Most organisations approach neurodivergence the same way they approach disability inclusion broadly — they wait for someone to disclose, and then try to accommodate the individual.
The problem with that approach is that most people never disclose. Not because they don’t need support. But because the culture hasn’t made it safe enough to say so.
Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria is a good example of this. RSD is most commonly associated with ADHD. It’s an intense emotional response to perceived rejection or criticism — and it can be triggered by things that most workplaces consider completely normal. An unanswered message. Ambiguous feedback. Being left off an email chain. Finding out about a decision after it was already made.
None of those things is intentionally harmful. But for someone with RSD, they don’t land as minor inconveniences. They can land as rejection — intense, destabilising, and hard to shake.
And because RSD is invisible, and because most people experiencing it have learned to mask it at work, most organisations have no idea it’s happening.
Here’s what I want to offer: you don’t need to know who in your organisation has RSD to make meaningful changes. The strategies that reduce the impact of RSD on the people experiencing it are the same strategies that make any workplace more human. They don’t require disclosure. They don’t require a diagnosis. They just require intention.
What actually helps — without requiring anyone to disclose anything:
1. Close the loop — even when there’s nothing new to report
One of the most common RSD triggers in workplaces is silence. A proposal goes in, and nobody hears anything. A message is sent, and there’s no response. A meeting happens, and nobody follows up.
The antidote is simple: close the loop. Even a brief “I’ve received this and will come back to you by Thursday” removes the ambiguity that silence creates. It doesn’t take long. It makes an enormous difference to people who experience RSD — and frankly, to most people.
2. Make feedback specific and timely
Vague feedback is fertile ground for RSD. “Good work, but there are some things to improve” leaves too much space for a person with RSD to fill in the worst possible interpretation of what those things might be. Specific, timely feedback — even when it’s critical — is far less activating than ambiguity.
This doesn’t mean softening feedback. It means being clear. “The structure of the report works well. The recommendations section needs more specificity — here’s what I mean:” is kinder and more useful than “The report needs work.”
3. Keep people in the loop on decisions that affect them
Being left out of a conversation, finding out about a decision after the fact, or discovering you weren’t included in an email chain — these are common workplace experiences that most people find mildly annoying. For someone with RSD, they can feel like an active exclusion.
A culture that keeps people informed — not micromanaged, just informed — removes a significant source of RSD triggers without anyone having to ask for it.
4. Normalise explicit communication norms
Many RSD triggers stem from ambiguity about communication expectations. How quickly should someone respond to a message? Does a short reply mean the person is busy or annoyed? Is silence a signal?
Teams that make their communication norms explicit — “we aim to respond to messages within 24 hours,” “a short reply doesn’t mean anything beyond a short reply” — remove much of the interpretive work that people with RSD are constantly doing in the background.
5. Separate the work from the person in feedback conversations
RSD is often activated most intensely when criticism of work feels like criticism of the person. A culture that consistently separates the two — “this piece of work needs X” rather than “you need to do better at X” — creates conditions where feedback lands more safely for everyone.
6. Check in proactively, not just when something is wrong
Many workplaces only check in with staff when there’s a problem. For someone with RSD, a check-in that only happens when something has gone wrong quickly becomes associated with bad news, so any check-in can trigger an RSD response.
Proactive, regular check-ins that are genuinely about how someone is going — not performance management in disguise — build the kind of relational safety that makes RSD easier to manage.
The bigger point:
None of these strategies requires anyone to disclose anything. They don’t require a diagnosis, a formal accommodation, or a conversation about RSD. They are simply better ways of working that reduce ambiguity, increase clarity, and keep people genuinely connected to what’s happening around them in matters that involve them.
That’s the design principle behind truly inclusive workplaces. Not “how do we accommodate the people who tell us they need something different” — but “how do we build an environment where people don’t need to ask in the first place?”
RSD is one example. The same principle applies across neurodivergence, disability, and most of the invisible things people carry to work every day.
You don’t need to know who needs it. You just need to build it.
Over to you:
What’s one communication norm in your team that could be made more explicit? Share it in the comments — I’d love to hear what’s working.
