Gethin Nadin on Choosing Your Employer Wisely + 79% Surge in Neurodiversity Claims

Inside This Issue:

Here's something worth sitting with for a moment: MIT recently found that 95 percent of GenAI pilots have failed, not because the technology is broken, but because of human resistance.

That stat comes courtesy of award-winning EX leader Gethin Nadin, who we caught at UNLEASH World Paris for an exclusive conversation about vocation, velocity, and what the next frontier of employee experience actually looks like.

His advice for the next generation of HR leaders? Choose your employer wisely, because who you work for will fundamentally shape your ability to make a real difference.

Meanwhile, UK employment tribunals are seeing a 79 percent surge in neurodiversity discrimination claims, driven largely by inflexible RTO mandates and managers who lack the training to support neurodivergent talent. If you're not proactively auditing your workplace for accessibility barriers, you're already behind.

Let's dig in.

Featured Insights:

Award-Winning EX Leader Gethin Nadin on Vocation, Velocity, and Choosing Your Employer Wisely

Gethin Nadin just received a lifetime achievement award for his work as an EX trailblazer, and his perspective on the field's evolution is essential reading. He argues that AI won't succeed without employee buy-in, pointing to MIT research showing 95 percent of GenAI pilots failing due to workforce resistance.

His view on the future? As AI automates more tasks, the humans who remain will require greater investment in uniquely human skills—empathy, creativity, strategic thinking—which means EX investments will become more critical, not less.

His advice to emerging HR leaders is blunt: your employer matters more than you think. Go where you can make real impact and where you'll be supported, not where HR is sidelined or performative.

Read the full article.

Tribunal Alert—Neurodiversity Discrimination Claims Surge by 79%

Employment tribunal cases citing neurodiversity discrimination jumped from 102 to 183 last year—a 79 percent increase that should be setting off alarms across UK HR departments. The primary drivers? Rigid return-to-office mandates that strip away adjustments neurodivergent employees relied on during remote work, mismanaged performance reviews where managers misinterpret communication styles as disengagement, and a reactive rather than proactive approach to reasonable adjustments.

Forty-four percent of claims involve dyslexic individuals, suggesting systemic failures around written communication and assessment. The fix requires three immediate actions: mandate adjustment audits (not just policies), invest in specialized line manager training beyond generic D&I programs, and explicitly integrate neurodiversity considerations into your hybrid work framework.

Read the full article.

From Our Vault

Strike Out—What Industrial Action Tells Us About Company Culture

Strikes aren't really about pay,vthey're about cumulative relationship failures and eroded trust. This piece explores why industrial action is often the result of poor communication, rapid change without employee buy-in, and cultures that allow negativity to build unchecked.

Essential reading as economic pressures continue and 'resenteeism' rises among workers staying in unfulfilling roles due to a slowing jobs market..

Read the full article.

The Extra Point

Your Contact List Is Full of HR Leaders Who Made the Wrong Choice

Gethin Nadin said something in our interview that deserves more attention: his contact list is full of HR leaders who joined organizations hoping to drive meaningful change, only to discover the role was sidelined or worse, performative.

This isn't just career advice but a diagnostic tool for where you are right now. Ask yourself: do you have board attention? Real budget authority? The ability to link people strategy to business outcomes in ways that actually influence decisions? Or are you constantly fighting for scraps, justifying your existence, and watching your best ideas die in committees?

If it's the latter, you're not failing, you're in the wrong organization. The work matters too much to waste it somewhere it won't be valued. Choose wisely.