Neurodiversity is the fact that human brains work differently. (Think biodiversity). Neurodivergent describes people whose brains differ from what is considered typical.
Some people think in systems. Some think in images. Some need movement to concentrate. Some need silence. Some do their best work under pressure. Some need every detail before they can start. Some process fast and speak slowly. Some speak fast and process later.
The term neurodiversity includes everyone. Neurotypical and neurodivergent. It is not a label for some people. It is a description of all people.
Where it matters at work is simple. Most workplaces were designed around one way of thinking, communicating, and being in a room. That works well for some people. For others, it means spending energy adapting to the environment instead of putting it into the work.
That gap is worth paying attention to. When people can work in a way that fits how they actually think, the work gets better. For them and for the organisation.
One thing I have learned from over a decade in this work is that you cannot close that gap with a training day. You close it by getting to know people as individuals. There is as much diversity within neurodivergence as there is within the neurotypical population.
Autistic people in the same team may need completely different things. No two ADHD working styles look the same. They can be opposite. AuDHD can look like different conditions depending on who you are talking to. One person needs a fixed routine. Another works best in bursts. Multiple dyslexic people have developed entirely different strategies for the same task. Dyspraxic individuals may not recognise their own diagnosis in each other. One reverses numbers when typing. The other types fluently and needs more time to plan a sequence of steps.
Same diagnosis. Different person. Every time.
A label is a starting point. It is never the whole picture.
That is what makes this work interesting and what makes it hard to do well. The organisations that get it right are not the ones that roll out a policy and move on. They are the ones that stay curious about the people in front of them.