Hello all!
I hope you are enjoying the summer, we’re over the halfway point now for the school summer holidays (wahoo!), and September is fast approaching. I always quite liked September, fresh new schoolbooks and a new pencil case, but perhaps that is just the stationary nerd in me. Does anyone else have a stack of notebooks which have never been used?!
We recently spent a week in France which was chaotic to say the least! 4 families + 8 kids =absolute chaos. I think I needed another holiday to recover afterwards! We did have so much fun though and made some lovely memories. And it can’t have been that bad as we’ve rebooked for 2027. I will say the bread, cheese and wine definitely helped.
And then we had our team day last week, and you may have seen on my LinkedIn, but I managed to not only trip over a tree but also smack my head into one. Clumsy… me?? Never. One of my husband’s favourite stories to tell about me is when I fell over on Deansgate in Manchester following my graduation ceremony, and not just a little tumble, I was full on flat on my face on the floor in my nice dress and heels! And that was before we even had any prosecco. At least I didn’t fall on the stage walking up to get my degree though, now that would have been the most embarrassing moment ever!
One final life update (gosh I have been busy, haven’t I?!) this weekend I took my niece to Peak Wildlife Park because she absolutely loves animals. We had a lovely morning, we fed the wallabies, which she loved, we saw a zebra which had been born that morning(!) and we also got to see the polar bears have a play fight. Seeing polar bears in the peak district is quite surreal! I was absolutely wiped out Saturday night, I honestly don’t know how toddler parents do it?? I take my hat off to you.
Anyway, I digress, I’m actually here to give you an employment law update (not just a life one!) This one is about ADHD awareness and how important it is as an employer to get this right (and spoiler alert, it’s very important!) Regular followers of the Precept blog will know this is something we are passionate about.
An employment tribunal has found in the case of Capgemini UK v Bahar Khorram that not implementing a series of adjustments for an employee with ADHD meant that the employer had breached their duty under the Equality Act 2010.
The employee in this case lost on some of her claims (like harassment and broader discrimination), but she won on one key point: a failure to make reasonable adjustments. The employment tribunal was very clear on what those adjustments should have been, and it goes way beyond “let’s just be a bit more understanding.”
So, what happened? Well, the employee was open and disclosed to her employer that she had ADHD a few months into her role. She was sent to occupational health, and they flagged to her employer that this meant that she could struggle with things like juggling multiple projects, prioritising, or working with lots of ambiguity. From the point that the employer knew about the ADHD, the tribunal said that the company had a legal duty to make the adjustments.
What the tribunal expected of them, and this is the important part for us to listen to, was that the employer should have:
- Made tasks achievable and realistic: not vague, not overwhelming, and not a pile-on of competing priorities.
- Given the team some neurodiversity awareness training: so that colleagues understood ADHD a bit better.
- Run ADHD-specific training for the wider business: yes, training can be a “reasonable adjustment”!
- Provided ADHD coaching for the employee: helping with strategies and day-to-day coping.
- Coached the line manager too: because if your manager doesn’t know how to support, then the adjustments just won’t stick.
The tribunal made it clear that training and coaching isn’t just a nice to have, it can be a legally required reasonable adjustment in the right circumstances. In this case, it was found that the employer ended up cancelling most of the coaching sessions and never implemented the recommended training, something that the tribunal was not too impressed by.
So, make sure you listen to the occupational health report, and if they say, “do some ADHD training”, that’s not just something to pin to do for later, you need to get on it straight away. The tribunal was really clear that the duty to make adjustments kicks in the moment you know (or should reasonably know) about the disability. Waiting months to do anything about it, just won’t cut it.
If someone in your workforce discloses that they have ADHD (or any neurodivergence), here’s a quick HR checklist of what you should do:
- Log the date you found out (because that’s when the legal duty kicks in).
- Get occupational health input fast and ask them to spell out practical steps for you. If you’re unsure of the questions to ask, get in touch with us and we will be more than happy to help.
- Where reasonable, listen to that advice! Build a plan: set training dates, implement workload tweaks, and provide coaching support, and inform the employee of the steps you are taking. If you can’t take certain steps for practical reasons, then explain this to the employee and talk them through why this is the case.
- Coach both sides. Offer support to the employee and practical guidance to their manager.
- Document everything. Show your working, the costs, the timelines and keep a record of why you did or didn’t do something.
This case reminds us that adjustments for ADHD (or any disability) aren’t just something that are nice to have, they can (and often should) include formal training, coaching, and concrete changes to how work is set up for the employee.
As HR professionals, we’re not just “ticking the box” here. The law expects us to step in quickly, make real adjustments, and make sure managers know how to embed them day to day.
Because if we don’t? Well… this case is just the latest reminder of how that story ends.
And, as luck would have it, we are running two events on this topic.
If you’ve attended before, join us for an online recap on Wednesday, 10 September 2025, from 10:00–11:00 AM. We’ll be recapping the basics and bringing you bang up to date with the case law, plus we’ll be joined by somebody who will share their lived experience of neurodivergence at work. You can book your spot by clicking here.
If you haven’t attended before or prefer an in-person experience we’re running “Understanding Neurodivergence at Work” on 30 September at Port Vale Football Club. Whether you’re local to Stoke or up for a little trip, we’d love to see you there! Find all the details and book here.
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