Is your neuroinclusion strategy actually working?

A manager told me recently that he understood ADHD. His niece had been diagnosed a couple of years earlier, he had read about it and he knew what to look for. One of his team was on a performance improvement plan. When I read the PIP, it could have been lifted straight from a diagnostic checklist: missed deadlines, lost detail, inconsistent output and trouble prioritising. His idea of support was to move her desk closer to his so he could check her work and point out every error as soon as he spotted it. He genuinely could not understand why she was not improving.

For her, it was more like being watched than being supported. I see this a lot. A manager is confident they are doing the right thing and the employee has a completely different experience. Nobody asks the employee how the support is working, so the manager never finds out.

The same thing happens across whole organisations. Leaders feel confident that they understand neuroinclusion. At the same time, their neurodivergent employees do not feel understood and do not get the adjustments they need to do their jobs well. October is a busy month for neurodiversity awareness but awareness on its own does not close this gap.

What the research found

The 2026 Neurodiversity Index, from the City & Guilds Foundation and Do-IT Solutions, surveyed more than 2,200 people across ten sectors. Between 70 and 80% of leaders were confident that their organisation is neuroinclusive. Only 32 to 38% of neurodivergent employees said they feel psychologically safe, trust that an agreed adjustment will actually happen or feel their organisation understands their needs.

So about three quarters of leaders think their organisation has got this right. Only about a third of their neurodivergent employees feel understood. The researchers found this gap is significantly wider than it was in 2025.

A separate survey of 495 HR, L&D and compliance professionals found the same pattern. More than half (57%) described their organisation as neurodiversity friendly. More than a third (35%) said their managers lack the confidence to discuss reasonable adjustments at all. In many cases the same person gave both answers.

Why leaders feel confident

Awareness of neurodiversity is much higher than it was five years ago and that is a good thing. It also leaves many people believing they already know enough. Managers regularly tell me at the start of a training session that they know all about neurodiversity already. They then repeat inaccurate stereotypes and cannot tell me which adjustments would actually help. In some ways this makes life harder for neurodivergent employees.

Leaders tend to measure what they have put in place. That might be a policy, a staff network, a training record or a contract with a software provider. These things matter. They just do not tell you what happens to a neurodivergent employee from one day to the next.

I once trained every manager in an organisation and then its senior leadership team. It soon became clear that the organisation mainly wanted a record showing the training had happened. Meanwhile the managers told me why they could not make simple adjustments. IT blocked music at desks. Only one supplier’s software was allowed. The open plan office gave them nothing to work with. Leadership saw the training as done while the managers were still stuck.

Some of the managers in those sessions were neurodivergent themselves. When training is clearly about ticking a box, they notice. It tells them how seriously the organisation takes their needs.

Leaders also see only part of the picture. Of neurodivergent employees who disclose, 80% tell their line manager but only 52% of those disclosures ever reach HR. So HR and senior leaders hear about roughly half of what line managers are told.

Research tells us that psychological safety did not improve in 2026. It is the strongest single predictor of wellbeing and retention in the data, for all employees and not only those who are neurodivergent. When people do not feel safe, they stop raising problems. Someone whose adjustment never arrived has already asked once. Most people will not ask again. So leaders hear nothing and assume everything is fine.

What neurodivergent employees experience

In my experience, adjustments fall apart in two places.

The first is when there is never an agreement. An employee asks for an adjustment and the employer decides it is unreasonable or the request sits in an admin process somewhere. Either way the conversation often stops there. Nobody goes back to look at the problem the employee was trying to solve or at other ways to solve it.

The second is after an adjustment has been agreed. Neurodivergent employees are now twice as likely as before to wait more than three months for an adjustment that has already been signed off. I worked with a dyslexic employee who had AI writing tools agreed as an adjustment. Everyone in the meeting thought it was sensible. Then IT blocked the tools on data protection grounds and nobody looked for an alternative. The organisation counts the adjustment as done but she has never had it.

Managers are often left to handle this without training or time. The 2026 Neurodiversity in Business research with Birkbeck found that only 19% of managers have neurodiversity acknowledged anywhere in their workload. Fewer than four in ten organisations have delivered any neurodiversity training at all.

I hear the result of this in nearly every training room I work in, not only on neurodiversity courses. Managers tell me they do not have time for this and they are right. They were promoted because they were good at the work and they are still measured on the work. Managing people is treated as something extra rather than as the job itself. We then send them on a half day course and wonder why their confidence has not changed.

The manager with the niece was not a bad manager. He had no training and no time and he was doing what the organisation had set him up to do.

For the employee, the result is the same whichever way the adjustment fails. They feel they have not been heard, not supported and not valued. They either quietly start planning their way out or they keep asking until both sides are worn out.

What the gap costs

I know this from my own experience. I once resigned from a job because my employer would not give me the tools I needed to do it. I had asked so many times that by the end the decision felt sudden. I did not want anything special. I wanted to do my job well. I never told them why I left because I had already told them more times than I can count. I suspect they still do not know. This is how the gap stays hidden from leaders.

Many people have similar stories, whether it is about equipment, returning to the office or simply being understood. Of neurodivergent employees, 38% have been told to return to the office and more than half of them said it made them think about leaving. Of those who have left corporate employment to work for themselves, 61% say they will never go back.

Tribunal claims citing neurodiversity have risen 95% in five years, from 265 in 2020 to 517 in 2025. That is still only a small minority of the people who feel discriminated against or who have not had the adjustments they should have had. The bigger costs are the people you have to replace and the people who stay but never get to work at their best.

How to close the gap

A neurodiversity strategy, policy and training are good starting points. The real test is how they work day to day.

Start by finding out what your neurodivergent employees actually experience. Ask them the same questions the researchers asked:

• Do you feel safe to speak up?
• Do you trust that an agreed adjustment will actually happen?
• Do you feel the organisation understands your needs?

Ask in a way that makes it safe to answer honestly.

Then make sure there is a clear process for turning what managers know into actual adjustments. Your strategy should look at how to reduce barriers across the whole employee lifecycle. Training should be practical. It should give managers a real understanding of what neurodiversity looks like at work and tell them exactly what steps to take to make adjustments. Managers also need the tools and support to put those adjustments in place.

Finally, check what actually happens. Keep accurate records of the adjustments you have made, the ones you could not make (and why) and when each one will be reviewed. At each review, ask the employee whether the adjustment is in place and working. Your neurodiversity policy (or your disability policy) should set this out.

If you are a leader, base your confidence on what your neurodivergent employees tell you rather than on what you have put in place.