Workplace Inclusion
Why Workplace Adjustments Fail After the Yes
Jodie Herbert argues that most employers will agree to support neurodivergent staff, but the gap between approving an adjustment and living with it on Monday morning is where inclusion breaks down.
Bridging the Gap: From Diagnosis to Real-Life Support
Video from Living With An Invisible Learning Challenge.
Generated from the canonical interview transcript and validated against source data by Guests on Air.
Why do workplace adjustments for neurodivergent employees often fail?
According to Jodie Herbert, adjustments usually fail in the gap between approving them and putting them into practice. A decision alone changes nothing. Someone has to own the adjustment, monitor whether it works and check back with the employee to see if it needs changing. Without that follow-through, a reasonable request such as written instructions or a quiet desk simply lapses.
Jodie Herbert, founder of Ability Pathways Australia, calls it the implementation gap: the space between knowing what should happen and making it happen in real life. On the Living With An Invisible Learning Challenge podcast, she explained why so many workplace adjustments for neurodivergent and disabled staff are agreed in principle and then fall apart in practice.
Her view is shaped by decades in digital marketing and data, years of navigating complex government systems, and about 20 years of lived experience caring for family members with disability. That mix gives her an unusual angle. She treats inclusion less as a question of goodwill and more as a question of process, ownership and follow-up.
The requests she hears are rarely dramatic. Staff ask to work somewhere quiet, to work from home on some days, to move away from the kitchen, to wear headphones, or to get instructions in writing. Her argument is that employers should stop asking whether these requests are too much and start asking what it costs them to refuse.
Key takeaways
- Approving an adjustment is only the start, because someone must own it, monitor it and follow up with the employee.
- Most requests from neurodivergent staff are common sense, such as a quiet space, headphones or a written follow-up.
- Ask what refusing an adjustment will cost, from missed details and stress to shutdown and lost staff.
- Small communications, like a text warning that a lift is out, can spare disabled staff hours of needless strain.
1. Deciding is not the same as doing
Herbert says the biggest problem appears when organisations try to implement adjustments. A manager agrees to a change, but nothing in that decision makes it happen on Monday morning. The approval is recorded, everyone feels the issue is handled, and the employee is still sitting in the same noisy spot with the same unclear instructions as before.
Her fix is practical. A named person has to watch over each adjustment. Somebody has to monitor whether it is succeeding. And somebody has to go back to the employee to ask whether the change has gone far enough, whether it is working, or whether it needs adjusting again. Without that loop, inclusion stays on paper.
She also sees a comprehension problem. Organisations often do not really understand what people are asking for. A request to work from a quieter desk or wear headphones can sound like a personal preference, when for someone with an invisible disability it is the difference between concentrating and spending the whole day fighting the environment.
2. The real cost of saying no
Herbert's favourite question for employers is what it will cost if they do not make an adjustment. She points out that work before computers moved more slowly. Meeting notes were typed up and delivered to every attendee, deadlines were set for Friday rather than lunchtime, and managers had secretaries or assistants to carry some of the load.
Today staff watch email, chat tools, video calls, notifications and text messages at once. Automation was meant to make work easier, but she argues it has made things far more complex for people with neurodiversity, because the cognitive load of monitoring every channel is high. Asking a manager to follow a spoken instruction with an email is not a big ask.
The price of refusing shows up quickly. The employee may miss critical points, get stressed and shut down, or become emotional over an impossible deadline. She described a childcare worker whose manager kept announcing afternoon orientations with little warning, leaving her no time to prepare. That pattern can end in sanctions, docked pay or even termination.
3. Designing for the people you cannot see
Because many of these disabilities are invisible, Herbert warns that employers cannot assume they know who needs support. She notes that around one in five people are now considered neurodivergent, so a significant share of any workforce may be affected. Some employees do not even have a diagnosis yet. They simply feel tired and stressed without knowing why.
Simple environmental fixes matter. She advises avoiding fluorescent lights and repairing any light that flickers, clicks or makes strange noises straight away. Allowing a small fidget tool in meetings can stop restless movement that distracts presenters, and most people who receive adjustments use them discreetly because they do not want to be singled out.
Communication counts too. One of her clients, a wheelchair user, took two buses to work only to find the lift in her building was out. A single text from building management would have let her work from home and saved her an hour and a half of travel and strain. For Herbert, that is what closing the implementation gap looks like.
