Strategy & Sustainability: The Closed Stimulus Loop

For businesses that seek to increase the productivity of neurodivergent workers, it starts with adapting, or redefining, their workday. The structure of most workdays is built against their natural abilities. Working at a steady pace for eight hours is difficult for most—for some, it’s absolutely impossible.
This difficulty occurs because their brains don’t consistently provide automatic dopamine releases throughout the day. Neurotypical employees receive this regular release, which enables them to maintain momentum. Without that regular boost, neurodivergent employees struggle to focus, become easily sidetracked, make avoidable mistakes, and overall decrease their productivity.
Neurodivergent individuals often have to devise "hacks" so their brains provide the dopamine necessary to move forward. This can manifest in unhealthy, unmotivating, or distracting ways, such as eating sugary snacks, drinking too many energy drinks, distracting coworkers with messages/texts, or taking excessive “bathroom” breaks. Those actions are simply attempts to get the dopamine necessary to fuel their next burst of productivity.
An incredibly effective productivity cycle is working for an hour, then taking 15 minutes to recharge. The personal recharge is typically working on a home to-do list: work for an hour, then take 15 minutes to do laundry, then it’s back to work.
For anyone worried that lost time equals lost productivity—don't be. Many neurodivergent people have a 'secret ability': they’re able to hyperfocus for small increments of time. During hyperfocus, neurodivergent individuals are capable of honing in solely on the task at hand, working nonstop at a quick pace. These focus bursts typically lead them to producing as much, if not more, than their neurotypical peers, who tend to work at a 'slow and steady' pace to equally distribute their energy throughout the workday.
Managers could be using this hyperfocus to their advantage, rather than working against it. The cycle of work –> brain break –> work – brain break is the key. We shouldn't penalize a neurodivergent employee for needing to manually trigger the motivation their brain doesn't provide automatically.
If we give them the right tools and meet them where they’re most productive, we create a motivated team of individuals who demonstrate better-than-average productivity. Businesses that adapt to working with nature, rather than against it, will maximize overall productivity while simultaneously preventing employee burnout.

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