Designing for All Brains: Cognitive Safety and the Future of Equitable Workplaces

Workplace wellness is everywhere these days, on strategy decks, in team newsletters, baked into office perks. But too often, it’s all surface: yoga breaks, meditation apps, maybe a mental health day here and there. What rarely gets talked about is the structure of work itself. Who it’s built for. Who gets left out. And what it actually takes to feel safe, well, and supported at work, not just on a good day, but every day.

What’s finally starting to come into focus is that real well-being isn’t about individual coping strategies; it’s about how work is structured in the first place. Too often, workplace leave behind people who process, communicate, or move through the world differently, especially those who don’t fit into dominant norms around attention, energy, emotional expression, or productivity.

In Canada, the impacts of this disconnect are stark. Only 33% of autistic adults are employed, compared to 59% of people with disabilities overall, and 80% of those without disabilities. Workers with ADHD often face steep income gaps, job instability, and higher rates of burnout, not because of a lack of talent or motivation, but because most workplaces still aren’t built to support executive function differences, sensory sensitivities, or non-linear ways of working. A 2021 CAMH report on neurodiversity and employment in Canada highlights how these challenges are systemic, not individual, reflecting how deeply our systems privilege conformity over cognitive diversity.

This is where the concept of cognitive safety enters the conversation.

Cognitive safety describes the conditions in which people feel secure expressing, processing, and operating in ways that align with how their brains actually function, rather than constantly masking or performing neurotypicality just to be seen as competent.

When designed into the workplace intentionally and systemically, cognitive safety plays a critical role in advancing mental health, wellness, and equity, not only for neurodivergent employees but for anyone whose capacity to meet rigid expectations might be disrupted by grief, trauma, chronic illness, depression, or other life experiences that affect how we show up.

Cognitive safety involves strategies to protect individuals from mental overload, stress, and distractions that impair thinking and decision-making, especially in safety-critical situations. By reducing cognitive strain, it helps maintain focus, improve performance, and support well-being. This includes designing workflows and environments that minimize unnecessary mental burdens and promote clear, effective thinking.

While psychological safety has entered mainstream workplace discourse, it’s often misunderstood or reduced to a vague idea of “being nice.” Originally, psychological safety means a team’s shared belief that interpersonal risks, asking questions, admitting mistakes, or disagreeing with authority, won’t lead to punishment or humiliation.

Cognitive safety builds on that foundation by focusing specifically on conditions that allow diverse cognitive styles to be seen, valued, and used. Psychological safety might ensure someone feels comfortable admitting they don’t know something; cognitive safety ensures they can communicate or process that uncertainty in ways that align with their neurotype, whether that means taking more time to respond, using nonverbal communication, or engaging asynchronously.

The two work hand-in-hand. Without cognitive safety, psychological safety becomes conditional, available only to those who communicate within neurotypical norms. Without psychological safety, cognitive safety risks being confined to technical accommodations rather than a broader cultural commitment to inclusion. Together, they lay the groundwork for workplaces that aren’t just inclusive in theory but structurally able to support diverse ways of being and working.

One of the most profound yet underexplored aspects of cognitive safety is its connection to mental health. Rather than treating mental health as a private challenge employees must “manage” alone, cognitive safety reframes it as a collective, infrastructural issue. A 2022 joint study by Deloitte Canada and auticon found that 47% of autistic Canadians don’t disclose their diagnosis at work for fear of discrimination, and nearly half of those who do face negative consequences. Many mask their natural traits to appear “professional,” leading to exhaustion, burnout, and worsening mental health.

Unclear instructions, rapid-fire meetings, constant multitasking, and overstimulating environments might feel normal, especially to leadership who’ve adapted to these norms, but they can be deeply destabilizing. For neurodivergent employees, these conditions can make it difficult to focus, communicate, or regulate energy without significant emotional labor. But the impact doesn’t stop there. Many of these stressors, like the cognitive drain of back-to-back Zoom calls, constant notifications, and the pressure to always be “on,” exhaust neurotypical employees too. Whether someone is navigating grief, trauma, postpartum shifts, chronic illness, or simply the cumulative fatigue of modern work culture, these environments quickly become overwhelming and unsustainable.

Cognitive safety offers an alternative. Clarity, flexibility, and choice, through predictable communication, reduced sensory overload, or the freedom to structure one’s day around energy rather than urgency, reduce the unspoken strain so many carry. While these practices are essential for neurodivergent inclusion, they are also deeply protective for everyone. They create work environments that are less about keeping up appearances and more about supporting people to do their best thinking, creating, and collaborating in sustainable ways.

When a workplace recognizes that cognitive and emotional capacity naturally fluctuate across different life stages and builds in flexibility accordingly, it moves away from rigid productivity norms toward something more human and sustainable.

Cognitive safety shifts us from the accommodation model, where individuals must request exceptions, to universal design, where systems proactively embrace diversity. This doesn’t require huge investments or overhauls. Often, it starts with simple but meaningful changes: giving people the option to contribute in writing instead of speaking, offering asynchronous collaboration, creating quiet zones, establishing flexible deadlines, or making feedback processes reciprocal and trauma-informed.

Organizations adopting these approaches report meaningful improvements. The same Deloitte-auticon study found that 89% of employers said neurodivergent hires performed as well or better than their peers, and 97% of neurodivergent employees reported improved quality of life after joining inclusive environments. These aren’t just HR wins, they’re strategic, operational, and ethical wins.

To talk about workplace mental health or wellness without addressing cognitive safety is to miss the root causes of distress for many employees. And to talk about equity without acknowledging how race, gender, neurodivergence, and mental health intersect risks performative inclusion.

Cognitive safety isn’t a niche concern. It’s central to the future of work, especially for organizations committed to feminist, anti-racist, or trauma-informed values.

Designing for all brains isn’t about doing more, it’s about doing differently. And in that difference lies the potential to transform workplaces from sites of quiet harm into spaces of genuine belonging, creativity, and care.