ADHD has rewired the workplace. This is what it means for bosses and workers

Taking one of the UK's biggest grocery chains to an employment tribunal was something that Ryan Toghill says almost took over his life.

"It was all I could think about for 18 months and more," he says.

The deputy store manager at Lidl, who'd told his bosses he'd been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), was called to a disciplinary meeting after breaking company rules by using equipment he hadn't been trained to use. After that meeting, Ryan was dismissed for gross misconduct.

He successfully appealed the decision and was offered a lower-paid role. He rejected it and took his case to a tribunal. Eventually, he was awarded more than £45,000 when the judge found his former employer hadn't fully taken his ADHD diagnosis into account during the disciplinary process.

The judgement found reasonable adjustments during the process hadn't been offered to him, such as additional breaks.

He'd been described by a manager as showing "a lack of remorse," something the tribunal found was clearly linked with his communication differences associated with having ADHD.

"I don't show a lot of emotions," Ryan explains. "I could be incredibly happy, angry, upset, or remorseful, and my facial expressions and tone of voice would essentially remain the same."

The tribunal upheld part of his claims for unfair dismissal, wrongful dismissal and a failure to make reasonable adjustments. Lidl says it's "committed to ensuring that everyone receives the reasonable adjustments, clear communication and support they need to thrive."

Campaigners, lawyers and HR teams say cases like this highlight a shift that businesses should be paying attention to.

Thousands of people have been diagnosed as neurodivergent in the last few years, an umbrella term that covers autism, ADHD and other conditions such as dyslexia and Tourette's syndrome.

Since the pandemic in particular, diagnosis rates for ADHD and autism have been rising, and they're featuring more regularly in disputes in employment tribunals.

While many people who are neurodivergent don't consider themselves disabled, the Equality Act 2010 may give them protection by recognising their condition as a disability, regardless of whether they have a formal diagnosis. They're entitled to reasonable adjustments if they can show that their condition has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to do normal day-to-day activities. These are widely defined and aren't limited to work tasks.

Cases going to tribunal can be around employers not making those adjustments, but they can also be about how people are treated at work.

For example, a 2025 tribunal found a software engineer who had ADHD had faced discrimination because a manager sighed and made other expressions of "non-verbal frustration" towards him.

"What we're seeing in tribunals is rarely the result of deliberate discrimination," says Lutfur Ali, a diversity and inclusion adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, the professional body for HR.

"Cases commonly stem from reasonable adjustments being overlooked, performance processes that were never designed with different thinking styles in mind, and managers lacking confidence because they haven't been given the training or the time to have the right conversations."

So, while awareness of neurodivergence has never been higher, why are more cases like this ending up in the legal system? And are businesses struggling to keep up with the needs of the workforce?

Overdiagnosis or underdiagnosis?

Irwin Mitchell is one of the biggest law firms in the UK, and its lawyers say their caseloads increasingly include grievances linked to neurodivergence at work.

Using the Ministry of Justice's online judgments database, the company identified 517 employment tribunal cases mentioning neurodivergent conditions in 2025, up from 265 in 2020. The most commonly cited conditions were autism and ADHD.

The live database is limited and gives only a partial picture. The Ministry of Justice says the figures should not be considered official statistics.

Diagnosis rates of ADHD and autism have soared, and waiting lists for assessments on the NHS in England are at record levels, with lists even closing in some areas due to the huge demand. Irwin Mitchell says those long waits have an impact on workplaces too. "Anecdotally, we're seeing a lot of people that are either threatening to bring claims or actually bringing claims, that don't have formal diagnoses," says Jo Moseley, a legal director at the firm.