Hiring and manager practice — the first two audit dimensions

Hiring and manager practice are where most of an org's neurodiversity outcomes are set. These are also the two dimensions where the current default of most progressive nonprofits is unintentionally exclusionary.

Hiring. Most progressive nonprofit hiring runs on three legs: a JD, a structured interview process, and references. Each leg has predictable problems for autistic candidates that the audit asks you to look at directly.

• The JD. Look at the qualifications. 'Excellent communication skills' is often code for 'reads neurotypically'. 'Strong stakeholder relationships' often means 'comfortable with small talk'. Rewrite for observable behaviors: 'writes clear briefs', 'responds to stakeholders within one business day'.
• The interview. Unstructured, panel-led, eye-contact-heavy interviews systematically disadvantage candidates who think before they speak, who don't share the panel's communication norms, or who are interviewing in a second language. The audit asks: do you share questions in advance? Do you allow written components? Do you score on a rubric, or on 'fit'?
• References. 'Easy to work with' as a reference question often surfaces tone over substance. The audit asks: do your reference questions ask about specific outcomes, or about likability?
• Onboarding. A 30/60/90 plan with written expectations is the default for any new hire who would rather understand the job than guess at it — which is most of them.

Manager practice. The audit's manager-practice tab asks blunt yes/no questions: do your managers run weekly 1:1s? Do they use a written agenda? Do they have a written, current, signed-by-both 'Working With Me' or expectations doc with each report? Do they document feedback in writing? Do they know how their reports want to receive feedback?

A note on what is not in this audit dimension. We do not ask 'are your managers trained in neurodiversity'. Training is not the unit of measure. The unit of measure is practice. A manager who has been through three trainings but still runs ambush meetings and never writes feedback down is not yet a practitioner. A manager who has never been through a training but runs structured 1:1s, writes feedback down, and respects accommodations is. The audit measures behavior, not credentialing.

One blunt scoring rule the template uses: any dimension with no owner or no date is automatically scored 'red'. Aspiration without accountability is the most common form of nonprofit DEI theater. The audit refuses it.

The Management Center's Three Dimensions framework lives well inside this audit: equitable, sustainable, results-driven. Manager practice is scored against all three.