Abstract

This case highlights how American multinational corporation Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft) believed that to be an inclusive company, it needed to hire neurodivergent talent. The company’s 2015 pilot program known as the Autism Hiring Program focused on hiring neurodivergent employees. In 2017, another initiative known as the Neurodiversity@Work Employee Round Table was started, headed by Neil Barnett (Barnett), Director, Inclusive Hiring and Accessibility at Microsoft. Under this initiative, some of largest employers in the US began working together to welcome neurodivergent employees at the workplace, and to acknowledge and leverage their strengths. In 2022, the members of the Roundtable launched the Neurodiversity Career Connector – a job search portal to connect neurodivergent candidates with job opportunities at companies which had an inclusive culture. Going forward, Microsoft faced the challenge of scaling up its neurodiversity programs since it had plans to bring the principles and practices it had learned from its diversity initiatives and expand them to its wider workforce in the US as well as outside.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Discuss the barriers to hiring neurodivergent talent in reputed organizations.
• Analyze the challenges Human Resource managers face in attracting neurodivergent talent.
• Formulate strategies to attract neurodivergent talent at the workplace.

Keywords

Neurodivergent; Recruitment; Disability; Inclusion; Equality; Inclusive culture; Inclusive Hiring and Accessibility; Diverse workforce; Job description; Neurodiversity-focused hiring; Employee Resource Group; Neurodiversity Career Connector; National Business and Disability Council; Able to Work Consortium; Autism at Work Employer Roundtable,Disability: In; American Association of People with Disabilities; National Business and Disability Council; Able to Work Consortium; JP Morgan Chase; Bill Gates; Paul Allen; Michael Vermeersch; Mary Alan Smith; Jenny Lay-Flurrie