For HR and People teams: building an inclusive workplace
A guide to policy, disability data protection, recognition schemes and why including every mind helps the business. It is for HR and People teams. It helps you plan for the whole organisation, not one conversation at a time.
Eight short chapters. Go to the one that made you open this page. Each one stands alone and tells you how long it takes to read.
Start here
After this chapter you will know what this guide covers and how to use it.
This guide is for HR and People teams. It helps you write policy for ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), autistic and other neurodivergent employees. It helps you plan how people work. It is not about one conversation at a time. It is about systems for the whole organisation that make each conversation easier and fairer.
We have three other guides: for employees, for managers and on reasonable adjustments. In that order, they explain the one-to-one conversation, the work with a line manager and the legal detail in more depth. This guide is about policy. It covers recognition schemes, handling data, training and why getting this right across the organisation helps the business.
This is general information, not legal advice. For help with your own organisation, chapter 06 shows where to get real help.
Use the chapters in any order.
Why does this matter for the business, not just compliance?
After this chapter you will know why including every mind matters, beyond "the law requires it."
The short answer: getting this right helps you keep people and helps them get more done. It is not only the least the law asks. Some organisations make inclusive ways of working the normal way, not one case at a time. They spend less time and goodwill on problems with one person at a time. They keep people who would otherwise leave or quietly stop caring about their work.
What often goes wrong without a policy. Each adjustment becomes a separate negotiation. The answer depends on which manager someone has. That is slower for everyone. It is also unequal, and that itself creates legal risk. And the employee who asks has to teach their manager everything. That is the moment when they are least able to do it well.
What changes when it is normal. Some ways of working help an ADHD or autistic employee who has told you about it. These include clear written goals, progress people can see without asking and meetings with a clear plan. They often help the whole team do more, with fewer problems. Several of the best "reasonable adjustments" are just better management. You give them to everyone, not one person at a time. So this is not just a cost. It is an investment in better management.
How do we build a consistent adjustments policy?
After this chapter you will know how a policy can deal with each request in the same way. It can do this and still treat each person as different.
The short answer: write down the process, not the results. What counts as a reasonable adjustment is different for each person. So a written policy should not try to list every possible adjustment. But it should make the process of asking, deciding and reviewing the same for everyone. It should not matter who someone's manager is.
What a policy should cover
- How to ask, and that people never need a formal diagnosis to start the conversation
- Who takes part (manager, HR, occupational health) and when each one joins
- A promise to reply within a set time, so requests do not quietly stop moving
- How adjustments are confirmed in writing and reviewed from time to time, because needs can change
- What happens if a request is refused. The organisation must still look for another reasonable way to help. It cannot just say no
What helps in practice
- Train managers on the process before they need it. Do not wait until a disclosure goes badly. Chapter 04 of our manager's guide explains what a manager should do at the time. Send it to them.
- Use a simple "adjustment passport". This is a short written record that an employee can take with them to new managers or teams. Then they do not have to agree their adjustments again from the start each time they get a new manager.
- Check the policy against real cases at least once a year, not only when something goes wrong.
How should we handle disability and health data?
After this chapter you will know your real data protection duties for disability information. This is not just paperwork for later.
The short answer: information about someone's disability or health is "special category data" under UK GDPR. This means the law protects it more strongly than normal personal data. You need two things to hold it: a lawful basis and a specific special category condition. And this is important: in general, you cannot use an employee's consent as that basis. An employer has more power than an employee. So the law does not treat the employee's consent as freely given.
What is true
- The law on data protection says health and disability information is very sensitive. So are things like ethnicity and religious belief.
- Employers usually use the "employment, social security and social protection" condition to process this information for reasonable adjustments and sick pay. They do not use consent.
- Only people who really need to know should be able to see it. Not every manager or system needs to see why an adjustment exists. Often they only need to know what the adjustment is.
- Collect and keep only what you need. If equality monitoring data can be made anonymous, it should be.
- Employees have a right to know what you hold about them and why. Make this clear in your privacy documents. Do not hide it.
What helps in practice
- Where you can, keep "what the adjustment is" apart from "why it exists" in your systems. A manager who provides "written meeting follow-ups" does not need to know the diagnosis to do it.
- Have a clear written policy on how long you keep this kind of data. Do not treat it the same as general HR records.
- Are you adding new tools or processes that use data close to health data? Then do a data protection impact assessment early. Do not wait until the tool is already in use.
Should we join a formal recognition scheme?
After this chapter you will know what Disability Confident asks of you, and if it is worth joining.
The short answer: Disability Confident is a free UK government scheme. You do not have to join it. It has three levels. It takes minutes to sign up to the first level. It shows disabled candidates and employees that you take this seriously. But it only has value if what you do in practice matches it.
What it involves
- Level 1, Disability Confident Committed: sign up online and agree to five core commitments. These include making sure hiring does not discriminate. They also include offering an interview to disabled candidates who meet the minimum job criteria. You also commit to at least one more action. You get confirmation and a badge you can use soon after.
- Level 2, Disability Confident Employer: you assess yourself on two themes. This goes further on how you hire people and keep them.
- Level 3, Disability Confident Leader: someone from outside must check how you assessed yourself. You must also promise to actively support jobs for disabled people beyond your own organisation.
- You must complete each level before you move to the next one. Each award lasts three years.
Where to sign up: gov.uk/disability-confident → (opens in a new tab)
What helps in practice. Treat Level 1 as the real starting point, not just a badge. The commitments should match what you really do, not what you hope to do. Do you already do most of what Level 1 asks? Then signing up costs little. It gives a clear, trusted sign to candidates who are deciding whether to disclose when they apply.
Where do we get expert help beyond this guide?
After this chapter you will know where to go for anything this guide does not explain in enough depth.
This guide covers general ideas. It does not cover your own case. For more specific help:
- ACAS (opens in a new tab): free advice that does not take sides, on reasonable adjustments and disputes at work. This includes help for HR teams who write policy
- ICO (opens in a new tab): detailed advice on data protection at work, including workers' health information
- Gov.uk, Disability Confident (opens in a new tab): full guidance on the scheme and how to sign up
- A qualified employment lawyer, for anything with a real legal risk now. This guide does not replace their advice
Where Humble fits
Humble is designed to include everyone. It is built with people who have ADHD, autism and other kinds of neurodivergence. For HR and People teams, these are the parts of this guide it can help with:
- Written adjustment records that travel with the employee (chapter 03). An "adjustment passport" does not have to sit in a spreadsheet nobody updates. It can be a written record that is easy to find again when someone gets a new manager.
- Reasonable adjustment documentation included in Work plans. Help with the policy and paperwork in chapter 03. Then agreed adjustments do not depend on one manager's memory.
- A tool built with the people it's for, not retrofitted. Something real you can point to, to show you are truly committed. It sits next to a scheme like Disability Confident (chapter 05).
It is one option. It is not the point of this guide.
Sources and about this guide
Who wrote this, what it is based on and when we last checked it.
The team at Humble wrote this guide. Our team includes people with ADHD. It uses official sources, which we checked on 10 July 2026.
- Gov.uk, How to sign up to the Disability Confident employer scheme (opens in a new tab)
- Gov.uk, Disability Confident scheme levels 1–3 guidance (opens in a new tab)
- ICO, Data protection and workers' health information (opens in a new tab)
- ICO, What is special category data? (opens in a new tab)
- ACAS, Reasonable adjustments at work (opens in a new tab)
Last reviewed: 10 July 2026. We review this guide again every six months. We review it sooner if Disability Confident rules or data protection guidance change in a big way.
This guide is general information, not legal advice. For help with your own organisation, chapter 06 shows where to get real help.
Is something wrong or missing? Email us. We read every email.
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Once a month: what the law asks, what good adjustments look like and what other teams do.
Built by people who needed it themselves
Written adjustment records and reasonable adjustment documents are part of Work plans. No spreadsheet that nobody updates. Humble was built by people who needed that.