changer for Your Bottom Line

Imagine turning what many see as a challenge into an unparalleled advantage at work—sounds almost like a superpower, right? Well, Irish companies are catching on fast, recognizing that neurodiversity isn’t just a box to tick but a treasure trove of unique strengths waiting to be unleashed. Take Bank of Ireland’s bold leap in 2023: they decided to be Ireland’s most inclusive employer, shifting gears with a strategy that’s as much about empathy as it is about innovation. It’s about crafting a culture where every brain’s wiring—whether it veers off the beaten path or not—is not just accepted but celebrated. And guess what? It’s reshaping careers, boosting productivity, and yes, changing lives. But how exactly do you build a workplace that truly ‘gets it’? That’s the story here: from policies and ambassadors to personal journeys and expert insights, we’re peeling back the layers on how embracing neurodiversity could be the smartest business move you haven’t made yet. Curious yet? LEARN MORE

Irish companies are increasingly seeing neurodiversity as a strength in their employees and developing cultures and infrastructure to improve their working environment. Niamh Donnelly speaks to employers, workers and experts in the field

In 2023, when revisiting its strategy, Bank of Ireland decided it wanted to become the most inclusive employer in Ireland.

“We wanted to push for new ways to serve our customers better through the lens of diversity and inclusion,” Eimear Harty, HR director and group head of inclusion and diversity, says.

One area of focus was neuro inclusion — building a workplace where every individual, including those who are neurodivergent, can thrive.

Neurodivergent means having a mind that functions in ways that diverge significantly from the dominant societal normative standards.

“We started to explore this from the perspective [that] neurological difference brings many neurological strengths, and how do we harness that in the workplace?” Harty says.

With support from auticon, a consultancy firm, Bank of Ireland developed a strategy based on three key pillars: understanding, infrastructure and culture.

Then came a wide range of initiatives, including training for staff and managers, adapting physical environments, creating a new hiring charter and introducing an Inclusion Passport.

It devised a neuroinclusion ambassador role, and now has 140 accredited ambassadors. It also developed supports and accommodations for parents of neurodiverse children.

Key to the process was including neurodivergent voices in the strategy’s design.

A focus group of 16 colleagues volunteered in confidence to review everything that would be put in place.

“We get asked to talk to other companies a lot, and sometimes it can be daunting for them when they hear all that we’ve done,” Harty says.

“But I think it’s just about picking your starting point and leaning into that. We recognised it as a marathon, not a sprint. What we were doing was creating lasting change in the organisation.”

Aoife Reade had worked for Bank of Ireland for about six years when this policy was introduced.

She had recently been diagnosed as autistic (autism is one of many neurodivergences under the neurodivergent umbrella — others include dyslexia, ADHD, bipolar, OCD, acquired brain injuries, dyspraxia and many more).

In the years leading up to her diagnosis, a set of unique challenges had recurred in Reade’s work life. Executive function, which she describes as the ability to “just do something”, was sometimes difficult.

“Some days I would have a task, and I just didn’t have the battery or capacity to start. It might have only taken five minutes, but I couldn’t do it. I would beat myself up. I would get stressed out about it.”

The same went for communication.

“I can chat to anyone, I’m a great chatter, but sometimes things would get lost in translation. Either I would say something and someone would get offended, or someone would say something to me, and I would understand it completely differently to what they intended.”

The office environment — the noise, the socialising — was utterly draining.

“I thought it was normal that at the weekend you’d be completely exhausted and want to sleep all day and not talk to anyone, and that if you had a full-time job, you didn’t have time for a hobby because you were just so tired.”

Following the diagnosis, Reade was beginning to understand herself better and be kinder to herself. She had also started in a new role within Bank of Ireland, as senior business manager to the chief information officer.

“I felt like I was at a fork in the road,” she says.

“I had been working for 15 years. I thought: I can continue as I have been, masking, covering all my traits. Or I can go the other route — the unknown — and be quite open about the fact that I’m autistic, that I have challenges, that I think differently.

“I was toying with the idea when we had the launch of the Neuroinclusion Policy. I thought, okay, this is the best time to do this.”

As with any good neuroinclusion strategy, Bank of Ireland’s had been designed to make the workplace more supportive and inclusive, regardless of whether an employee had disclosed a neurodivergence.

“We don’t focus on people having to declare a diagnosis, or give themselves a label,” says Harty.

“We focus on: do you have what you need to succeed here?”

Nonetheless, for Reade, emailing her manager felt like the right step. “Just to let you know, I’m autistic,” she wrote.

“I’ve made it this far. I don’t need any support. It’s still very new.”

The manager, meanwhile, knew how to read between the lines. “Take that away and have a think about it,” he told her.

“I bet there are things you need support with that you don’t even realise.”

“And he was right,” Reade says. “There were things I needed. He had a long chat with me a few weeks later about what being autistic in work meant for me. He really wanted to understand it.”

The manager’s thoughtful response was immensely important to Reade.

“If I was talking to other employers, the one thing I would say is to not understate how difficult it is to open that box and say: I’m neurodivergent, I have ADHD, I’m autistic, I’m dyslexic. Once it’s out there, it’s not going away, and if it’s not supported, well, that’s very difficult for an employee.”

Mark Scully, founder of the executive coaching and neurodiversity consultancy Braver Coaching & Consulting, has observed three categories of neurodivergent people in the workplace: people who are neurodivergent and, for a variety of reasons, don’t know it yet; people who are neurodivergent but, because of fear or stigma, don’t ask for support; and people are neurodivergent and who feel safe and confident enough to ask for support.

“That [latter] group, unfortunately, is the minority,” he says.

“There are much more people in the first two categories.”

He also notes that there is a sizeable number of neurodivergent people who are trying to get into the workplace but can’t, whether because of restrictive recruitment processes, failures in the education system, or other factors.

He asks: “How can the workplace suit everyone’s way of thinking?”

“A big focus, I think, is do managers know how to work with their people? In Ireland, we’ve become very focused on process-focused management. We have the process, we say this is how we do the process in this one way.

“It would be a lot more beneficial if we had a much more outcome-focused situation, where you say: ‘here’s the outcome we want to get to, what way do you think you could best get that outcome?’”

It is estimated that 15–20 per cent of the population is neurodivergent. This suggests any sizeable workplace will have neurodivergent employees.

“Employers that are adopting a wait-and-see approach [to neuroinclusion], or, we’ll-cross-that-bridge-when-we-come-to-it, you crossed that bridge long ago,” says Scully.

“The fact that you don’t know that you have neurodivergent employees may be a sign for your organisation that there’s something there that you need to be engaging with.”

Neuroinclusion can be classed as a legal obligation — the Workplace Relations Commission and Labour Court have ruled that many neurodivergences, including autism, ADHD, dyslexia and dyspraxia, can constitute disabilities, which places a legal duty on employers to provide reasonable accommodations.

Scully points out that meeting this obligation is the “bare minimum”.

“Employers sometimes look at these obligations and think: that’s where we have to be. No. That is an absolute bare minimum. That’s not the ceiling. That is the floor.”

In partnership with the B2B company Codex, he developed a report called Neuroinclusion in the Workplace to help Irish employers create workplaces where everyone can thrive.

One cited study of 220 neurodivergent employees indicated that some of the most common barriers or challenges experienced in the workplace were noise (61 per cent of respondents), lighting (56 per cent), and social interaction (55 per cent).

But Scully says neuroinclusion is not a tick-box exercise and training should be tailored to individuals.

“Neurodiversity is the simple fact that everyone’s brains are different,” says Scully.

“[Neuroinclusion] training isn’t necessarily saying, ‘oh, here’s how you work with neurodivergent people’, because all neurodivergent people are different from each other, just as all neurotypical people are very different from each other.”

For Harty, the business case is clear.

“To harness all of that cognitive and neurological difference helps us to innovate, helps us to build better products for our customers, helps us have better ways of thinking about our company and our solutions and services.”

Moreover, neuroinclusive practices and environments — from flexible working hours to hybrid work arrangements to process-based approaches — benefit all employees. When it comes to cost, the Work and Access scheme under the Department of Social Protection subsidises up to 90 per cent of neurodiversity training for non-public sector employers.

For Reade, engaging with neuroinclusive support has been life-changing.

“Since I disclosed I’m autistic, I finish work full of energy. I have time for my hobbies again. I’m full of energy on the weekends. It’s shocking to me to look back at how much energy I was expending trying to hide the fact that I was neurodivergent.”

Her belief in what was possible has completely changed.

“I genuinely thought that my career had a ceiling because I couldn’t play the game or do what needed to be done the way everyone else would. I thought I wouldn’t be able to progress.

“But I don’t believe that anymore. I feel, with Bank of Ireland in particular, they see me as autistic and they see all the strengths that come with that, and I feel like a really valuable employee because of all the work they’re doing on inclusion.”

Photo: Eimear Harty, HR Director ,Bank of Ireland and Aoife Reade Senior Business Manager,Bank of Ireland. Pic Tom Honan