Transparent, neuroinclusive promotion and pay practices help ensure employees’ strengths and contributions are recognised fairly, creating clearer opportunities for career growth and giving valued talent reasons to stay.
By Joseph K Muscat
Opening Perspective
Career progression can appear to follow a straight line—until we consider the variables that shape it. What is obvious to some is not obvious to everyone. Unwritten expectations, subjective judgements and a greater emphasis on social visibility can make the goalposts feel as though they are constantly shifting.
Hiring neurodivergent employees or describing a workplace as neuroinclusive is only part of the picture. Without clear pathways to advancement, employees may struggle to see how they can build a fulfilling career within the organisation. The enthusiasm they bring can turn into disengagement when they encounter barriers they cannot identify or navigate.
Transparent criteria, clear guidance and appropriate support can help reduce these barriers, making promotion and pay decisions easier to understand and navigate.
Going beyond good intentions
We have to ask: what does career progression look like for each role in your organisation? Have those pathways been mapped out, and do employees understand the opportunities available and what is required to access them?
Alongside those pathways, we need to consider whether neurodivergent employees feel psychologically safe and valued at work. Awareness alone does not answer these questions. The City & Guilds Foundation’s 2026 Neurodiversity Index, produced in partnership with Do-IT Solutions, highlights a widening gap between employer confidence and employees’ experiences. Despite growing awareness, employees continue to report inconsistent support, delays in workplace adjustments and lower psychological safety.
A 2025 systematic review, Neurodivergence and the Workplace, also identifies stigma and ineffective inclusion policies as challenges. Importantly, it highlights gaps in understanding long-term career development and job retention. These findings raise a practical question: how far do good intentions translate into opportunities to progress?
Workplace culture can be difficult to navigate when expectations are unwritten and judgements are subjective. The goalposts can move, but so can the definition of what counts as a goal.
Consider leadership. How does your organisation define it, and how do decision-makers recognise it? What happens when a neurodivergent employee demonstrates leadership qualities in a way that differs from a manager’s expectations?
The same questions apply to recognition. Why is one contribution recognised while another is overlooked? Are employees assessed against clear criteria, or does recognition depend on whose work is most visible and whose communication style is most familiar?
When these expectations remain unclear, employees are still expected to know when and how to express interest in a promotion or pay rise. Progression can then depend on interpreting unwritten rules rather than understanding a transparent process.
The 2024 scoping review, Career progression for autistic people, brings this concern into focus. Drawing on 33 studies, it suggests that many autistic people experience underemployment, including roles that do not reflect their skills or qualifications. It also identifies potential barriers such as inadequate organisational support and inaccessible promotion processes. However, none of the included studies directly focused on career progression, so the findings offer preliminary insight rather than definitive conclusions.
Support also needs to arrive in time to be useful. The City & Guilds Foundation’s summary of its 2026 Index highlights waits exceeding three months for workplace adjustments. If employees are waiting for support while their performance is being assessed, we need to question how fairly those assessments reflect their capabilities.
Although the career progression review focuses specifically on autistic people, the broader workplace review raises related concerns about inclusion across neurodivergent groups. This does not mean that every neurotype has the same experience. It does mean that organisations should examine whether their practices create barriers rather than assuming that recruitment or awareness demonstrates inclusion.
From a practical perspective, I see three connected barriers.
The first is failing to understand the person. A people-centred approach requires managers to learn about an employee’s strengths, support needs and career aspirations. Where do they want to go, and what does meaningful progression look like for them?
The second is failing to turn that understanding into action. Conversations need to lead to timely adjustments, relevant development opportunities and a clear pathway forward. Understanding someone’s needs has limited value if nothing changes.
The third is communication. The autistic career progression review identifies assumptions about social communication differences as a potential obstacle to advancement. This should prompt us to examine how communication is interpreted and judged at work.
Think of it as learning another person’s language: a useful analogy for recognising that their way of expressing an idea may differ from yours. Managers and colleagues need to make an effort to understand those differences. Employees can also benefit from clear guidance about audience expectations, where relevant. That responsibility should be shared, rather than placed entirely on the neurodivergent employee.
Finally, consider the questions we ask about motivation. “What motivates you to do this job?” or “Why do you want to climb the ladder?” may be useful, but they leave out another important conversation: “How is your well-being? What supports it, and what undermines it?”
When progression feels blocked or unpredictable, employees may experience frustration, reduced confidence or anxiety about their future. Rather than interpreting this simply as a lack of ambition, leaders should examine the conditions surrounding it.
Well-being can offer insight into an employee’s experience, but it is not a complete measure of whether they feel valued. Recognition, access to support and fair opportunities to progress also matter. Going beyond good intentions means making those commitments visible in everyday decisions about development, promotion and pay.
Workplace culture can be difficult to navigate when expectations are unwritten and judgements are subjective. The goalposts can move, but so can the definition of what counts as a goal.
Transparency Supports Equity
In the previous section, “Going beyond good intentions”, I identified a second barrier: failing to take timely action to turn understanding into practical support for productivity, performance and career progression.
Let’s consider this from a project management perspective, supported by clear standard operating procedures (SOPs). We begin with scope: what are we trying to achieve? The objective is to establish equity as the standard for supporting neurodivergent talent, creating conditions in which employees can contribute and develop.
That means setting clear expectations while recognising that people may need different forms of support to meet them. It also means working towards an environment where neurodivergent employees feel safe to be themselves, without pressure to mask or being judged simply because they think, communicate or work differently.
What might equity look like in practice? For starters, it could mean adjusting lighting and noise levels to meet an employee’s sensory needs, or providing access to a quieter room where those conditions can be controlled. Flexible working hours may also help an employee manage sensory demands and energy levels.
Meeting arrangements offer another example. Sending an agenda in advance, highlighting where an employee’s input is needed and allowing time afterwards for further thoughts and questions can create more accessible opportunities for engagement and creative thinking.
These adjustments give employees different ways to contribute and demonstrate their capabilities. If those contributions inform promotion or pay decisions, they should receive fair consideration regardless of when or how they are communicated.
Equity also involves supporting psychological safety. The four-stage model offers a useful framework: creating belonging and acceptance; making it safe to learn, ask questions and make mistakes; welcoming contributions expressed through different communication styles; and enabling employees to challenge established thinking and procedures without fear of humiliation or retaliation.
For career progression, this means employees should feel safe to discuss their ambitions, request support and question how promotion and pay decisions are made.
Within that scope, an organisation can map out a clear pathway for career progression. From a people-centred perspective, this pathway should connect the employee’s aspirations with transparent progression criteria, relevant development opportunities and the support needed to move forward.
What Neuroinclusive Progression Looks Like
The EU Pay Transparency Directive offers a useful starting point. Its focus is equal pay between women and men, including accessible, objective and gender-neutral criteria for determining pay and pay progression. Those principles can also inform a broader approach to neuroinclusive career development.
Building on that foundation, organisations can take nine practical steps:
Make progression criteria transparent. Clearly explain the skills, responsibilities and outcomes required for promotion and pay progression. Document what employees need to demonstrate, who makes decisions and who is responsible for providing support.
Use a structured assessment process. Explain how capabilities and outcomes will be assessed. Apply relevant criteria consistently, supported by evidence rather than personal impressions.
Set clear milestones and review dates. Identify the steps required, what will be reviewed and when. Give employees regular feedback so they understand their progress and where further development is needed.
Offer different ways to demonstrate capability. Recognise that employees may work and communicate differently. Where appropriate, provide alternative ways to demonstrate the same relevant skills and outcomes.
Prepare managers to support different neurotypes. Provide training and practical guidance on neuroinclusive management, while ensuring managers understand each employee’s individual strengths, aspirations and support needs.
Review workplace accommodations. Check that agreed accommodations have been delivered and are effective. Revisit them when responsibilities, roles or working environments change.
Provide mentoring and coaching where appropriate. These can form part of an employee’s support plan, helping them navigate expectations, develop skills and work towards their career goals.
Monitor progression and retention. Review who receives promotions and pay increases, who does not, and why. When employees leave, explore whether limited progression opportunities or unmet support needs contributed to their decision.
Make information accessible. Use clear language and accessible formats for progression criteria, feedback and decisions. Give employees opportunities to ask questions and check their understanding.
Overall, the aim is to create an individualised career development plan within a clear and consistent organisational framework. A single approach may seem easier to manage, but employees have different strengths, aspirations and support needs.
An individualised plan, with sufficient scaffolding, connects where the employee is now with where they want to go and what the organisation requires. The progression criteria remain clear, while the support and route towards meeting them can vary.
Questions Organisations Should Ask
The following questions offer a starting point for reviewing your organisation’s approach to career progression:
Can every employee easily find and understand our promotion and pay progression criteria?
Are decisions based on clearly defined, relevant skills and outcomes, or on subjective assumptions about potential?
Do employees receive clear, actionable development feedback before a promotion opportunity arises?
Can employees request and receive appropriate adjustments during progression assessments?
Are we reviewing promotion and pay outcomes for patterns of unequal access, and taking action where barriers are identified?
Conclusion
Career progression does not always follow a straight line, and hiring neurodivergent employees does not, on its own, make an organisation inclusive.
A clear pathway matters. Understanding how neurodivergent employees work, recognising their strengths and responding to their support needs can help ensure that their skills, education and contributions are not overlooked. It also means making the progression process transparent, equitable and fair, with clear accountability for decisions.
Ultimately, this is about developing talent, creating opportunities for people to flourish and giving them reasons to stay. When neurodivergent employees can see a future within your organisation—and receive the support to work towards it—they have greater reason to feel valued.
Creating transparent and equitable career pathways requires clear processes, informed managers and support that responds to individual needs.
Through Joseph K Muscat Neurodiversity Consulting, I help organisations identify barriers to inclusion and turn good intentions into practical action. My services include:
Inclusion audits and consultancy to review workplace practices and identify opportunities for improvement.
Manager and leadership training to strengthen understanding of neurodivergent talent and develop practical, people-centred approaches.
Executive Function coaching to support employees in developing strategies that reflect their strengths, needs and professional goals.
If this article has raised questions about how your organisation supports progression, let’s start a conversation about making opportunities clearer, support more accessible and talent more valued.