Friend of FAIRER interview: Joanne Sime

About Joanne Sime

Joanne Sime is Head of Global Inclusion, Wellbeing and Culture at TUI, leading the organisation’s continued commitment to creating a truly inclusive workplace. With two decades of HR experience and 16 years at TUI, she has worked across retail, airline, contact centres and European head office teams, shaping talent, leadership and culture strategies. Joanne has been a dedicated champion of inclusion and one of the driving forces behind TUI’s Neurodiversity Community Network. Having been diagnosed in later life as autistic and ADHD, Joanne leverages her lived experience to promote meaningful, people-centred inclusion across TUI.

Reflecting on the complex nature of DE&I, Joanne shares why inclusion should remain at the heart of the business.

"Our focus at TUI is that people can truly come as they are, feel respected as their authentic selves and still feel like they belong. One of the biggest challenges for D&I is external perceptions. There’s more scepticism about D&I now because of the external context - there’s a lot of bias that’s created inadvertently through news, politics and social media. Fairness doesn't look the same for everyone. It’s a challenge for our people and our leaders.

"I want us to shift toward inclusion and help people feel included, regardless of whether they have a protected characteristic. At TUI we’re aiming for inclusion by default - not just inclusion by design. We’d love to reach a point where inclusion ‘just happens’ because it's embedded in how we think and everything we do.

Creating a neuro-inclusive culture at TUI

Joanne shares three ways TUI is actively promoting awareness, understanding and conscious inclusion for neurodiversity in the workplace.

Normalising neurodiversity by amplifying voices

"We’ve just launched a guide to understanding and managing neurodiversity in the workplace, created by my colleague Donna, using her own lived experience and reviewed by colleagues across our Neurodiversity Community Network, with a video featuring senior leaders, including myself, talking about their neurodivergence or allyship. We want to amplify those voices and make it feel normal, especially as the link between neurodiversity and wellbeing is undeniable. If environments aren’t right, it leads to burnout. Fairness and equity are deeply entrenched traits for many autistic and ADHD individuals. If the world doesn’t feel fair, it can really start to eat at you."

Removing barriers in talent acquisition

"We’ve already looked at talent acquisition – neutralising language in role profiles and job adverts, and sharing interview questions in advance so it’s not a memory test. At the moment, we share half of the interview questions, but if someone declares their neurodivergence or requires an adjustment, we can share all of the questions beforehand."

Raising awareness of neurodiversity

"In our UK&I business we brought together colleagues from across the employee journey – talent acquisition, employer branding, inclusion and wellbeing, employee relations – to attend awareness and deep‑dive sessions, so they can take it back and apply it in their own areas. We’re using external partners where helpful, including Perfectly Autistic and Thrive, and it’s really important to us that the organisations we work with have lived experience of neurodiversity. We’re also running some internal training run by neurodivergent colleagues, and we’re exploring how we can do more of this on an ongoing basis."

Training for colleagues

"One of my co-leads on the Neurodiversity Employee Network, Greg started the project to look at neurodiversity from a customer perspective but we needed to get things right internally first. Our other co-lead, Ash, created a learning collection so colleagues could find our neurodiversity learning content in one place. Perfectly Autistic delivered lived‑experience training, and over 3,000 customer‑facing colleagues have been through the training, including retail, assisted travel and contact centres as well as many of our head office teams."

Neuro-inclusive customer experience

"We created neuro‑friendly shopping – appointments in our retail stores where we can lower lighting, turn off music and reduce noise so it’s more sensory‑friendly. We now have a booking team who can support customers with additional needs before they book, not just after they purchase their holiday. We’ve made many changes to our policies, for example, previously you could only have additional baggage if it was medical. Now it’s about what you need to feel comfortable – blankets from home, specific food, and so on, which makes holidays more accessible for many neurodivergent families."

Inclusive hotels

"We’ve also launched our first two sensory rooms in two TUI Blue hotels and worked with SENNIES (special educational needs childcare agency) to train our in‑resort childcare teams so they can better support neurodivergent customers. We’ve started planning how to support neurodivergent adults in resort. We’re one of the only organisations that can influence so much of the end‑to‑end journey – from the retail store or online all the way through to returning home – and we’re trying to embed support at every step. At Birmingham Airport, when I’ve worn a sunflower lanyard, colleagues have spotted it and taken me through a different route to make life in a busy airport more manageable for me and the kids. Seeing it in action really does make a difference."

Balancing fairness at a global scale

"Some markets have established inclusion and wellbeing roles; others have people doing inclusion and wellbeing work on top of their day job. Culturally, things can be very different – even within Europe. A single session won’t land the same way in every market. We’re taking a two-pronged approach: a global offer that works for everyone, alongside local activity to allow flexibility for cultural needs. We have a community of D&I HR ambassadors – an ambassador in each market – who can take content and adapt it in a way that works locally.

"Data is a challenge. In a global organisation we’re piecing together data from different places, and in some countries we’re legally limited in what we can ask. We’re working toward a short‑term data collection to give us a baseline, and a longer‑term plan that creates psychological safety so people are more comfortable sharing. We need to keep finding people who are passionate and who can make a difference to how people feel working at TUI."

A word from Laura

Laura Drakeford, Inclusion Partner at FAIRER, shares her key takeaways from Joanne's interview.

Organisations should design systems for neurodiversity inclusion by default, rather than relying solely on disclosure. They should ask: "Where does neurodiversity show up across our employee journey?" rather than "Do we have a neurodiversity initiative?"

Hearing leaders and colleagues openly discuss neurodivergence can reduce stigma and promote psychological safety – which will encourage disclosure, allow people to feel safe, and build empathy across global teams.

If you'd like to be considered for an expert interview, or want to further discuss any of the themes covered in Joanne's interview, please get in touch.