DIVERSITY, EQUITY & INCLUSION
illustrations: © iStock/Nadezhda Ivanova, © iStock/LysenkoAlexander, © iStock/Iryna Sklepovych
Neurodiversity in Accounting: A Career Match Neurodiverse employees are an untapped talent pool. Tori Smith Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts have swept the accounting nation and generally take the form of inclusiveness among different races, genders and abilities. Neurodiversity is another piece of the DEI pie. The term “neurodiversity” was coined by Australian sociologist Judy Singer and is a synonym for all humanity, a category of intersectionality, and a civil rights movement for psychomedically labeled minorities and their allies. It does not mean neurologically disabled. Judy argues that the entire population is neurodiverse because each person has a unique brain. The term was first published in Singer’s 1998 sociology honors thesis at the University of Technology Sydney. A full version of the thesis is included in Singer’s new book, NeuroDiversity: The 1 Birth of an Idea. According to Singer, the neurodiversity movement is an umbrella term that can include many interests of various psychomedically labeled minorities, including but not limited to attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, tics, learning disabilities, speech, and others.
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The Washington CPA Fall 2023
Attracting Neurodiverse Candidates Given the current focus on DEI in the workplace, business leaders are educating themselves on neurodiversity and implementing neurodiverse-friendly practices within the hiring process. Katie Brennan, an HR advisor from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), said that since COVID-19, there has been a greater overall push for DEI efforts. “It became a priority overall that included disability,” said Katie. “There was value in a diverse workforce and seeing how a DEI program could retain talent.” Although an obvious initiative for an organization is to partner with an organization that can walk them through the process of being neurodiverse-friendly, Katie said there are a few things that smaller organizations can do to be more inclusive. “Smaller organizations can … post positions, partner with disability-related organizations, attend disability-related job fairs, include goals to attract individuals with disabilities, and consider simplifying job applications to make them more friendly,” she said. “The goals would be more of an internal goal. They might set goals to attract marginalized talent; it doesn’t have to be something necessarily that applicants would see.”
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