Diversity of minds means diversity in ideas. That’s why as a firm with 25,000 people raising awareness and understanding of neurodiversity is an important area of focus for PwC UK, as we continue to build a truly inclusive culture.
Focused on giving our people resources to enhance their awareness of disability and neurodiversity and transform this into action, PwC UK launched their #EnablingEveryone campaign. Designed in response to feedback from our people, the campaign aims to increase knowledge and acceptance in the workplace.
Building on this campaign, last year PwC UK launched their award-winning training, ‘Great Minds (don’t think alike)’. This was a collaboratively designed intervention developed by the Inclusion, Culture and Wellbeing team alongside the PwC UK DAWN (Disability Awareness Network) group. A purposeful collaboration with the intent of bringing lived experience to the forefront of an inclusive design process.
Designed to build understanding of what neurodiversity is and what it means to be neurodivergent, the programme aims to help our people develop skills to be inclusive leaders.
The learning explores the topic of neurodiversity with a variety of bite-sized resources, featuring compelling stories and experiences from our own people. Thorough in nature it includes: a video, an interactive digital experience, conversational playing cards, a self-facilitated workshop, and a neurodiversity toolkit, all wrapped in scenario-based pathways to help learners identify what would be helpful to them.
“The training empowers our people to be observant, curious and proactive in challenging their ways of working to be inclusive, as opposed to relying on someone sharing that they are disabled or neurodivergent.”
The results
More than 5,000 people have engaged with this training so far. It’s helping to foster understanding and empathy, empowering our teams to be comfortable and confident in collaborating and building a working environment in which everyone can thrive. This, in turn, is enabling our neurodivergent colleagues to feel more confident in day-to-day interactions, as well as sharing what support they need to help them achieve their potential.
Furthermore, PwC UK’s dedication to disability inclusion was recognised at the 2024 Disability Smart Awards, where the Great Minds (don’t think alike) programme won the Disability Smart Inclusive Workplace Experience award.
Participant testimonials
"I have just completed [the training] and found it very engaging and informative. I like the immersive experience and it has made me reflect on what I can do to improve the experience for others as well as prompting me to think about how we can make discussing different needs and preferences easier and more expected."
"For me it is opening up doors to discuss my own neurodiversity with other colleagues knowing they have access to this information, but I also feel really encouraged to relax and be myself a lot more."
"The training uses immersive and storytelling techniques to bring you into the experience and help you feel empathy towards those experiencing workplace challenges as a result of neurodiversity. Being able to "feel" that sense of increased anxiety and tension helped me to understand how it must feel to experience that."
We are for all
Our focus on inclusion unlocks the power and potential of a diverse community of solvers
Fostering an environment where people with disabilities can thrive
Our Disability Inclusion driver for change
