For managers: supporting ADHD, autistic and neurodivergent team members
A guide to disclosure, good meetings and updates, your legal duty and adjustments that do not make one person stand out. It is for anyone who manages a team that has, or might have, neurodivergent people in it.
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 anyone who manages a team with people who are ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), autistic or neurodivergent in other ways. It is also for teams that might have them. Most managers have had no training in this. They are guessing, with good intentions. This guide will not make you an expert. It will help you with the most common problems.
We also have guides for employees and on reasonable adjustments. They cover the legal detail and the employee's side of these conversations in more depth. This guide is written for you. It covers the daily decisions of managing well, not just the least the law asks.
One honest note before you start. You do not need to know if someone is neurodivergent to use the ideas in this guide. Most of them make work better for everyone. This is true whether people have told you or not, and whether they have a diagnosis or not. That is on purpose. It is the main idea behind chapter 06.
This guide is general information, not legal or HR advice. For a real situation you are dealing with now, see chapter 04 and the sources at the end.
Use the chapters in any order.
How do I support someone who's just disclosed?
After this chapter you will know what to do in the days after someone tells you. You will also know what not to do.
The short answer: listen. Ask what would help. Do not guess. Keep it confidential unless they say you can share it. And do not let this one conversation be the only time you deal with it. Telling you is often the hardest part for them. What you do next shows them if the risk was worth it, or if their worst fear was right.
What is true
If someone tells you directly, the organisation is very likely treated as knowing from that point. This is true even if you do not tell HR. So what you do with the information matters straight away, not once it is "official". They may tell you in confidence and ask you not to share it. In general, you have to respect that. But it can limit what adjustments you can make, until they are happy for more people to know. So be honest with them about this. Do not promise that you can act without anyone else knowing.
What helps
- Thank them for telling you. Then ask. Do not guess. "What's difficult at the moment, and what would help?" works better than guessing from what you have read or heard about ADHD or autism. The same label affects each person very differently.
- Ask them clearly what they want to happen next. Some people want practical changes now. Some want it noted quietly for the future. Some only wanted you to know. Do not jump to solutions before you know which one it is.
- In the same conversation, agree who else can know, if anyone. Also agree how you will explain any adjustments to the team without giving the reason.
- Offer occupational health or HR support as an option, not a test they must pass. Independent expert advice can really help find the right adjustments. But present it as extra support they can use if it helps. It should not feel like they have to prove something.
- Write down what you talked about and agreed. Share that written record with them, even if the conversation was informal. It protects you both. And neither of you has to remember it correctly weeks later.
- Ask again later. If you have one kind conversation and never mention it again, over time it seems it did not matter. A short check-in a few weeks later shows that it did.
How do I ask for updates without it feeling like nagging?
After this chapter you will know why asking again and again feels bad for everyone. You will know what to build instead.
The short answer: if asking for updates feels bad, it does not mean you are a bad manager. It means the system makes you ask for information that people should be able to see without asking. Make the work easy to see, and most of the need to ask goes away.
What it is like for many managers
Asking about the same thing two or three times feels bad. You do not want to seem like you are nagging. You do not want the other person to feel watched. And each time you ask takes a little social effort. Across a whole team, that effort grows. For managers who are neurodivergent too, it can be harder. You may feel guilty for asking again. You may feel a low worry about how the other person will take it. Sometimes you feel a sharp fear, much too big for a two-line Slack message. None of this means you are bad at this. It means the way things work now makes you do by hand what a system should do for you.
What causes it
Most team updates need one person to remember to write them. When they forget, someone else has to remember to ask. So each update can fail in two places. Multiply that by each person on the team, each week. Asking again is not the real problem. It is a sign that nobody can see the work by default.
What helps
- Keep "what's the status" apart from "how are you doing". People should be able to answer the first one by looking, not asking. They can look at a shared board, a tool or wherever the work already is. Save real conversation for the second question. That one is worth a manager's time.
- Build one place everyone can see and trust. Then you do not need to remember who owes what. Once people can see the status by default, you do not need most "just checking in" messages. The ones that are left are about the person, not the task.
- When you do need to ask, ask about the work, not the person. "Where's this at?" asks for a status. "Why hasn't this happened?" makes people defend themselves. Many ADHD and autistic team members may react much more strongly than the question deserves. This is because it sounds like you are judging them, not checking the work.
- Make it normal to raise problems early, and treat it as a strength. "Tell me if it's going to slip, before it slips" takes the shame out of the conversation. You get better information than silence and then a missed deadline.
- Do you fear asking for updates? Be honest with yourself about it. It is a sign to fix the system. It is not a sign to force yourself to ask more.
What am I legally required to do?
After this chapter you will know your legal position as a manager. You will know which parts are your job and which are for HR.
The short answer: under the Equality Act 2010, your organisation has a legal duty to make reasonable adjustments for employees who are disabled. This covers many ADHD, autistic and other neurodivergent people. It covers them whether or not they think of themselves as disabled. In practice, people often come to their manager first about this duty. This is true even if HR owns the policy.
What is true
- The duty starts once your employer knows, or could reasonably be expected to know. If someone tells you directly as their manager, the organisation is very likely treated as knowing. This is true even without a formal HR process.
- The duty applies whether or not the employee makes a formal request. It does not only start when someone asks. But in practice, most adjustments happen because someone asked. That is why chapter 02 matters.
- What counts as reasonable depends on cost and how practical it is. It also depends on the size and resources of the organisation. It changes with each situation. It is not a fixed list.
- You are not expected to have the medical knowledge to choose the right adjustments alone. You are expected to make a real effort to learn. Where it helps, this includes asking occupational health or HR for their views. This does not mean you have failed. Their views can really help you get it right.
- A specific request may not be reasonable for the organisation to agree to. That does not end the duty. You still need to look for another way to reduce the disadvantage.
- If the duty applies and you fail to make reasonable adjustments, this can be a form of disability discrimination. It can lead to an employment tribunal claim. This is not meant to scare you. Almost all adjustment conversations never come close to a tribunal. But it is why you should write down what you talk about and agree (chapter 02). It is a real protection, not just good practice.
What your job is
As a manager, your job is usually to have the conversation. You make reasonable daily changes that you control. And you know when to ask HR or occupational health to help. Ask them about anything bigger or more formal, or that you are not allowed to agree alone. You are not expected to be the whole system. You are expected to be a skilled, kind first contact within it.
For the full legal detail, see our reasonable adjustments guide. It covers Access to Work, what counts as a disability and what to do if a request is refused. It covers this in depth, from the side of both the employee and the employer.
Do you write the policy behind this duty, not just deal with one conversation? Our guide for HR and People teams covers that.
How do I run meetings and communication that work for everyone?
After this chapter you will know a few practical changes that help ADHD and autistic team members. They help nearly everyone else too.
The short answer: send written notes after meetings and agendas before them. Never rely on someone remembering what was said on the spot. None of this is only for ADHD or autism. It is just better management. It also removes a disadvantage that some people feel more strongly than others.
What helps
- Send an agenda before any meeting that is not only social. Even three bullet points is enough. It lets people prepare, so they do not have to think about it for the first time in the meeting. This matters much more for some brains than others. But it helps almost everyone.
- After the meeting, write a short list of decisions and actions, and share it. Do not assume everyone heard and remembered the same thing in the same way.
- Where you can, warn people before you change plans, priorities or deadlines. Sudden changes are harder for some people than they look from the outside.
- Do not make people answer out loud on the spot. Let them reply in writing, later. "Take a moment and reply in writing" often gets a better answer than an instant spoken one. This is true for anyone. It is most true for people who need more time to understand language when they are under pressure.
- Ask, do not guess, about things like cameras in meetings, meeting length and how people like to communicate. What helps is different for each person. This is true even for people with the same diagnosis.
What does "reasonable" mean in practice?
After this chapter you will know why the best adjustments are often for everyone, not one person.
The short answer: "reasonable" has a real legal meaning. It depends on cost, how practical it is and the size of the organisation. But in practice, most things that help a neurodivergent team member are cheap and simple. They are better for the whole team too. The goal is not to find the least you must do. It is to change how you normally work, so fewer people ever have to ask.
Why this matters for you
Much of the fear of asking for an adjustment is the fear of being seen as different. People fear being treated as someone who needs special care. You can reduce much of that fear before anyone asks. Make the good habits normal for your whole team. These are the ideas in chapter 05 and the progress everyone can see from chapter 03. Do not only give them to one person at a time. When an adjustment is for everyone, nobody has to explain why they need it. And the people who really need it are not the only ones asking.
This is also the easiest part of this guide to act on. You do not need anyone to disclose, a diagnosis or a formal process to run better meetings. You do not need them to build a system that shows progress. You can start today, for everyone. Then the one-to-one conversations in chapters 02 and 04 become smaller, because so much is already in place.
Where Humble fits
Humble is designed to include everyone. It is built with people who have ADHD, autism and other kinds of neurodivergence. As a manager, these are the parts of this guide it helps with most:
- Progress you can see without asking (chapter 03). A shared timeline is built automatically from the work people already do, like tasks completed and meetings had. So "what's the status" has an answer. Nobody has to write it or be asked for it.
- One trusted place for notes from a disclosure or adjustment conversation (chapter 02). What you talked about and agreed is written down and easy to find again. You do not have to rebuild it from memory weeks later.
- Filter to see what matters to you, when you need it. Filter by team or by person, or search across all of it. Then you do not need to keep a separate system as well as everything else.
It is one option. It is not the point of this guide. Work plans include reasonable adjustment records for People teams. So support can be agreed and written down in one place.
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 our own research on work and the official sources below. We checked them on 10 July 2026.
- ACAS, Reasonable adjustments at work (opens in a new tab)
- ACAS, guidance on reasonable adjustments for mental health (manager conduct and confidentiality) (opens in a new tab)
- Equality and Human Rights Commission, statutory Code of Practice on employment (opens in a new tab)
- Humble ADHD workplace research, 2026 (internal)
Last reviewed: 10 July 2026. We review this guide again every six months.
This guide is general information, not legal or HR advice. For help with your own situation, see our reasonable adjustments guide or contact ACAS or a qualified adviser.
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