As the modern workforce becomes increasingly aware and inclusive of neurodiversity—with 1 in 5 individuals now identifying as neurodivergent—employers must evolve their benefits strategies to meet the professional and personal needs of all employees. This panel will explore how forward-thinking organizations are implementing benefits programs that support neurodiverse employees in meaningful, practical ways—while also providing tools that elevate performance and well-being across the entire workforce.
Panelists will discuss tailored support for executive function skills like time management, productivity, relationship building, and task prioritization. On the personal front, the discussion will highlight the value of coaching to help employees navigate daily challenges and transitions. These tools, while designed with neurodiverse individuals in mind, have wide-reaching impacts and can drive broader employee engagement, retention, and satisfaction.
Key Talking Points for Panelists:
- Executive Function Support in the Workplace
- Personal Coaching through Board Certified Behaviour Analysts
- Privacy & Compliance: Delivering Support in a HIPAA
- Compliant Way -Broader Applicability: Tools for All Employees
- Implementation and Scalability for Large Employers
- The ROI of investing in neurodiverse employees with the right benefits and training
- The importance of having a diverse workplace, when that idea is under more scrutiny than ever
LEADERS is a flagship channel spotlighting C-level executives and top experts as they share insights on the transformative issues shaping employee benefits. Designed for an audience of key decision-makers, the series delivers forward-looking thought leadership on the most pressing challenges and opportunities in workforce well-being, health care, and benefits strategy. The LEADERS series is made possible through the support of top industry collaborators, including RethinkCare.
Transcription:
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio for the authoritative record
Alyssa Place (00:22):
Welcome to Today's Leaders. My name is Alyssa Place. I'm editor in chief of Employee Benefit News. Today we're going to be talking about unlocking potential building neurodiverse inclusive benefits for today's workforce. And I'm joined by an awesome panel of leaders today. We have Kathryn Burdett, Deutsche Banks, director of People Experience and Sustainable Culture. Louis Chesney neurodiversity program leader at Rethink First, and Tim Tolino, hunter Douglas's, global Director of Benefits, mobility and Wellness. Thank you all so much for joining me today.
Louis Chesney (00:51):
Thank you.
Kathryn Burdett (00:52):
Thank you.
Alyssa Place (00:53):
So employers are certainly becoming more aware of neurodiversity within the workplace and all the different kinds of inclusive support that's needed to help this demographic thrive. And in fact, one in five individuals identifies as neurodivergent today. So I'd love to start off by just defining what does it mean to be neurodivergent and how are the ways that this is presented itself in a work environment? Louis, why don't we start with you?
Louis Chesney (01:18):
Sure, sure. Let's start with the neurodiversity expert if there is such a thing, because it just continually evolves. And so the definition I'm going to give might change next year, who knows? But as we understand it now, neurodivergence is looking at individuals with conditions like autism, A DHD, dyslexia, those whose traits and characteristics, behaviors, the way they socialize and communicate, diverge from neurotypical norms. So the ways in which we expect people to behave or socialize or communicate or those ideas that we place on people to do so. And what neurodiversity does essentially is it says that individuals with these conditions belong on a wide spectrum of types. So an individual may not necessarily have to fall within a specific group, like a person doesn't necessarily have to be autistic or have to have a DHD in order to be considered neurodivergent. Maybe perhaps they have sensory sensitivities or perhaps they need more instruction when it comes to getting projects or tasks completed. So it really falls under a very wide spectrum. But the principle is, is that when we look at an individual, we got to expand the way that we see humanity and include those who are different from us in the way that they behave, socialize, and communicate.
Alyssa Place (02:50):
So what are some of the strengths that this group of individuals bring to a work environment?
Louis Chesney (02:56):
So when we think about an individual who is neurodivergent, they bring an array of strengths, and it's not really specific to a particular type of neurodivergent individual. And when I say type, I mean someone who is autistic or with A DHD or dyslexia. It's generally somebody who has lived experience of being in an environment that's not accommodating to them and they having to learn strategies for them to overcome the challenges that are presented to them. In this environment, what ends up happening is that person becomes strong in the area that once was challenging for them, and that is something that they can provide to the workplace because many times even a neurotypical person can struggle in that very thing, but a neurodivergent person can say, Hey, I know a way to circumvent that thing because I struggle there from a very young age, and I've learned ways in which I'm able to deliver and feel confident in myself.
Alyssa Place (04:03):
And Tim, has that been your experience working with this population, and how have you seen those interactions and those conversations evolve over the last few years?
Timothy Tolino (04:13):
Yeah, absolutely, Louis, that was a great kickoff, but I think for me, the difference of perspective and the difference in approaches, particularly surrounding problem solving, are absolutely necessary to have in a room. So I bring my own personal lived perspective, just like Louis was talking about someone with a DHD or someone with autism brings their own. And as long as you create a workspace and a room that is accepting and understanding of those things, which starts with education, then you're going to be able to create, again, a room of different perspectives that can make problem solving much better and more effective.
Alyssa Place (04:52):
And how are you creating that room, perhaps physically or metaphorically?
Timothy Tolino (04:56):
So it's definitely metaphorically, especially as we are still in the transitionary period with return to work. So again, a lot of this is surrounding education and understanding of the different approaches and what someone may need in order to feel accepted, feel understood, to where they feel like they can bring themselves to the table, which is I think just is surrounding the stigma around neurodivergence that still exists to begin with.
Kathryn Burdett (05:22):
I was just going to add on to that. I mean, I think there is, there's so many benefits that can be derived from having a inclusive work environment. I think it lifts up everybody because while there are specific needs and supports and challenges that neurodivergent individuals have, there are knock on benefits for everybody in that kind of environment. So when we can create better ways of working, when we can have for meetings, when we can recognize that great minds don't think alike. So if we're having meetings, we have to recognize that there's people that would benefit greatly from having an agenda sent around in advance, having materials sent around in writing in advance, significantly in advance so that they can digest them and come prepared, meeting minutes, things like that, summarizing the key takeaways and actions in a workplace perspective that does not only benefit neurodivergent colleagues, that benefits everybody, that makes our workplace more efficient, our tasks perhaps more rewarding. We've all experienced death by meeting. So there are a lot of really great improvements that can happen when we start thinking more intentionally about the ways that we work.
Alyssa Place (06:49):
Yeah, I love that concept of intentional. And Louis, you had also mentioned that neurodiversity is really a spectrum, and I am curious to hear from all of you what sort of challenges that presents from you, because obviously an individual may have very specific needs, but you're serving a broad population. So how are you supporting that individual employee with these broader inclusion initiatives that you might be working on?
Louis Chesney (07:17):
Sure. I mean, what we provide at Rethink Care today is the ability for companies to scale up their neuro inclusion. So going back to many of the points that have been risen, it's easy to create a pilot program or maybe a geographic specific program or a department specific program that is neuro inclusive, and then use those learnings to expand beyond that. Now, realistically, companies do not have the bandwidth or the resources to do that effectively, and it takes a lot of time. There've only been a few companies that been able to accomplish that. The important thing is when you're providing resources to all employees that's personalized to them, then that makes a difference because with Rethink Care, someone could just call in to one of our consultants and troubleshoot a specific issue that they're faced with at work, like managing priorities. And for that specific individual, there may be specific tools or strategies that they can bring back to the workforce, and that is something that anybody can do and it doesn't necessarily require a diagnosis.
(08:35):
Look, realistically, when you are faced with prolonged stress, that could impact your executive functioning abilities negatively. So that's your ability to manage time effectively, organize, focus, maintain your motivation. When we talk about our resources at Rethink Care, we're really making it available to everyone, even though these resources are predominantly used by someone who may have those innate qualities whereby perhaps they excel in an area like pattern recognition or thinking out of the box, but perhaps they struggle in areas like task initiation. And what we want to prevent in the workplace is that weakness or challenge, I should say, is not preventing somebody to demonstrate their strengths in those areas that I just mentioned.
Alyssa Place (09:33):
So Tim and Kathryn, can you walk me through perhaps a practical application of how you're doing this through benefits through culture at your respective organizations?
Timothy Tolino (09:41):
Yeah, absolutely. I can go first. So I'll take it from an employee benefits perspective. And I mentioned this before, but a lot of it is providing educational resources and helping the population understand that there is a way to get help. So whether it is diagnosed or not, and Louis, I like that you brought up stress being a huge indicator. I think we all live in such a stressful world and stressful environment that it could really very quickly throw someone off. So education and communication of resources is top of mind for me, and as well as providing benefits that meet people where they're at within the workforce at Hunter Douglas and just the workforce in general, today, we're dealing with four or five different generations all working within the same walls. How they need to receive information, how they need to hear things and how they need to approach problems are all vastly different. So providing separate, not necessarily separate resources that could be from the same individual, but having a resource that can cater to all of those different generations and different individuals is top of mind and very important to me because again, if they feel comfortable coming to that and using that resource, being vulnerable, asking for help, which we all know is very difficult, especially nowadays, then they're going to be able to address these problems, become more productive, and then feel more like themselves in the workplace, which is very important.
Kathryn Burdett (11:11):
So I think that's a great point. Tim and I would really build on the idea of the fundamental need in the workplace is having a sense of psychological safety, right? Because we need to create that for everybody so that people are more comfortable to have conversations with their managers about what it is that they need or to have conversations with their peers because we know that the manager is a huge driver of what the experience is, but so are the people that you work with every day that you're surrounded with. And if you can't have a positive, or if you're not having positive team dynamics where you're supporting each other, where you recognize each other's strengths and needs, communication styles and awareness, you're not going to have a high performing culture if you don't have those kinds of dynamics. So I think that trust and environment around psychological safety is really important, and that's a key part of Deutsche Bank's culture.
(12:14):
What we are really trying to drive is linking a inclusive environment into our wellbeing and our inclusion strategy broadly so that it's available to everyone so that we're raising awareness, doing a lot of storytelling, having people share their lived experiences and breaking down in bite-sized videos, what it means to be neurodivergent, but also really aiming tools and resources to individuals, but also to managers so that they can get an understanding of how they can support their team members. We don't expect managers to be experts in neurodiversity, right? You don't have to do that, right? Same with wellbeing. You don't have to be a mental health expert as a manager in order to create a supportive environment, but you just need to have a basic understanding and that level where you've created a place where your employee can have an open conversation with you about what it is that they need,
Louis Chesney (13:19):
That's beautiful. Because just going off of what Kathryn has been sharing, when we think about the benefit that Rethink Care offers, it can be brought up in any conversation in the workplace, especially when there's an issue that arises. So an environment where neurodiversity is something that's talked openly about when people feel psychologically safe, let's say for instance, they may be struggling with deadlines, a particular direct report, they can approach their manager now and say, look, I don't think I have a diagnosis, but I may be neurodivergent. And that manager through benefits communication learns that there is a resource called Rethink Care. So at that specific touch point, when there's that manager direct report interaction, the manager can say, Hey, there is a resource out there that can help you. Now, of course, the manager, they end their involvement there, but just making that referral is so powerful.
Kathryn Burdett (14:21):
A hundred percent.
Alyssa Place (14:23):
Yeah, I mean, that manager role is such a challenging place to be because like you said, that interaction might end there, but there's so much that goes on before you even get to that initial interaction to begin with. And Tim, you keep speaking about the importance of education, and I wanted to ask about manager training. How are you empowering your managers to either recognize this or create that psychologically safe environment? And this would be for Tim or really anybody?
Timothy Tolino (14:52):
Yeah, not my wheelhouse internally, but it certainly affects me because I'm a people manager. So for me, I can just speak to my own personal experience and I'd love to hear from everybody else as well, because again, it's just my life. But yeah, so for me it's again, understanding the resources. I'm in a unique position where I create the resources, so I have a little bit of a personal bias towards understanding them. But for me, especially when I see my peers in the office and talk with other people managers as well, it's really important for me that I do share openly that these things exist. I know that they may affect other people, and it's more open-ended as opposed to stopping someone in a hallway. I'm not looking to single anyone out. It's looking to be more broad and again, educational focused as opposed to individualized, which is appropriate at times. But when I'm talking about broad resources for something that could affect more than one person, it's really important that I stay very high level so people don't feel singled out, which can lead to a negative experience. It could lead to someone pulling away when really they're trying to ask for help.
Louis Chesney (16:07):
But there's a work around that, especially I'd love to hear Benefit Space. What makes Rethink Care powerful is that we are providing that level of manager training through the benefit that both managers and employees receive. So in many cases, there could be a team, maybe not an entire organization where psychologically safety is lacking. So a manager could reach out to rethink care and it's through the benefit and get suggestions on how to work through this issue with this employee that may not be meeting their deadlines or they're making mistakes. So that gives people a permission to bring some of those learnings back into the environment without the pressure of traditional trainings.
Timothy Tolino (16:58):
Yeah, I think that that's a great next step, and it's certainly the evolution that I would want to take next. We're just not there yet.
Kathryn Burdett (17:05):
I mean, it's a journey. Every company is on a journey on this. So when I think about Deutsche Bank, we're an organization of 90,000 people in 65 countries, and the idea that you mentioned about specific manager training, that can be really hard to achieve. So we're working on a few things, one of which is embedding this inclusion, inclusion, all of these concepts that we want to drive wellbeing into our overall culture and embed that in all of the trainings that we offer so that we are meeting managers in different stages rather than trying to pull them in many multiple different training directions at once, because time is such a finite and precious resource. And I'm a people manager too, and it can be overwhelming with all of the things that are coming at you in terms of the pressures of your business and the day job and home and managing. So the idea of sending managers to a specific neurodiversity training doesn't seem really for a large organization like ours to particularly work.
(18:19):
So we are trying to embed all of those key concepts. What are those fundamentals that managers need to know? Again, going back to the idea of positive team dynamics and creating that psychological safety. At the same time, we do need to signposts what Tim was talking about, key things. We have a internet of global neurodiversity hub, so there's lots of resources there. They're tailored, there's some regionally specific things because different countries are in different places on this topic, but it's also making employees aware of what are the supports, how can you get easily tapped into the kind of technologies that you might need? Noise canceling headphones. We're a massive organization, so navigating the procurement system to get noise canceling headphones that could take you a day or that could take you some time. So how do we demystify that, make that more transparent and accessible to people?
Alyssa Place (19:22):
Yeah, I love all of those practical takeaways. You had mentioned earlier that even just something like writing minutes for meetings and having that made available, the headphones, are there other types of resources that are sort of must haves when you're thinking about building an inclusion program in the workplace? How
Kathryn Burdett (19:41):
Long do you
Alyssa Place (19:41):
Have? Yeah, let's hear.
Louis Chesney (19:45):
I could start. I think we can simply give people the tools to ask effective questions so I don't mispronounce it and pathic questions, empathic questions and expansive questions are important because you may not necessarily need to know if someone's neurodivergent or not, but just asking the question, what do you need to work at your best can lead to so much more things that can prevent issues from arising down the line. So it's that it's equipping people to ask effective questions, whether they're managers or even one's colleagues. It's also just offering people what's readily out there for 'em. So I'm not going to pitch Rethink care right now, but there's a lot of free resources right now that are available online that a person can use in order to help them work through a specific issue. And that could include many AI tools. So creating a list of tools that are out there that are free or it's a nominal fee and providing that to employees so that this way they don't have to go searching for it. And then also what could be helpful too is creating documents for your team on how we work best. So this way we don't arrive to a point where there's a long thread of emails to get to an answer. There are processes that are put in place. So those three things are pretty fundamental.
Kathryn Burdett (21:46):
Those are great. I love mean you hit it with the first thing you said about what do you need to work at your best? I mean, that's like the top tip I think for managers having any kind of conversation, whether it's about neurodivergence or anything else, then we talk a lot about that in the inclusion space. Everyone is navigating different headwinds, and that's a great question to get to know your people, to understand what, they don't have to tell you what all their headwinds are. Some of them might be visible, some of them are invisible. But that question fundamentally gets to how can I help you thrive? What is it that you need? And then it's the responsibility of the individual to be honest and to share what it is that helps them perform best.
Timothy Tolino (22:35):
I think one thing that really resonates with me with that is it's an ongoing landscape, and just like you mentioned, it's a spectrum. So the answer to that question last month can be different than it needs to be in the next month. So for us as managers, it's very important that that dialogue stays open and that question gets asked on a regular basis when challenges arise, I think a lot of people, and I've fallen into this trap as well, to go, oh, this worked last time. Let me apply the same logic, which sometimes is effective, but there's so many things that affect people outside of the workplace or the problem could be viewed differently by that individual. So for me, something that I've recently put into effect for myself is approaching situations brand new every single time, and that's really helped and that open-ended question is a great way to do that.
Kathryn Burdett (23:28):
Yeah, that's really getting at habits. We are doing a lot of work on building the right kind of habits as a manager, and so that kind of practice around what do you need and making that a habit is a key part of how we're trying to drive our culture and drive inclusion because it's all about practice.
Alyssa Place (23:48):
Yeah, I mean these really just sound like good management tips in general,
(23:52):
Less than just focusing specifically on inclusion. And it really makes me think about when we were in the beginning of COVID and really in the trenches of that, that was how everybody really seemed to be leading. There was this real focus on how can I help you? How can I make your work experience optimal for you? And I am curious about the impact that RTO return to office mandates and just this sort of shift in the employer employee relationship. What impact could that have on neurodivergent people in particular as we're sort of stepping farther away perhaps from that more empathetic approach to work?
Louis Chesney (24:33):
It's a challenge because when a person who is working from home is given the opportunity to modify their workspace, that's ergonomically working for them perfectly, and that comes with lighting, that comes with distractions. And if a person has a particular working style that they've developed over time and they've created a specific cadence, it's hard to bring them into an environment where suddenly now it seems like it takes a little bit more effort to get the work done and they don't know why. And it could possibly be because of the lighting or the distractions. A person may not have that level of self-awareness that they are being constantly, their attention is constantly being thwarted. So this is why when we think about return to office, it's also an opportunity to rethink our physical spaces before bringing people back in. Have conversations with individuals in your workplace of what worked for them at home and bring that into the workforce.
Timothy Tolino (25:52):
I think that another point to that is the routines and schedules that people get into, right? Humans are creatures of comfort just by nature, and you become productive over the last three, four or five years. We are not talking three months. That's quite a long time to come in and disrupt someone in something and bring in something that previously wasn't foreign, but now is right. So I really like that approach of asking a question and being thoughtful upfront. I'm not sure how many folks are doing that, but it's certainly one of those things that needs to grow and develop as well with RTO and consistent mandates surrounding that.
Kathryn Burdett (26:35):
We've done some work in some locations on office design specifically, which is really cool. So partnering really closely with our corporate real estate and where we can design inclusive spaces and spaces that serve different purposes and designating those kinds of spaces, where is it that you need a quiet space to think where what's better for group configurations? And I don't just mean I have an office or I go to a conference room. I mean really much. I'm not doing it justice explaining it right now, but there has been some really fabulous work in some of our newer office spaces around things that hang from the ceiling, that create sound, manage the sound, manage the distractions also are more energetic or creative spaces with color, things like that, which is a really cool thing to be thinking about in terms of return to office in general.
(27:36):
Deutsche Bank has been back at work for a number back in the office. We were all always working, but we have maintained for a large part of our workforce globally hybrid working. So there are some parts of our business. Of course, if you think about the folks on the trading desk, they are in five days a week. Don't anybody be concerned about that. We're a highly regulated industry that has to happen. But there are a lot of other types of roles, including mine that have access to hybrid working, and we found that that is a good way to try to strike the right balance where people could maintain some of the benefits that came out of the pandemic, but also have the benefits that the company looks for from having people together for all kinds of reasons.
Alyssa Place (28:23):
Yeah, I mean, again, I keep being struck by the things that we're talking about that we are talking about people with neurodivergence, but it really sounds like all of these things could just benefit employees in general. I mean, I personally don't think I'm neurodivergent, but listening to some of these tips, I'm like, oh, that would totally help me. I would love to be in a colorful room with a nice sound wave above my head.
Timothy Tolino (28:44):
Yeah, I think that that goes with just the stigma surrounding using that word, right? It's awesome that we're talking about this right now. It's very important. But there are things, and this goes back to again, having different perspectives in whatever room. There are things for everyone to learn from each other. So you may not, but again, there are tactics that you could pull from how someone else approaches and solves problems that could help you on a personal level. And it's something that I've heard repeated throughout this discussion, which I think is great.
Alyssa Place (29:17):
And how is that stigma still showing up? I mean, if we're all comfortable talking about these concepts at a high level, what are some of the things that are still holding this group back from being able to be there, their true selves at work?
Louis Chesney (29:30):
Well, many times realistically, there is still an underlying notion of what a neurodivergent individual is capable of accomplishing. So in many times, a person may be afraid to ask for what they need because for instance, it requires them to go through a formal accommodation process, go through that interactive process. Whereas if we have an environment where people have access to what they need and it's readily available, then that can circumvent conversations around stigma because people can then go and get those provisions that they need. And it doesn't necessarily require them to either disclose a condition or disclose that they have a support need.
Kathryn Burdett (30:33):
I think we still need a lot of role models, right? Visibility. If you can't see it, you can't be it. And while that can be challenging for certain neurodivergent individuals who may not want to be very visible, and where there can be a lot of challenges with being like a spokesperson sitting up on a panel or filming a video or those kinds of things can be very disconcerting for folks. But when we can engage in those storytelling campaigns, when we can show role models, then I think that can go a long way to encouraging people to see what the possibilities are. We also have a mentoring program through our neurodiversity network, and that's helped a lot. It's self an opt-in, and it covers all different kinds of, obviously all people on all kinds of neurodivergent spectrum, but also allies or parents of neurodivergent children, you can sign up to have a mentor relationship with a fellow neurodivergent colleague. So there's different ways you could say, I'm an ally, I want to learn more. So how you can connect with someone who is neurodivergent. And I think that education in a peer level, or at least an interpersonal level rather, I think will also help spread that more organically.
Alyssa Place (32:03):
I mean, one of the areas that I've noticed, I cover mental health a lot, and that's certainly an area that has really had such broad acceptance. We can all pretty comfortably now discuss our mental health, discuss our mental health needs. I've heard so many times that managers are putting their therapy appointments on company-wide calendars. Do you see inclusion for neurodiversity going in that direction? Is it already on its way? Where are we at right now with that?
Timothy Tolino (32:33):
I think it's well on its way for sure. I think that mental health opened the door to have these types of discussions. So yeah, I personally see it moving in that direction. I think that it's still something that is in the developmental phase as far as the resources, the acceptance and understanding, particularly within the workplace, and then also again, the resources that people have. There's a lot of stuff out there, but I still think that there's a long way to go. So I do think that I have seen it on a personal level and within my professional world, within the benefit space, the ball really has started rolling. Long way to go though.
Louis Chesney (33:14):
True, true. There's this inclination that the responsibility really falls solely on the individual to address their own issues and to self-advocate. Now, knowing this, this is why Rethink Care has resources that are for individuals, because we know many workplaces are not necessarily working towards, as Tim had mentioned, creating something that's neuro inclusive, but perhaps we can eventually get there one person at a time.
Alyssa Place (34:00):
And as you're looking ahead to 2026, thinking about the programs that you have at your own workplaces, what are some of those areas of investment that you're hoping to make in the next year or two years, or even much further down the line?
Kathryn Burdett (34:14):
So for us, part of this is continuing, obviously AI is the topic of the day. So further scaling the AI tools, deploying copilot to all of our employees, some other in-house developed tools. We are also looking at a wellbeing agent, AI agent that will also support neurodivergent colleagues, which I think will be really exciting. And we are keen to get into more specific executive functioning supports in 2026. So hopefully something along the lines of coaching or more tools aimed directly at that topic.
Timothy Tolino (34:55):
I think that for me, education and exposure to these topics and concepts is really top of mind for me, working at a global manufacturing company. I'm sure that there are individuals who haven't even thought about this, right? Or really, again, fully understood the resources that we as an organization provide. So for me, it's about providing visibility and helping us get more visibility throughout the workforce, which will then, based on the feedback from that, allow me to understand what resources are going to be needed by the employee workforce at Hunter Douglas.
Alyssa Place (35:33):
In what ways is AI and technology facilitating some of these skills that you've been talking about here? And how are you doing that at Rethink?
Louis Chesney (35:40):
Sure. So just going back to the power of AI and what's provided to us right now, it makes it a lot more easy to create tools that are really specific to different needs because to operationalize it, it's become more seamless than ever before. And that's the beauty of using AI is that now for instance, we can create onboarding documents specific to each team, specific to each function for each team, and we can create courses that are helpful for an individual within their own industry job role. And we can even be ambitious to say project or task because of the ease of developing some of these tools using artificial intelligence. Whereas before it may have been cost prohibitive to do such a thing. Now it's much easier.
Alyssa Place (36:52):
And you're seeing that hyper-personalization in all areas of employee benefits and really just all areas of work culture in general. And I wanted to sort of finish up by, we've touched on the importance of recognizing neurodivergence, but also acknowledging that these programs and benefits can really benefit all of us in the workplace. But I wanted to finish by asking why it's so important to keep the spotlight on Neurodivergence and make sure that this particular group of people is supported. Why is that a mission that you are still going to be committed to?
Kathryn Burdett (37:30):
Well, for me, I think it's because Neurodivergence touches so many people. You shared the statistic one in five, right? It cuts across all kinds of identities, all demographics, and all of our companies are looking for the best talent. We want to be high performing companies. We want to produce revenue and all of those good things. And so it's that classic idea of talent is everywhere and opportunity is not. So how do we lower the barriers for entry so that all of our companies can get access to the right talent at the right time and unlocking the particular strengths of neurodivergent people taking advantage of the idea that great minds don't think alike.
Timothy Tolino (38:20):
And I think that just to jump on that as this is one of those things that's not just unique to the employee population, it affects people at home too, which is often not talked about from an employee benefits perspective. It's one of those rare roles that not only affects people within the workplace, but extends to the family as well. So while a parent or a spouse may not be neurodivergent, their child may be right, how are we arming them and meeting them where they're at to help support a healthy home, which then brings them to be present in the workforce and be a great worker?
Louis Chesney (38:59):
That's why that holistic support is so important. That's what Rethink Care provides. So one thing that I did mention is the parental support. So we do want to ensure that individuals are supported across their entire life journey. So we provide resources for parents, we provide resources for adults who struggle in these areas. But the important thing to note is when we think about one in five, right? We are now becoming more aware that neurodivergent individuals already exist within our workplace. Whereas before we, even if the conversation ever came up, it was really around accommodations and it was more deficit based. So it was more how do we get this person to stay here? And now that conversation has shifted to how do we get the most from this individual?
Alyssa Place (40:03):
I love that. And I really love what you had said as sort of an endpoint that Great minds don't think alike. So I think that's a really great spot for us to end and so many wonderful tips. And again, you're really setting the tone for the empathetic leadership that we all need to practice and see in our workplaces today. So thank you all so much for joining me today, and I appreciate you being here. Thanks for having us.
