Supporting a Member of Staff with ADHD (or AuDHD)

If someone in your team has told you they have ADHD, or you think they might, this page is here to help you get it right. Whether you are their line manager, in HR, or responsible for wellbeing more broadly, this covers the practical, legal side of ADHD in the workplace: what you actually need to know, and what genuinely helps.

I am Linda Fox, an ICF-ACC credentialled ADHD coach. I have worked with ADHD and AuDHD employees across the UK for years, and this is the guidance I most often find myself giving to the managers and HR teams around them.

Most of what follows applies just as well to AuDHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, and other neurodivergent traits, not only ADHD. The legal test is the same whatever the underlying condition. So is the basic approach: ask the person what actually helps, rather than assuming.

Is ADHD a disability under the Equality Act 2010?

It can be, but it is not automatic. ADHD is not one of the small number of conditions the law lists as an automatic disability. Instead, it is assessed against a legal test: does it have a substantial and long-term adverse effect on someone’s ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.

In practice, this covers things like concentrating, communicating, following instructions, managing time, and coping with change. “Substantial” means more than minor or trivial. “Long-term” generally means twelve months or more, which most ADHD will meet, since it does not go away.

One point that catches people out. If someone manages well because of medication, coaching, or their own coping strategies, that does not remove their protection.

The law asks what things would be like without those measures in place, not with them. So “but they seem to cope fine” is not a reason to assume no support is needed. It may be a sign the support they already have is working.

A formal diagnosis is not a requirement either. ACAS guidance is clear that employers should offer support based on what they are noticing and what the employee tells them, whether or not a diagnosis exists.

Your duty as an employer

Where someone meets that legal test, you have a duty to make reasonable adjustments, changes that remove or reduce the disadvantage they would otherwise face. This is not optional, and it is not about special treatment. It is about a level playing field.

What counts as reasonable depends on your organisation’s size and resources, and on the specific person. There is no single list that fits everyone. What works for one person with ADHD may do nothing for another.

Adjustments that often help

There is no single list that works for everyone, but here is where I would start, organised by the problem rather than the solution.

• Open-plan noise and distraction. A quiet office with a door that closes, a smaller room away from corridors and screens, or simply working from home more often.
• Hot-desking. Not knowing where you will sit, or whether a quiet spot will be free, can be a genuine source of anxiety. A reserved desk, or a bookable quiet area, solves this properly rather than papering over it.
• Arrival time and meeting punctuality. Start by asking whether timeliness is actually critical to the role. Often it is not, and flexible hours or a focus on tasks completed works better than watching the clock. Where it is critical, calendar tools and reminder systems help more than asking someone to try harder.
• Project deadlines and time blindness. Regular short check-ins and project management tools help. So does protecting large uninterrupted blocks of time, so hyperfocus can be used productively rather than constantly broken.
• Unscheduled interruptions. Blocked focus time, a booking system instead of an open door, and permission to silence notifications during it.
• The urge to manage more closely. When deadlines slip, the instinct is often to check in more, or watch more closely. For most people with ADHD, this makes things worse, since micromanagement adds stress. A short, regular check-in, agreed in advance, works. Oversight that increases every time something goes wrong does not.
• Feeling unable to raise it. Some people worry that asking for adjustments will look like special treatment, or that colleagues will resent it. Quiet workplace education, and HR policies that explicitly name neurodiversity, both help.
• If the person is AuDHD, dyslexic, or dyscalculic. Some needs sit alongside the ones above rather than replacing them. AuDHD often adds a need for predictability and clear notice of change. Dyslexia usually means written materials work better in an accessible format, with time to read rather than respond on the spot. Dyscalculia means tasks involving numbers benefit from extra time, or a calculator without question.
• Tools worth trying.
  • Noise-cancelling headphones for open-plan spaces
  • Voice-to-text software that records and transcribes meetings, so nothing has to be captured from memory (I use Fathom for my own coaching sessions)
  • Project planning software and Kanban boards, to hold the bigger picture somewhere other than someone’s head
  • A standing desk, if sitting still for long periods is part of the difficulty
  • A whiteboard or mind-mapping software, for anyone who thinks better visually
  • A Remarkable tablet, which turns handwriting into text

  Most of these are inexpensive, though a Remarkable tablet is a bigger investment, starting at £359. Even that is far cheaper than losing someone good.

Coaching is also, itself, a recognised category of reasonable adjustment. It is often funded through the Access to Work scheme, and just as often paid for from an internal training and development budget, the same way any other professional development would be. It gives someone a place to work out their own version of all of the above, rather than being handed someone else’s system that does not quite fit.

One thing worth knowing before you suggest a fix. A solution that works well for you is not automatically a solution for someone with ADHD, even if the challenge sounds similar on the surface.

“Just make a list” rarely helps someone whose difficulty is not remembering to write the list down. “Leave earlier” does not fix a timeliness problem that is really about losing track of time, not the length of the journey. The better question is usually not “what worked for me,” but “what does this actually look like for you.”

Watch for stress and burnout

Unsupported ADHD and AuDHD often comes with a hidden cost: masking. Working harder than colleagues to appear organised, on time, and on top of things, often without anyone else seeing the effort behind it.

I hear this often from my own clients: evenings and weekends spent quietly catching up on what did not get finished during the working day, so that Monday looks like nothing went wrong. Holiday allowance used the same way, to recover from overwhelm and burnout, or to catch up on work, rather than actually resting. That extra effort adds up.

Without the right adjustments, this tends to become a cycle rather than a one-off. Push hard to keep up, run on empty for a while, and eventually burn out.

A quieter patch, or time off, brings some recovery. But if nothing about the role itself has changed, the same pattern starts building again as soon as the pressure returns. Each cycle tends to be a little harder to recover from than the last.

Left unaddressed for long enough, this tends to end one of three ways:

• A performance issue that looks like a capability problem but is not.
• A period of stress-related sickness absence that resolves nothing structurally, so the cycle simply continues once someone is back.
• Someone quietly leaving a role they were otherwise good at.

The earlier adjustments are made, the sooner that cycle can be broken. If someone in your team seems to be coping, but only just, and only by working far harder than the role should require, that is itself worth a conversation, not a reason to leave things as they are.

My free Am I Burnt Out self-test is also worth pointing someone toward, if they would rather check quietly on their own first.

Clients sometimes come to me for coaching once they are already on a formal Performance Improvement Plan; or signed off with either stress or burnout. Coaching can still help at that stage, but it is a much harder starting point than getting support in place early.

If someone’s difficulties are ADHD-related, and reasonable adjustments were never properly considered before the plan began, that is worth pausing on. Starting a formal process without exploring adjustments first is a real risk, not just for the employee, but for the organisation too. The better moment for this conversation is before performance becomes a formal issue, not after.

Having the conversation

ACAS guidance is worth following here. Be sensitive with language. Avoid phrases like “suffering from” ADHD, and ask the person what words they prefer to use themselves.

Lead with what you have noticed, not with a diagnosis you suspect. Frame it around support, not deficit.

Remember that ADHD comes with real strengths too, often creativity, energy, and the ability to think differently under pressure. Worth exploring what those look like in this particular person, not just what to adjust for.

The most useful question you can ask is a simple one. How do you work best, and what do you need from me.

Not a list of adjustments you have already decided on, put to them for approval, but a genuine question, asked early, and revisited as things change. Nobody knows what actually helps better than the person living with it.

Where coaching fits in

ADHD coaching is one recognised way to support a member of staff, alongside any physical or practical adjustments you make. It gives someone a confidential space to build the specific ways of working that help them, week by week, with someone who understands ADHD from the inside.

Coaching is not training. A training course teaches a fixed set of skills to a timetable, with everyone on it covering the same content in the same order. Coaching does not work like that. Each session responds to whatever the client actually brings that week, so what gets covered, and how quickly, is not fixed in advance.

What does stay fixed is the aim: real, practical change in how someone works, not a certificate at the end of a course. It is entirely reasonable to expect that change to show up at work, in how someone organises their day, manages a project, or handles interruptions. It is not reasonable to expect a syllabus, a fixed timeline to a fixed outcome, or a report on what was said in each session.

Some employees will already have been through an occupational health assessment, and choose to share the report or its recommendations with me directly. That can be a helpful starting point for the coaching. It is entirely the employee’s choice to share it, though, not something I ask for or need in order to work with someone.

If you are funding or arranging someone’s coaching

Sometimes it is the employer, not the employee, who first approaches me, or who wants visibility once coaching has begun. That is common, and it works like this,

The coaching itself stays confidential to the employee, and the objectives of the work we do together are theirs to set, not something handed down. As an ICF-accredited coach, I follow the ICF Code of Ethics, which specifically distinguishes between the client (the person being coached) and the sponsor (whoever is funding or arranging it), and requires a clear agreement with both on how information is shared. With the employee’s written consent, I can confirm attendance and the broad themes being worked on, so you have the oversight you need without ever seeing session content.

If you’d also like to share the wider workplace targets and expectations for the role with the client’s permission, that’s useful context for me, though it doesn’t become part of what the coaching itself tracks. The same goes for your organisation’s own annual review or appraisal process, that stays entirely yours to run, a conversation between you and the employee directly. Clients often choose to bring their own appraisal or feedback into a session themselves, as something we can work on together.

If you would like to look at commissioning coaching for someone in your team, see my page on ADHD coaching for employers, which covers programmes, pricing, and how the process works.

If you are the employee reading this page yourself, the cleanest move is usually to forward it to your manager or HR contact. If you are considering 1:1 coaching yourself, the Discovery Session is the conversation to have first.

Book Your Free Discovery Session

Frequently asked questions

Click any question to read the answer.

Do I need a diagnosis before making adjustments?

No. You can make reasonable adjustments based on what you notice and what the employee tells you, even before or without a formal diagnosis. Waiting for a diagnosis before acting is not required, and can leave someone unsupported for a long time given current NHS waiting lists.

What if other staff think the adjustments are unfair?

Reasonable adjustments respond to a specific need, in the same way glasses or an accessible parking space would. They are personal to the person who needs them, not something shared out to the team. Quiet, matter-of-fact workplace education about neurodiversity helps more than expecting the employee to justify it to colleagues.

Can I ask for evidence or a diagnosis letter?

You can ask, but you cannot make adjustments conditional on providing one. Guidance from ACAS is clear that support should be offered based on the conversation you have, not gatekept behind paperwork.

Does this apply to contractors, freelancers, or agency staff, not just employees?

The Equality Act’s protection is broader than just employees, and covers most people doing work for you, including contractors and some agency staff. If you are unsure about a specific arrangement, it is worth checking with an employment solicitor.

What if I am honestly not sure whether this is ADHD-related, or just a performance issue?

You do not need to be sure. Have the conversation either way. If it turns out to be unrelated, you have lost nothing but a bit of time. If you skip the conversation and it was related, you may have missed the point where a small adjustment would have prevented a bigger problem.

How much do reasonable adjustments usually cost?

Often very little. Many of the adjustments on this page, quiet space, flexible hours, project tools, cost nothing beyond a policy decision. Where there is a genuine cost, Access to Work can fund a significant amount of it.

A note before you go

This page is general guidance, not legal advice. Every situation is different, and if you are dealing with a specific case, particularly one that feels complicated or contested, it is worth getting advice from ACAS directly or from an employment solicitor.