Grievance Involving a Neurodivergent Employee

A grievance lands on your desk. Maybe a neurodivergent employee has raised one. Maybe someone has raised one about a neurodivergent colleague’s behaviour. Either way, the moment neurodivergence is in the picture, the ground feels less certain. You know the Equality Act 2010 is somewhere in the room. You are not sure whether your normal process still applies.

It does. A grievance involving a neurodivergent employee is handled the way any grievance should be, fairly, promptly and in line with your procedure and the ACAS Code. What changes is that you have two extra things to consider. Is the process itself accessible to the people going through it? And is any behaviour at the centre of the grievance something that arises from a person’s condition? Get those two questions right and you are on solid ground. Miss them and a grievance can turn into a discrimination claim.

This article is about those two questions. For the mechanics of running a grievance from start to finish, I have a separate guide on the basics of the grievance process. Here I am focused on what changes when neurodivergence is involved. If you’re already handling a case like this and just want specialist input, whether it’s advice and guidance or someone to investigate for you, we can help.

Two situations, two sets of risk

Almost every grievance involving a neurodivergent employee is one of two situations. They carry different risks.

In the first, the neurodivergent employee is the one raising the grievance. They feel mistreated, overlooked or unsupported. The risk here is that the process meant to help them is one they cannot fully take part in. It may also be that the grievance is really about a failure to support them that you have not yet recognised.

In the second, the grievance is about a neurodivergent employee, usually about their behaviour or communication. The risk here is that the very thing being complained about arises from their condition, so acting on the complaint without thought can itself be discrimination.

When a neurodivergent employee raises a grievance

Start by taking the grievance at face value and running it properly. The mistake I see most often is subtler than ignoring it. It is hearing the grievance through a filter of the person being “difficult”.

Neurodivergent employees are sometimes on the receiving end of poor treatment that then gets reframed as them being the problem. A direct communication style gets called aggressive. A request for clarity gets called demanding or being negative. By the time a grievance is raised, the narrative in the team may already be that this person is hard work. That narrative then shapes how the grievance gets handled before anyone has actually investigated it.

Two things help. First, separate the substance of the grievance from any reputation the person has picked up. Judge the facts on their own terms. Second, ask whether the grievance is actually about a failure to make reasonable adjustments. Very often a neurodivergent employee’s grievance, stripped of the upset, is telling you that a need was raised and never met.

There is a newer version of this I am hearing about a lot. Grievances now often arrive clearly written with AI, polished, well structured, often sounding overly formal and legalistic. It is tempting to read that as the person being coached or not really meaning it. Be careful with that assumption when the employee is neurodivergent. For someone who struggles to organise their thoughts, find the right words or pitch their tone, AI is doing the job a reasonable adjustment would. Using a tool to communicate clearly is not a sign of bad faith. Look at what the grievance says, not how slickly it is written.

When a grievance is raised about a neurodivergent employee

This is the harder one. A colleague complains about a neurodivergent employee’s behaviour, their tone, their bluntness, something they said or did. You have a duty to take the complaint seriously and protect the person who raised it. You also have a duty not to discriminate against the person being complained about. Those duties can pull in opposite directions.

The pivot is causation. If the behaviour being complained about arises from the person’s neurodivergence, treating it as a straightforward conduct matter can be discrimination arising from disability. That does not mean you ignore the complaint. It means you have to work out whether the behaviour is connected to the condition. Where that is unclear or disputed, get occupational health or specialist input rather than guessing.

Even where behaviour is connected to a condition, you can still act, as long as what you do is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim, for example protecting a colleague from genuine harm. The point is that you reach that decision with the disability in front of you, not after pretending it is not there. This is the same territory as a conduct process, so if it tips into one, my guide on disciplining a neurodivergent employee covers it in more depth.

Adjust the process, not just the outcome

Whichever situation you are in, the grievance process is itself a process a neurodivergent person has to take part in, so it needs adjusting like any other. This applies whether they raised the grievance or it was raised about them.

Practical adjustments to the process often include:

• Putting questions and information in writing, in advance, so the person can process them rather than being put on the spot.
• Allowing a support person who understands their neurodivergence to attend meetings.
• Building in breaks rather than running long meetings that exhaust the person you most need to hear from.
• Being literal and explicit rather than relying on hints, tone or things left unsaid.
• Giving more time at each stage and being clear about what happens next, so there are no surprises. None of this changes the standard you are holding people to. It makes sure the process is fair to the neurodivergent person in it, whether they are the one complaining or the one complained about. A grievance decision that came out of a process someone could not properly engage with is the kind of thing that unravels later.

A grievance involving a neurodivergent employee is not a special category that needs different rules. It needs the same fair process, run whilst taking neurodivergence into consideration. Can everyone involved actually take part in this process? And is anything at the heart of it arising from a condition rather than a choice? Keep asking those, write down your answers and most of these resolve without ever becoming the thing you were worried about.

Where Silk Helix comes in

Reading this with a clear head is one thing. Working out, in a live grievance, whether a complaint is conduct or a disability talking, while keeping the process fair to everyone and the paperwork straight, is another. That is what I am brought in for. I run and support grievance and disciplinary investigations where neurodivergence is involved, so the right issue gets dealt with and the process holds up afterwards.

If you have a grievance on your desk right now, the quickest way to get help is a free consultation. We can talk through where you are and what to do next, with no obligation. If it is more involved, our investigations support is built for exactly this.