Why Flexible Work Is More Than Just a Perk for Neurodivergent Professionals
Source: ChatGPT
It’s very significant—and not at all coincidental in my opinion—that the growing public awareness of neurodiversity we’ve seen in recent years has largely paralleled the post-pandemic global explosion of hybrid and remote work. For many neurodivergent professionals, flexible working arrangements have been a godsend for a number of key reasons. And for me personally, having worked mainly remotely for over five years now, being at least hybrid is pretty much a non-negotiable in my current job hunt.
Despite the fact that my profession has shown itself to be particularly well suited to remote work, I still see a lot of job postings that insist on having the candidate work in office five days a week like it’s still 2019. Elsewhere, job flexibility is flaunted by employers as a perk, a lifestyle upgrade, or a recruiting sweetener. But for many neurodivergent professionals, flexible work isn't just a nice-to-have. It's the difference between surviving and thriving.
🔄 Flexibility = Functionality
Don’t get me wrong—it’s not that I’m not capable of working in a traditional 9-to-5 office setting. After all, I’ve done it for most of my career and I’ve always been good at my job regardless of the setting and schedule. That said, I can safely say I’ve done the best work of my career remotely, both as a freelancer and as a full-time employee. Most of my big professional achievements have come within the last five years. I was good at my job before but I’m all the better at it now, and workplace flexibility is a major reason why. (That and my ADHD meds!)
The truth is that the traditional 9-to-5 office model was never designed with cognitive diversity in mind. For professionals with ADHD, autism, sensory sensitivities, or executive functioning differences, standard office life often imposes a layer of friction that can make even the most straightforward tasks harder than they need to be. Pre-COVID, there was always an ambient level of frustration in my work life that I could never put my finger on, and when everything went remote during the pandemic I finally realized why that was. And I’ve heard similar stories from colleagues with divergent brain wiring.
Why is this the case? Flexible work—especially when it’s remote and asynchronous—allows neurodivergent employees to:
Work during their peak focus hours (for me early morning-to-early afternoon when my meds are at their peak).
Control their environment and minimize distractions.
Take necessary breaks (for a run or a 20-minute power nap if you’re like me) without judgment.
Use tools and processes that align with their cognitive strengths.
Have pet therapy on demand, at least for me. (I’m writing this article with a seven-pound poodle on my lap.
These aren’t luxuries. They’re accessibility measures. Personally I don’t see the flexible work arrangements I’ve enjoyed these past five years as any different from a wheelchair ramp or a screen reader for the blind. All these tools exist to help people function at their best, and having at least some of your workforce operating as flexibly as possible (at least in an industry like mine where it’s perfectly practical) seems like a small price to pay to have your people truly thrive and be fired up about their work.
🔍 Neurodivergent Means Different, Not Less Capable
Again, let’s be clear: I’m perfectly capable of working in a traditional office setting Monday through Friday, and depending on how my job hunt goes I may be forced to go back to that. I would just prefer not to, and I know many neurodivergent professionals who are in the same camp. What holds us back isn’t skill or drive; it’s being forced to operate in a system that wasn’t built for us.
While I myself haven’t been diagnosed with autism, I’m acquainted with people who have and I can personally relate to many of the complaints one hears from professionals on the spectrum. As an introvert who’s prone to social exhaustion, I tend to find office watercooler banter and lunchtime social interactions stressful. I generally prefer to express myself in writing than aloud, and when I’m in meetings I like to be able to keep my hands busy with my various “stimming” objects without incurring stares. I also really hate the fluorescent lighting typical in most offices.
All these factors combine to form an ambient level of friction and frustration when it comes to office life. When flexibility enters the picture, everything changes. The playing field levels out. Talents come forward. Innovation happens. While I’m not saying that neurodivergent people are necessarily smarter than the normies out there, it’s definitely true that there’s a level of creative thinking inherent to people with brains that work a little differently. Why not get the most out of that capacity?
💬 Flexibility Also Improves Communication
I’m in the “communication” business and have been for the past nearly two decades. Doing this work for as long as I have has taught me a lot about how people like to be communicated with as well as how I personally like to interact with others and engage in information exchange. And it does strike me as odd that anyone wouldn’t want to equip the communicators on their team with everything they need to accomplish their communicative tasks in as friction-free a way as possible.
Fun fact: I actually started my communications career in Tokyo as a translator/editor for a Japanese agency, in which I was forced to function in my third language. It was exhausting and often stressful but at the same time thrilling, and in this case I fully embraced the challenge of life in a foreign language and cultural context. Subsequently, when I moved back to Canada and began working in comms jobs back home, I couldn’t understand why I continued to find office life stressful even though the linguistic and cultural challenges had been removed. Wasn’t everything supposed to be easier in your own country?
I get it now. For us neurodiverse folks, operating in a traditional office setting on a strict schedule is a lot like being in a foreign country minus the intellectual satisfaction that comes with linguistic and cultural learning. And this is far from an ideal situation for people whose job it is to communicate all day. While I’m thankful to have had the experiences I’ve had with cultural and societal friction, both in my own country and elsewhere, communications work is challenging enough as it is without the additional internal stressors.
Flexible work opens the door to written, asynchronous communication—formats that allow for thoughtful, articulate responses without the pressure of instant processing, something I personally struggle with. Personally I like to treat my own interpersonal interactions with the same care and finesse that I apply to my external communications work. I like to think before I speak and express myself with care and confidence, which is probably why I love blogging like this. My colleagues deserve the same degree of clarity and focus as my clients.
All this strikes me as a win for both the individual and the team.
🧩 It’s About Inclusion, Not Exception
If you’re neurodivergent, chances are you’re accustomed from childhood to feeling excluded. Like many people I know, I grew up feeling like a perpetual outsider for reasons I could never figure out, and this feeling of exclusion persisted long into adulthood—basically until my diagnosis while firmly in middle age. And even knowing what I know now about how my brain works, it’s still a struggle not to feel “different” when it comes to professional and social interactions.
For this reason, I’m a firm believer that flexible work should be framed not as an exception granted to a few, but as a core feature of an inclusive workplace. Nobody ever wants to be that one kid in the class with “special needs,” and the same applies to hybrid and remote work settings. I would never want to be the one guy on a team who works remotely while everyone else is ensconced in an office. Besides, you don’t have to be neurodivergent to benefit from being able to work in a setting and on a schedule of your choosing.
When companies design roles around outcomes instead of optics—what gets done, not where or when—it creates space for different kinds of brilliance to shine. It also, in my experience, creates a type of camaraderie you’d never see in a traditional office setting, one that crosses time zones and transcends cultural as well as neurological differences. It’s inherently inclusive in a way that I don’t think a traditional office scenario can ever be.
Final Thought
If you're leading a team or shaping policy, it’s worth asking yourself: Are your flexible work policies performative or transformative? While I personally haven’t experienced this, I’ve known others who have been in situations where supposedly “flexible” workplaces have proven less than fully cooperative when it comes to, say, one extra work-from-home day or increased schedule flexibility. Are you using the promise of a flexible workplace just to get applicants in the door or are you truly walking the walk?
Because for neurodivergent professionals, flexibility isn’t a bonus. It’s a baseline for doing their best work—and often, staying in the workforce at all. I at least know that I can work in a traditional setting and would do so again if I absolutely had to, but I know full well that my employers wouldn’t be getting the best I have to offer. And I know I speak for many others when I say this. It’s 2025. We’re not bound by the same restraints we used to be. Let’s take full advantage of that fact.
