The financial services industry needs to do more to create “psychologically safe” environments in order to better attract neurodivergent talent, according to Georgina Philippou senior adviser for equality at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
Philippou highlighted that the emergence of environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) issues would take diversity and inclusivity, including neurodiversity and disability, into prominence for businesses.
And she urged the financial services industry to become more proactive in being open and welcoming to neurodivergent people and for neurotypical people in the sector to be allies for them, with those firms who failed to do so not being able to get away with it much longer.
Speaking at the Group for Autism, Insurance, Investment & Neurodiversity (GAIN) Inclusion By Design event, Philippou revealed the regulator had encompassed this in the design of its Stratford offices which were setup with neurodiverse people in mind.
“As an industry we need to create psychologically safe environments,” Philippou said.
“The FCA is a conduct regulator and as part of our long standing work on culture in financial services firms we’ve emphasised the importance of creating speak up, listen up cultures, of creating psychologically safe environments, because we recognise that these are important contributory factors when it comes to better outcomes for customers of financial services.”
Touching on the FCA’s wider work in improving diversity across financial services, Philippou said the regulator has been on a journey itself and that is why it opted to start off with a discussion paper over a full consultation so that it could allow as much time as possible to collect feedback from the sector.
She added that the FCA’s drive to improve diversity has not come out of nowhere, adding it aligned with existing work on treating customers fairly, on the treatment of vulnerable customers, on fair pricing, emerging work on the new consumer duty and ESG issues as they rise up the agenda.
Equality Act exclusion for neurodiverse
In addressing the neurodivergent community directly, Philippou pointed to problems with the Equality Act 2010 as it does not specifically reference them – which has meant some neurodiverse people may not recognise themselves in the definition of disability in Act.
“The repercussions of this are that employers might not understand the application of the Act to neurodivergent colleagues and those neurodivergent colleagues might feel that they don’t belong to any particular group and might not feel included in any corporate initiatives aimed at the disabled,” Philippou said.
Touching on why it is so important to tackle this issue, Philippou explained that Acas data showed one in seven people are neurodivergent and ONS figures showed just 22% of autistic people were in any kind of employment.
She added this was doubly troubling as employment is so important to providing purpose and social interaction for neurodivergent people – as it is for everyone.
Philippou explained while neurodivergent and autistic people typically possess the skills necessary to thrive in STEM environments, there were also great examples of neurodivergent and autistic people thriving in creative industries – especially art, performing art and music.
Adjustments for hiring
In order to attract neurodivergent people to work in organisations, Philippou suggested firms could make it clear that neurodivergent people are welcome to apply for jobs, draft job descriptions so they focus on essential rather than desirable skills or provide interview questions in advance to candidates.
She added they could also hire and train small cohorts to create instant communities at work and pair people up with an office buddy and counsellor.
Other mitigations include provide reading materials in advance of meetings and making clear the purpose and outcome of meetings.
And she emphasised that neurodiverse people needed neurotypical people to act as allies
As the event came to a close, Philippou warned organisations who fail to up their game risk missing out on neurodivergent talent and would not be able to get away with it for much longer.
