Please note – I wrote this post last year

If this year hasn’t already been the gift that keeps on giving, I’m in the middle of yet another restructure. Which prompted me cobbling together this blog post from a couple of emails I’ve sent.

For many neurodivergent staff, while change is being described as “fluid”, “dynamic,” or seen as “a natural evolution”, it can feel more like quicksand. The lack of clear expectations, organisational structure, or consistent communication does not inspire innovation, far from it. The overriding emotion it triggers is exhaustion, “Here we go again”.

When we talk about inclusion in the workplace, we often focus on what we’re doing. But how we do it at every level matters just as much, if not more.

The inconsistency across an organisation when policy is interpreted in different ways by different managers, is maddening. If you really want to make a difference, get your executive leaders together on the same page and stop playing favourites. It’s not enough to write policy, you also have to have the knowledge on how to to apply it. This is where people with additional needs always struggle; one manager helps, another manager hinders.

The anxiety of declaring a Hidden Disability in attempt to implement reasonable adjustments is often not worth the time, energy or effort. I experienced this first-hand when a workplace adjustment that had been successful for three years was suddenly deemed ‘too hard’. While the policy hadn’t changed, the person overseeing it had. Despite the system working seamlessly under every other Executive I’d worked with, those established ways of working were ignored. I was put through the wringer just to maintain a policy already in place. I was asking for nothing extra, yet forced to fight for the status quo. It reached the point where HR had to intervene and said, ‘They’ve given you everything you’ve asked for.’

If everyone is expected back work in the office (gotta protect those landlord investments), justifying and recognising everyone’s accessibility needs does not simply apply to wheelchair access. It can encompass different bathroom access; fridges to store insulin; awareness that people can be allergic to fragrances as well as nuts; and that a dedicated desk away from fluorescent lights because you can hear them and they make your teeth hurt would be great please.

Before I come back to supporting neurodivergent staff, I need to sidestep into the toll taken on staff who are tasked to maintain business-as-usual, despite repeated realignments or restructures.

I worked for a Local Government Area (LGA) for 8 years, in that time there were 2 council elections, 3 CEOs, and 4 restructure processes. LGAs exist to provide the third tier of the Westminster system of legislative requirements. Staff and systems in councils across Australia provide support for umpteen functional units that include processing or delivering:

• planning permits
• building permits
• at-home pool testing
• food compliance
• maternal health
• aged care
• local laws
• leisure centres
• management of crossing supervisors.

All the while LGAs are also trying to provide equitable access to art and local culture.

Staff are expected to work within units, whose functions do not always align easily together, but they all need to be managed somehow. Units are bundled up into teams; teams are then brought together into divisions. No-one can be subject matter experts across a whole division down to unit level; Directors rely on their managers and staff who have this knowledge, simply because it is their business-as-usual.

The first restructure was recommended by a consultant who thought having 4 divisions, with 4 managers in each division was excessive. It was recommended to reduce to 3 managers in each division. To minimise disruption, it was decided (I think again by the consultant) to do one division at a time. [If the ar$ehat that thought this was appropriate is reading this (unlikely) that is not how you minimise disruption viz. Do it once, do it clean, do it quickly].

The first division restructure took months to resolve; when that was confirmed, only then the next division (where I was working) started on their consultation. However, the elected council changed in November, the CEO left in December and the restructure process stopped completely – halfway through the consultation period.

The next two processes were under the same person. As interim CEO, they were tasked by the newly elected council to quickly roll the entire leadership team who’d worked under the previous CEO, appointing acting Directors from the Management team. All up, months of upheaval, angst and worry for two large areas, washed away in one council vote. When appointed CEO “proper”, there was a wider restructure to realign the organisation again.

That CEO left in less than two years. The next CEO did another restructure to align the organisation to their vision. All was stable for 18 months until a Director left and yet another reshuffle was started.

For any organisation to run smoothly, you need continuity and an ongoing dialogue at every level, with check-lists of policies and procedures to bridge the gaps. When it works, it’s seamless; when it doesn’t, it’s frustrating.

This LGA printed thousands of an open-studio showcase from the arts and culture team, featuring a silhouette of agapanthus on the cover. Unfortunately, this plant was technically prohibited from being planted in the LGA, as agapanthus is a recognised, identified invasive weed. Those booklets were printed and released at the same time as an online and printed mail-drop education campaign by the environmental team to not plant agapanthus. What the printer thought of this, I don’t know, but I do remember the sighs of ‘Not again’ from the environmental team.

Business as usual is harder to achieve when staff are moved from one area to another, even if the alignment makes sense on paper, due to the back-end changes for systems that have to be rerouted. Reporting lines that change with wider moves? New relationships need to be built. To meet cost cutting requirements, areas can become larger and more unwieldy, leaving senior staff stretched and not across details that would have come easier to their attention. As a consequence, projects can fall over, things can get missed and perceived inefficiencies are seen afresh.

Which brings me back to our ND staff and how restructures send us into a tailspin, far wider than the usual change fatigue experienced by the seasoned pros working in the public sector. Many of us join the public sector because we want to do good things. The whole idea of paying into a collective pot via our taxes is again, to provide equitable services and infrastructure to the wider community.

During a catch-up talking about all things from AFL results to what we’re binge-watching; neurodivergent staff across the State on one call reflected on the challenge of operating within ever-moving goalposts, while also doing their day jobs.

For us, this isn’t collaboration; it’s confusion. Particularly as the sense of pride of doing a good job is massive, Rejection Sensitivity Dysmorphia isn’t just imposed upon us, it’s deep within us too. We’re petrified about doing something wrong, constantly second-guessing what we’re doing right, or wrong. When we’re requested to work from the office but are unable to find a quiet place to work, (away from the lights that make our teeth hurt), our cognitive load is higher than our neuro-normal colleagues. In turn, this impacts our performance again, when we’re met with incredulity after asking for accomodations at work, we stop asking and try to push through. This exacerbates the burn out we feel, and round we go again.

Neurodivergent employees have more strategies in place to help them succeed than you could ever imagine. It’s why we’re good at problem solving. We do it daily – just to survive. But having an overlay of uncertainty means we overthink things, which means we get tired, which means we make mistakes, which means we second guess ourselves.

Clear workflows, predictable environments, established expectations, ideally with an ongoing-open dialogue with our managers. When those foundations are removed and replaced with shifting sands; it doesn’t just slow productivity, it can erode our psychological safety with the volume of change. Neurodivergent brains are constantly processing detail, nuance, tone, and consequence. When changes are rapid-fire, inconsistently communicated, or require real-time reconfiguration, the mental load can quickly become overwhelming.

One of the hardest things I struggle with is not having open conversations with people. If people suddenly close off because of confidential information, I can cope because I know what is going on and why we’re not talking about stuff. When people suddenly close off and I don’t know why, I can spiral into panic. Thinking and overthinking I’ve done something wrong

And here’s the most frustrating part: this mental load? Is avoidable.

Change is constant. It’s exciting and fun and brings wonderful things into the world. But for people who thrive on structure, clarity, and consistency; too much change too quickly is a series of ever increasing red flags. It doesn’t feel flexible, or nimble, or agile – it feels unsafe.

Believe me, it is not that ND staff resist change. We just need change to be communicated clearly, implemented consistently, and delivered with empathy.

We don’t need a perfectly polished thing in place from day one. But we do need:

• A clear sense of what’s expected in our roles as the process runs
• What projects are we dropping if we lose staff
• Transparent timelines (even if they change)
• An understanding of where our voices will be heard to shape outcomes, that we’re not just ticking boxes

And most of all, we need the message that we belong here. Not just in spite of our neurodivergence, but because of the strengths it brings. The way we see end-to-end processes quickly. The way we hyper-focus on sh|t to get it done. The problem solving, persistence, how quickly we absorb information to spit it back out in bite-sized form.

Resilience is innate in us – do you think I’d be advocating for a wider discussion without having gone through restructures and reshuffles so many times?

Dynamic doesn’t mean directionless. It’s possible to be flexible and clear. Evolving and inclusive. We owe it to everyone, not just to recognise the differences in all of us, but to lead with it. After all, people who live with neurodivergent brains have been around and improving the world for ever – as Jordan Raskopoulos said, “Who else do you think was going to handwrite the dictionary for fun?”

Fin x