Podcast: How manufacturing leaders can build safer workplaces for neurodiverse employees

Key takeaways

• Neurodiversity exists on every factory floor—design safety programs with proactive inclusion in mind, not reactive response.
• Standard sensory environments may overwhelm neurodivergent workers; flexible accommodations reduce risk and boost performance.
• Rethinking safety training and allowing schedule or PPE adjustments can benefit all workers, not just those with diagnoses.
• Inclusion isn’t a new initiative—it’s a practical lens to apply across current systems, improving culture and reducing safety incidents.

In this episode of Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast, Nicole Stempak, managing editor of EHS Today, and John Dony, CEO and co-founder of the What Works Institute, explore how manufacturing workplaces can better support neurodivergent employees through more inclusive safety practices. The conversation highlights the importance of proactive planning, awareness, and practical accommodations that improve conditions for all workers. Drawing on real-world examples, they discuss how sensory input, communication styles, and job design impact safety and performance. The episode encourages safety professionals to view neurodiversity as a valuable lens for enhancing workplace culture and reducing risk across the board.

For a neurotypical person, that sensory input level is not overstimulating or challenging. It's something that they're used to dealing with and that you sort of accrue a skillset for over time, right? Which is why you've got a really seasoned construction worker, and it's almost like they've got a six sense for what's coming next and where the risk is. That can bite you for sure, and this is not a conversation on human performance and behavior and other factors, but let's just say that for the average neurotypical person who becomes more seasoned, they get a better appreciation for that. They're able to take it on.

For someone who's neurodivergent, particularly for someone who has sensory sorts of issues either in the autism spectrum or maybe even in ADHD in terms of how they process information, the visual and auditory stimulus—the light, the number of sensory inputs—all can become overwhelming. They can be overcoming very quickly. They can also be withstood for a period of time and then suddenly reach a breaking point, depending on the individual.

You can have scenarios where the risk may be present from the start, but this is just a scenario that's not comfortable for this person and they're not going to operate well and therefore be at heightened risk. Or you might have someone who feels like they're OK. They're managing it. They're masking through it. They're appearing fine, but then a crisis point hits, the dam breaks and something happens.

These are negative examples, where the risk gets heightened or the behaviors overwhelming. On the other side of the coin, that also illustrates a really good difference is one of the things that is typical to many types of neurodiversity, particularly in autism spectrum disorder, is particular a deep interest in certain topics or certain types of behavior, structure repetition. In a work context, you find a lot of folks love doing the same task, the same way, over and over again. It gives them satisfaction. It doesn't feel a task to them. It feels like the thing they want to do, and you've got a neurotypical person who might sit there and say, ‘If I'm going to be filling out the same form every 15 minutes all day, that's just not something I want to do. I don't care about that.’