Reducing Barriers to Workplace Accommodation for Neurodiverse Employees

Reducing Barriers to Workplace Accommodation for Neurodiverse Employees The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) established legal protections for employees with disabilities requiring workplace accommodations (American with Disabilities Act, 1990), however research demonstrates that neurodiverse employees continue to face barriers to disclosure and support (Doyle, 2020; Rollnik-Sadowska & Grabińska, 2024). Despite the implementation of formal accommodation request processes, a gap often remains between the accommodations employees receive and those they perceive as necessary (McDowall et al., 2023). This study aims to answer: How can organizations reduce barriers to satisfactory workplace accommodations for neurodiverse employees? Methods Guided by organizational support theory (OST), which focuses on employee perceptions of how much organizations value their well-being and contributions (Kurtessis et al., 2017), this research proposes a study examining how OST shapes access to and satisfaction with workplace accommodations. First, we survey neurodiverse employees to examine discrepancies between satisfaction with current accommodations and satisfaction with desired accommodations. Second, we test how organizational factors, specifically perceived organizational support (POS) and psychological safety, influence satisfaction with accommodations, intent to disclose neurodiversity, and perceived performance. Prior work suggests that anticipated stigma and low psychological safety are major deterrents to disclosure (Madaus, 2008; Toth & Dewa, 2014), which in turn limits access to adequate accommodation (Gignac et al., 2025). Finally, we experimentally evaluate whether structured accommodation request formats reduce barriers to access. Participants will be randomly assigned to request accommodations through an open-text form, a structured list, or a combined structured & open-text option. We hypothesize that providing structured lists, aligned with prior exploratory findings on technology based accommodations (Tomczak & Ziemiański, 2023), will increase satisfaction with accommodation processes, particularly for employees reporting lower baseline organizational support and psychological safety. Planned Analyses & Implications Planned analyses include paired t-tests for accommodation satisfaction measures, mediation models for organizational climate variables, and ANOVAs to test differences across experimental conditions. Data will be collected from a sample of employed adults who self identify as neurodiverse, recruited through Prolific. Expected findings will demonstrate that structured accommodation requests will reduce reliance on disclosure alone, improving accommodation satisfaction. Implications include evidence-based strategies for HR practitioners to proactively improve accommodation satisfaction, strengthen psychological safety, and overall organizational support. Together, these findings will advance both research and practice by clarifying how organizational systems can reduce barriers to neurodiverse employees' success at work.