When Ruth Muller reflects on her school years, she remembers feeling like an anomaly—grappling with tasks others found easy yet intuitively solving complex problems with ease. Decades later, as chief R&D officer and interim chief marketing officer at Suntory Oceania, Muller credits her success, in part, to traits that were once misunderstood and, if they were recognised, viewed negatively.
She says far from being hindrances, her neurodivergent wiring – dyslexia and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder - has become a source of creative firepower, rapid pattern recognition and dogged focus.
Muller’s story is one among many now challenging notions of “ideal” workers. From banks and beverage giants to police forces and tech firms, employers are increasingly recognising strengths that neurodivergent staff bring—particularly as we’re told the future of work demands more agility, innovation and complex problem-solving.
Muller says her current experiences are a far cry from her high school days in the early 1990s, when she struggled with several subjects, especially those that didn’t involve moving around, blue-sky thinking and creative problem-solving.
“I had a sense that I found certain things so easy and others, which everyone else seemed to find easy, so difficult,” she recalls. “It was a strange feeling of oscillating between ‘Am I smart or am I stupid?’ I would see solutions instantly that others might take hours to logically deduce, but I couldn’t remember or articulate things in the way others easily could.”
Muller battled with reading at school, once even learning an instrument to get out of English and avoid a teacher who belittled her efforts in front of the class. She was so adamant she would not get into university that she didn’t fill out the paperwork. Thankfully, her mum got proactive and submitted her application, ensuring she would go on to study science.
“I’m really good at putting together data and the different threads in complicated projects,” she says. “I process subconsciously, I can often immediately see in a plan where particular, specific details have been missed and find solutions in a way that is quicker than many other people. It’s hard to explain, but it’s just a different way of looking at things, and I can hyperfocus...”
For the neurodivergent, hyperfocus is akin to a superpower. It’s the ability for intense and sustained concentration often demonstrated by those with ADHD and autism when they’re especially interested and committed to a task.
“I love my job; I can work for hours at night and before I know it, it’s 2am,” says Muller. “I can do that night after night, I didn’t realise other people couldn’t. I do need to be careful of exhaustion, as I will keep going – I have no off switch! I have to be very cognisant of listening to my body.”
It’s these skills, she says, that make her an asset and able to work at the level she does.
Innovating, problem-solving, providing unique perspectives, pattern recognition and communicating ideas in new ways are increasingly in demand in workplaces – and New Zealand employers, like many internationally, are more willing to look at hiring neurodivergent staff.
Once on the outer in work environments, no longer are neurodivergent people automatically thought of as the “difficult kids” who can’t sit still or concentrate long enough to complete a given task. Nor is being a tad “socially awkward” a major disadvantage.
Not business as usual
So, is it now okay to be neurodivergent at work? The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Survey, spanning 2023-27, states employers are increasingly favouring those who can bring to their businesses “cognitive capabilities” such as complex problem-solving and creative-thinking, along with technological literacy.
Then’s there the 2027 forecast by US technological research and consulting firm Gartner, which says 25% of Fortune 500 companies will actively seek out neurodivergent talent because their distinct strengths can help to achieve better business outcomes.
Even in the face of diversity equity and inclusivity rollbacks led by the Trump administration, many leading corporates and financial institutions are continuing with programmes improving their access to neurodivergent talent.
It makes sense, say leadership coach Natasya Jones and psychologist Anton Ashcroft, cofounders of DivergenThinking, who work with schools, organisations and businesses to help them become more neuro-inclusive.
Christchurch-based Ashcroft says given their talents, supporting neurodivergent staff to thrive is imperative for business success. Neurodivergent thinkers are indispensable, he says.
Tony Pownall, co-founder of recruitment firm Cultivate, has worked with DivergenThinking to make his own business more neuro-inclusive. He encourages organisations his firm works with to consider hiring neurodivergent staff.
Today’s business environment is “still trying to shake off the same approaches that have been used since the Industrial Revolution, where everyone headed off to work, did the same thing day in, day out, and someone else did the thinking,” says Pownall.
“I think we’ve got such a massive business consulting industry because organisations have to bring in ‘experts’ to solve problems because the right people haven’t been hired or harnessed.”
Pownall has personal reasons to think about the future of work: his own daughter has ADHD, and he wants her to have as many opportunities as possible. He says more employers are willing to consider hiring a neurodivergent candidate for the job, though it often comes down to individual experience.
“I also see, with a younger generation entering the workforce, more collaborative styles in terms of attitude and approach. They want to socialise ideas, they reject ‘command and control’ type methods, and they’re also more tolerant and accepting. They welcome ‘difference’ in the workforce far more easily than previously.”
Pownall says Covid changed thinking around where we work and what’s possible in terms of flexibility when required. “It means if someone turns up and says, ‘I’m autistic and I can bring these skills, but I need a quiet place in the office or to work from home two days a week’, it doesn’t seem like too much of an issue anymore. Many of us are asking for accommodations – I need to finish earlier on these days to pick up the kids – and the neurodivergent are simply another group of people with requirements.”
Recruiting talent
But attracting neurodivergent talent isn’t as simple as suddenly declaring yourself “neurodivergent friendly”. Take, for example, recruiting staff. Standard interviewing processes, often involving answering a barrage of questions, sometimes from multiple interviewers, are tough on the most-grounded neurotypical person. For those with problems communicating, responding to questions in a timely manner, understanding body language or making eye contact, they can be all but impossible.
Natasya Jones says recognising what neurodivergent individuals can bring to a workplace requires employers to change thinking about hiring norms. The NZ police did just that in 2022, when its financial crime group advertised three positions that included requirements such as writing and analytical skills – but also being autistic. A pilot programme involving Autism New Zealand, it looked at ways to remove barriers to employment that autistic people can encounter, starting with recruitment.
Detective Inspector Christiaan Barnard, then director of the financial crime group, says position descriptions were written to ensure they were straightforward, so the chances of misinterpreting requirements – and being put off applying - were minimised. Advertising was targeted and Autism NZ trained recruiters before interviews. Shortlisted candidates participated in a two-day assessment workshop to ensure they understood the roles, tasks involved and working environment.
“We did have one person who said it wasn’t for them and withdrew,” Barnard says. “The process was very different from what we would normally do, but we felt it went really well. It’s not just about the anxiety of being interviewed, which anyone can experience, it’s also about anxiety around whether to disclose you’re neurodivergent. Should you be open, or will it create some form of unconscious bias?”
Three neurodivergent people—two data analysts and one research analyst—were employed on 15-month fixed-term contracts within the police financial intelligence unit. Barnard says they quickly became highly valued team members, contributing strong analytical skills and unique perspectives that enriched team problem-solving and collaboration.
Autism NZ chief executive Dane Dougan says in working with the police, his organisation built on the successful employment support programmes it runs in Auckland and Wellington. He stresses the programme goes beyond looking at things like whether the lighting above a workstation is suitable, or noise levels.
“There might need to be more specific support, mentoring and a recognition of individuals as individuals, rather than making assumptions about what they’re like based on their neurodivergency.”
Dougan says one of the issues with diversity equity and inclusivity policies is that they can be seen as a “charitable act”; not something that is necessarily good for business. “There’s a growing understanding that employing from the autistic community isn’t an act of charity - it’s a win-win situation for everybody if we get it right.”
To tell or not to tell
The recruitment process may be a time you want to share that you’re neurodivergent, says ADHD New Zealand emeritus chair Darrin Bull. There are people more than capable of doing a job whose neurodivergency means they won’t interview well, he says.
Bull recently interviewed two promising candidates for a job and asked if they were okay about making eye contact and shaking hands. One wasn’t comfortable with eye contact, so Bull sat next to rather than opposite during the interview, and the other preferred not to shake hands. These are small things which could prevent an otherwise perfect candidate from landing a job, he says.
“All [neurodivergent] employees want is to belong. If they feel safe and that they belong, they will be creative and productive.”
“One [employee] doesn’t like contact with people, so works from home. She’s pretty much the most creative person I’ve ever come across in terms of blue-sky thinking and creative problem-solving. She just received an employee of the year award.”
Bull acknowledges that if asked five years ago whether to tell prospective employers you are neurodivergent, he might have urged caution. What has changed is the number of people being diagnosed or having a family member who is, as well as the awareness that neurodivergency isn’t necessarily a deficit.
“For those who have ADHD and autism, life’s not an easy journey,” he says, “so I also find they’re incredibly resilient.”
Besides, he says, if you land a job, you don’t want to surprise your new employer with requests for dispensations. “My sense is that if you don’t feel you can say something from the outset, then it’s not going to work out.”
Is he concerned that neurodivergent employees could be affected by Trump-style diversity rollbacks? “I think we’re more mature in New Zealand.”
Psychologist David Stebbing has heard stories where disclosure has gone incredibly well and others not so much. “I had one client, a computer programmer, who told an employer. The employer was incredibly intolerant and unhelpful, so my client ended up changing companies. It was a while until he felt comfortable enough to share with his new employer, but they were great. They were interested in learning and knowing more.
“Unfortunately, it seems to be, to a large degree, working out the likelihood that your employer will be understanding.”
If the job is at the Bank of New Zealand, Martin King, general manager of customer assist, hopes you will tell. King is at the forefront of efforts to expand the bank’s diversity and inclusion programmes to include neurodivergency. Partly, that’s because it’s his job to ensure the bank meets its customers’ needs, but he’s also the father of two neurodivergent children.
“When they go into the workforce, I’d like there to be neurodivergent-confident organisations that understand individual needs … and that personalising those needs is vital,” says King. “Yes, neurodivergent people might have special talents you can tap into, but you need to create environments that allow those talents to come through.”
Talking with colleagues about the experiences he was having with his children, now 11 and 15, made King more aware of how many of them were in the same boat, and how many were also getting a later-in-life diagnosis.
Discussions on the best way to support each other led to presentations from ADHD NZ and Autism NZ, and panels where neurodivergent colleagues share more personal experiences. “We’ve got around 5500 staff, and the first one of those talks was watched by a quarter of them. There’s a lot of people who wanted to know more.”
There’s now a support group run through the BNZ’s internal social media platform and far more open discussion about meeting the needs of those who aren’t neurotypical, he says.
The bank has better guidelines, policies and procedures in place, and changes have been made in the design of workspaces and bank branches.
“Looking at the interviewing process [during hiring] will probably be the next big phase for us. I would encourage applicants to let us know, because we don’t know what we don’t know and therefore can’t look at how we can best meet need.”
Several of the changes made to help staff are being passed on to customers as understanding about neurodivergence grows. Sensory issues are an example. “We’ll give customers the option to not have to listen to hold music when they call us. For those who have an auditory processing or sensitivity issue, waiting on the phone for 90 seconds of music is incredibly hard. So, we’ve given people the choice and the feedback has been phenomenal.”
There’s been a shift to writing things more simply to help customers with dyslexia, and staff training around increasing awareness, and removing the judgment, about why customers might be experiencing financial problems.
Gender differences
Diversity Works New Zealand is the national body for encouraging and supporting workplace diversity, equity and inclusion. CEO Maretha Smit says she has some concerns about the way gender and neurodivergency might be playing out. Certain sectors, notably construction, have been more likely to acknowledge the issue and call for support.
“The belief has long been that it’s boys and men who are more likely to be neurodivergent. We now know, though, that women have been under-diagnosed.
“We talk about the Elon Musks of the world, the Richard Bransons, the Bill Gates’s, who are celebrated for the fact that they were able to use creativity and focus in order to build amazing businesses -- but where are the women who have done the same?
“More often than not, they’re more likely to be seen as emotionally dysregulating and difficult to work with. We’re not telling the story of what neurodivergency means for women. Girls are socialised in a certain way, so while it might be perfectly acceptable for a boy to stand on his desk and declare, ‘I’m going to build a rocket and fly to the moon after I’ve built an electric car,’ a girl with the exact same ambition is more likely to sit quietly and think, ‘I can’t say that — what will everyone think of me?’”
Smit expresses particular concern about traditionally female-dominated professions such as nursing and teaching. “There is growing evidence, both research-based and anecdotal, that neurodivergent women often find care responsibilities more emotionally taxing than their neurotypical peers. It’s not that they’re less capable - in fact, many are extraordinarily empathetic and attuned to others’ needs. But the hidden toll of managing sensory, emotional and cognitive overload, all while conforming to social expectations, can make caregiving deeply exhausting and emotionally complex.”
She warns we are not doing enough to support those in high-demand care roles. “Too often, when women express how they’re feeling or ask for help, they’re labelled as high-maintenance. And we don’t provide enough tools or understanding to help neurodivergent women navigate the additional sensitivities they may experience.
“There’s also a lot of shame. Many neurodivergent women say they’ve always known their brain works differently but internalised it as a failure - as not being smart enough - especially if they struggled to express themselves. That leads to high levels of masking, and over time, to utter exhaustion.”
Knowing your neurotype
So, would it be helpful to know your neurotype early in life? Ruth Muller certainly wishes she’d known earlier what was up. There were things she had to work harder than her university peers: “I couldn’t learn reaction mechanisms by rote; I couldn’t remember them. I had to learn the complexity of them and work it out in the exam”. But she passed, found her place and began to climb the career ladder.
Muller won promotions because of her strong conceptual thinking skills and a knack for bringing together disparate ideas to solve tough problems, as well as for her work ethic and intuition with people. But when she moved to Germany for work, new supervisors and colleagues started pointing out the number of mistakes she made in things like emails -- “They were trying to be helpful.”
Then, in 2017, a cousin told her about being diagnosed with dyslexia. “From what my cousin said, I thought, ‘I’m pretty sure I’ve got this,’ so I went and got a diagnosis when I was 42. I just cried throughout the whole diagnosis because things were finally making sense. It was quite triggering because I was looking at stuff I’d struggled with all my life and realising there was a reason behind it.
“I think the biggest thing is the negativity and judgment you put on yourself. I don’t think I’ve met a single neurodivergent person yet who hasn’t been affected by constant self-doubt and thinking something’s wrong with you.”
Coming to terms with the news, she started discovering more people around her who experienced dyslexia and who were happy to share information. From there, she learned about “neurodivergency comorbidity” – how conditions such as ADHD, autism, dyspraxia and dyslexia are close companions.
That led to an ADHD diagnosis, and suddenly her whole life made sense, she says. “I’m very open about being neurodivergent. I feel compelled to be, as I feel fortunate to be in a position where people back me and are confident in my abilities and what I can bring.”
David Stebbing, himself an ADHD-er, took a more-circuitous route into the career he loves, leaving school early because “I absolutely hated it; I had completely failed, and I wasn’t good at sitting in classrooms.”
Stebbing’s early ambition was to be a real estate agent because he liked talking with people. Instead, he ended up at a used car dealership but found sales didn’t sit as well with him as he’d anticipated.
“It was kind of like having to manipulate people and that didn’t sit well with me, even though I was quite good at it.” Feeling morally compromised, he went for a career guidance assessment and was told he would do well in quality assurance.
“Given my ADHD, I think that would have been an abject disaster,” Stebbing says, “but I took his advice and started a polytechnic course on the subject. I was bored to tears; I fell asleep in the second lecture.”
Resigned to the fact there wouldn’t be any immediate answers to his career dilemma, he got involved with Youthline because he felt he needed something more ethical in his life. At the telephone counselling service he met like-minded people – many of whom were psychology students enthusiastic about their studies and encouraging of Stebbing’s own burgeoning interests. It was enough to convince him to enrol at the University of Canterbury, where, after deciding social work wasn’t for him, he eventually graduated with an MA in Education – psychology.
Stebbing had found his niche, but could he have done so earlier if he’d got on better at school?
“I think the fundamental thing is that you need teachers who are genuinely interested about why pupils act and behave in certain ways, and if you have a dynamic teacher who knows about neurodiversity, you’ll have a better chance.
“But if you have a class of 30-35 kids, and you know you’ve got maybe one or two on the autism spectrum, another who’s ADHD and some who are dyslexic, it’s fairly challenging to work out teaching plans for all of them in an environment that won’t work for all of them.
“There are no easy answers, but personally I think the more you know about how you tick, the better. Many things are moving toward a more personalised approach – look at medicine – so, yes, we do need systems and processes that can truly accommodate children as individuals.”