UAE: How to welcome neurodiversity in the workplace

Nidal Morra realised that he might have Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) at an inopportune moment: while skydiving, as he plunged into nothingness.

It was his 33rd jump and until then, the licensed skydiver had found the activity ‘hyper exciting’. “But this time, while I was free falling, I was getting bored,” he tells Khaleej Times via Google Meet. “I was checking the time, the altitude and how long it was going to be before I could open my chute.” And it wasn’t the typical boredom that hits someone about five times a day — he felt like he was in actual, physical pain. “To a person with ADHD, the lack of stimulation can feel like suffering from a full-body migraine,” he explains. “It’s like being on fire.”

He met with a psychiatrist who, after administering a few tests, diagnosed Nidal with a severe form of ADHD. The writer and producer was 30 when he received the diagnosis — he’d spent his entire life misreading his symptoms of ADHD and assuming that he was ‘lazy’ and ‘impulsive’. He had struggled to meet work deadlines and it nearly derailed his career a couple of times. “Before the diagnosis, emotional dysregulation felt like ‘moodiness’ and ‘overreactions’. But a diagnosis allows you the framework to view yourself differently and work on it, which is why it’s so important,” he says.

As the creative director and executive producer of creative production house BOLD, Baris Cangokce was adept at running large film sets, but his personal life was in shambles. “I was losing my wallet and car keys and forgetting my passwords every week,” he recalls. Every time he signed a cheque, he felt like he was reliving a horror movie as he struggled to reproduce identical signatures every time. With the help of his wife and a few friends who are mental health experts, he realised that he had ADHD. “I am managing it much better now by calming my mind and using different techniques to divert and concentrate my energy on specific tasks,” he says.

But neurodivergent people often feel compelled to conceal their diagnosis at work. Nidal, quite poignantly, describes it as “silent suffering”. “They fear getting fired, assigned smaller projects, or facing increased medical insurance costs."

Two years ago, he launched a support group for adults with ADHD (the group is currently on a hiatus) where he hosted sessions every Sunday. During the sessions, the group shared their experiences at work: for instance, one woman left her corporate job to find something that was more aligned with her needs, while a school teacher’s seniors made accommodations for her. “But such companies are the outliers, and it’s not typical to do so,” points out Nidal.

Dealing with discrimination

Former Dubai resident Farah Abdulrahman researched the social experiences and masking behaviours of autistic adults in the UAE in 2022 for her undergraduate dissertation at Heriot-Watt University Dubai. The results were disquieting: out of the eight people that she interviewed, most of them felt like they couldn't reveal their diagnosis at work. “One of the interviewees said that if they disclosed they are autistic at a job interview, they will get rejected even without an explanation,” says Farah, who works as an assistant psychologist in London. The participants also revealed other fears — like being called words like ‘retarded’ or ‘autistic’ as slurs, and colleagues expecting them to have frequent meltdowns.

Such discrimination pursues candidates right from the interview room to their workspace. “They often report being infantilised, being given less responsibilities and being pressured to go above and beyond what is required,” says Farah. They begin people-pleasing as they want to be seen as competent at work.

Predictably, it has disastrous results. Unable to cope with the sensory overload, they feel thoroughly burnt out at the end of the day and switch to survival mode, with their personal lives taking the biggest hit.

Breaking stereotypes

Movies and TV shows often perpetuate the idea that neurodivergent people are math geniuses, prodigies or gifted diagnosticians. And sometimes, companies take such exaggerated portrayals too literally.

Olga dos Santos Martins Coelho is the founder and CEO of Neuroinclusionlab, a one-year-old start-up which provides consultancy services to neurodivergent candidates looking for jobs, as well as companies that want to hire such workers. “Companies, especially in the IT and finance sectors, have this misconception that such candidates will be geniuses who’ll come up with ideas and solutions all the time. They may be able to identify certain patterns and dimensions that are important in specific areas like when working with algorithms or in IT, but it doesn’t mean that they are all geniuses,” explains Olga, who has a PhD in psychology. “Companies have to welcome them by meeting their needs and look at the advantages of their working style instead of focussing on the differences.”

“For instance, people with ADHD and dyslexia can be brilliant real estate agents because of their energy and power to convince people,” she adds.

Uzma Akser, neurodiversity consultant, coach and founder of Uzma Akser Coaching and Consulting, points out that multiple challenges like the lack of awareness among employers persist. “Additionally, the hiring process itself can be a barrier, with traditional interviews not always being the best method to assess the capabilities of neurodiverse individuals,” she says.

Bridging the gap in awareness

Salem Mohammed was diagnosed as being under the autism spectrum in Grade 4. “After that, I came to the Special Needs Future Development Centre where I learnt mathematics, photography and art among other things,” he says.

The 26-year-old, currently working at the centre, is gearing up for an internship at a multinational company in Dubai. He has also had successful stints as an intern at places like JSS Private School and Brunel. In the latter, where his three-month contract was extended to six months, he worked as HR and accounts assistant and says that employees were friendly and assisted him with PowerPoint presentations and Microsoft Word. “I also learned to edit photos and videos,” he adds.

But workers like Salem find it challenging to convert internship positions into full-time jobs. “Companies need to create a job profile for people of determination (the term for people with disabilities in the UAE, according to the government’s official portal) as they won’t fit into existing job profiles,” explains Prerana Sinha, programme coordinator at the centre. During the Covid-19 pandemic, several companies had reached out to the centre while recruiting for full-time positions and internships, but the pace had slackened a bit. “But it is picking up gradually and there is definitely more awareness,” she says.

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