During the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations discovered something they had previously considered impossible: remote work could be productive, sustainable, and effective for their company! For many neurodivergent and disabled employees, it was also the first time work environments felt genuinely accessible. As return-to-office (RTO) mandates continue to expand, organizations are beginning to lose sight of an important question: What happens when accessibility is mistaken for a perk rather than a legitimate workplace need?
I understand what it’s like to juggle various schedules, and both differing levels of productivity and capacity, for each employee. For me, it’s a small scale with just a few different people on my team. However, regardless of the size of your business, neurodivergent folks and those with disabilities are tasked with managing their workload, masking their reactions to certain situations and demands, and navigating problems in ways that may work best for them but that do not align with expectations of others.
Why Return-to-Office Policies Can Create New Barriers
There are difficulties stemming from sensory overload, commuting exhaustion, masking fatigue, loss of self-regulation strategies, and a lack of flexibility when having to work in a traditional office environment. This is ultimately why RTO policies may be causing harm to many of these employees.
Imagine an Autistic employee who completes deep-focus work efficiently from home but spends 70 minutes commuting, navigating traffic, bright lights, noise, unpredictable social interactions, and an open office environment. By the time they begin their actual job responsibilities, a meaningful portion of their attention and/or energy has already been spent. Likewise, an ADHD employee may rely on movement breaks, the use of fidget items, flexible scheduling, or task-switching strategies that are significantly easier to implement in a home environment than within a traditional office setting.
A study of disabled workers in the United Kingdom noted that remote work helped reduce cognitive fatigue and improved mental and physical well-being, as well as productivity. Many workers reported that having greater control over their environment made it easier to manage symptoms, conserve energy, and perform their jobs effectively.
Are Employees Really Less Productive at Home?
One of the most common arguments supporting RTO mandates is that employees are more productive when they can be observed in-person. However, research on remote and hybrid work has repeatedly produced mixed findings, with many studies showing equal or improved productivity when workers are given greater autonomy over how they structure their day. For neurodivergent and disabled employees, reduced interruptions, fewer sensory demands, and greater control over the work environment can significantly improve concentration, energy management, and overall job performance. Being perceived and judged can actually cause emotional dysregulation that inhibits workplace productivity for many of these employees!
There is a fear many employers harbor that remote work will lead to reduced productivity and disengagement. That fear often stems from taking breaks and fluctuations in workload capacity being labeled as “laziness” or a “lack of productivity.” Disabled and neurodivergent workers frequently thrive through intermittent breaks and bursts of focused work, especially depending on the task at hand. It is an internalized, ableist narrative many of us have been taught over many years and generations. One that we must actively challenge if we want workplace policies to better match the realities of human capacity.
Supporting Workers Through Collaboration, Not Compliance
Because the term neurodivergence often includes conditions that are recognized medically and legally as “disabilities or neurodevelopmental disorders” that also correlate with differences in how a person’s brain processes information, many neurodivergent individuals qualify for workplace accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) when those differences substantially impact major life activities. The same applies to workers with physical disabilities, many of which can co-occur with neurodivergence.
When requesting accommodations, the ADA states that they must be considered “reasonable,” which often places the burden on employees to explain and justify the support they need.
What would a neuroinclusive and affirming approach to this process look like?
For me, it starts with collaboration. An accommodation process that truly supports workers should involve shared problem-solving, mutual understanding, and curiosity. Employers and employees should work together to identify barriers, understand where capacity is being impacted, and explore what support might allow employees to perform at their best.
Research has demonstrated that accommodations designed for disabled employees often benefit many other workers as well, even when they do not completely eliminate the barriers being experienced by some. The more inclusive we become of one another’s needs, the better we become at adapting to change, supporting diverse work styles, and creating sustainable workplaces.
We must know how to engage in collaborative dialogue and participate in the interactive accommodation process. Without these skills, organizations risk falling into adversarial relationships and power struggles with employees who are simply trying to access the support they need.
When RTO Becomes a Tool for Attrition
While many organizations justify RTO mandates as a productivity initiative, there are reasons to question whether productivity is always the primary motivation behind these policies. Consider that, in 2025, Fortune reported that a quarter of bosses admitted their RTO mandates were intended to encourage staff to quit voluntarily rather than forcing organizations to conduct layoffs. When leaders feel unable to be transparent about financial realities, it can create systems that reward avoidance, distrust, and disconnection.
These dynamics are difficult to reconcile with healthy workplace cultures that are designed to support both organizational sustainability and employee well-being. From a financial standpoint alone, reducing burnout and improving belongingness can help sustain employee engagement, retention, and long-term performance.
Accessibility Benefits Everyone
Some final thoughts I’ve had lately involve how we are all still recovering from the pandemic in some way. During the COVID-19 lockdown, employers prioritized safety and survival as a means to justify remote work. Organizations adapted quickly because the stakes were clear.
Now that many of those immediate health concerns have subsided, some organizations appear to be moving back toward older assumptions about productivity, professionalism, and presence. Yet the pandemic revealed that many workplace norms previously viewed as essential were, in fact, flexible.
After all, in American culture we often label people as “functional” so long as their behavior matches the expectations of others. But without adequate emotional space, without environments that support social and sensory needs, and without consideration of varying capacities, those labels can be misleading. They may tell us who appears successful on the surface while obscuring who is struggling underneath.
If you assume that employees want to work from home to avoid responsibility, or that remote work inherently leads to poor performance, you may be operating from an ableist assumption without realizing it. The reality is far more complex.
This conversation only scratches the surface of the work I do at Humane Praxis. My hope is that we continue building workplaces that are as accessible and inclusive as possible—not simply for a minority group of workers, but as part of a broader cultural shift toward systems that recognize, respect, and support human diversity.