Emma, welcome.

Hi, Henry. Can you hear me okay? Yeah. I can hear you. That's wonderful. Bless mister Apple. So I'm now on an iPad, and, hopefully, everyone can hear me well. No. Was amazing. I've been told not to say, but I I feel like it's appropriate appropriate at this stage. So apologies for everyone that's been hanging around waiting to listen to my presentation. Henry, are you okay to share the slides as I'm coming from? I absolutely can do that. Duper duper. Thank you. And just just in the meantime, thanks thanks for everyone for joining me. Thanks to Henry for his very generous welcome, what was probably fifteen minutes ago now.

But that was jolly generous of him. It really is an honor to be here actually presenting to ADHD UK. Henry and I have been working together all year on various sort of various projects and collaborations, and I've got a support group that that I run through ADHD UK for kind of employees that need support in the workplace, and I'm always kinda here to help educate employers as well so that we're getting it right for neurodivergent employees. So what I want to ideally cover today is kind of a bit of both. So actually, anyone that's on the call with ADHD, hopefully, you kind of leave this call feeling better equipped to kind of represent yourself in the workplace. And if we've got employers as well.

Really, I think the overall kind of communication for me is is making our work environment more inclusive. This isn't about legal compliance, but actually when you get it wrong, legal compliance is expensive and it causes all sorts of reputational damage. So it is really important to get it right. So here we go. I think these slides are being loaded, and hopefully, people will see those in a in a moment. Without further ado, given that I'm running everyone behind now, let's move on to just understanding ADHD in the workplace. So this is slide two. What are the traits that we see? Thanks thanks, Henry. If we skip on to slide two, that'd be great. Excellent. So what are the traits that we kind of see in the workplace in terms of ADHD?

Quite typically, we see sort of inattention and distractibility. So this is kind of difficulty in sustaining focus, especially on tasks that aren't stimulating. We see impulsivity. And so sometimes acting without consideration of the consequences, you might come seeing that sort of display this with employees in the workplace or if it's yourself, you recognize sometimes you make a decision and it's not always kind of having regard for the bigger picture or sort of anything that's project based and long term consequences. That sometimes causes difficulties with sort of decision making in the business and communication. Hyperactivity is a trait that's always kind of associated with ADHD. I have say that this often is misunderstood.

So people think that hyperactivity is that kind of physical restlessness. But actually quite often we see it in workplaces. It's a sort of a a mental hyperactivity. So the body and mind is that the body's actually quite still, but the mind might be racing. There might be anxious thoughts, distractions, worries going on in somebody's head, so it's not necessarily visible to looking at that individual. And then finally, we've kind of got emotional regulation, which I know we've already heard about today. So I won't cover that too much, but, you know, this is kind of heightened responses.

It might be kind of difficulty in managing frustration or stress in the workplace. Might see rapid kind of emotional changes and shifts, intense reactions, so anything that might perceive to be criticism, quite often rejection or stress. You might find that you see sort of employees in the business or you might recognize in yourself as an individual. Those sorts of traits as well as sometimes low tolerance with your colleagues and sort of difficulty having to take a breath trying to calm down in certain situations.

When looking at these traits, what I say to all of my commercial clients and and individuals when we're talking about how we can support them in the workplace. These traits aren't flaws. They're just part of a different cognitive style, and it's really, really important that everybody understands that, both the individual and the employer. The impact on workplace is quite often profound. So you'll see employees in the workplace who, again, like say, like I say, you might you might understand this as an individual. The there's difficulties with your time management, so that sort of challenges in sort of planning, prioritizing, processing information, meeting deadlines.

It it might be recognized that you've got individuals in the business that are focused the struggle with focus or sort of task switching, so they might have difficulty maintaining attention or shifting between lots of tasks. Interpersonal dynamics, of course, as I've just mentioned. So if for example, there is impulsivity or sort of intense emotional reactions to certain workplace scenarios that can sometimes impact on communication and relationships within the business. So if you have an employee sort of exhibiting any of these traits, as an employee, you should be thinking about how you can adapt the workplace to make sure that they are able not just to cope in their role, but to thrive in their role.

These traits quite often and the impact that they sort of experience or individuals with ADHD experience, they are profound and they are persistent. So it's not just a bad day or a bad week. These are challenges that continue day on day. Myths. We've all heard so many ADHD myths. I have a a son with ADHD, and I'm sure me, like everyone else, kind of gets driven around the bend in some of these myths. But I see them present in both an education setting and in a workplace setting. So you hear people say including our politicians, including doctors, GPs on occasion say things like ADHD isn't a real disorder or everybody has ADHD now. And ADHD is not imaginary. It's medically recognized neurodevelopmental condition.

And it needs to be treated with respect and understood fully. It's not just hyperactivity. Many people with ADHD actually are quiet. They might be introspective, and they might struggle silently. So there's lots of individuals that haven't been diagnosed for years and Henry was mentioning that just a moment ago. But ADHD isn't over diagnosed. There's whole misgenerations of individuals that haven't been diagnosed in particular women, adults, and marginalized groups. ADHD isn't a learning disability although sometimes it presents with learning disabilities. It can co occur but again it's a neurodevelopmental condition that affects just attention and positivity and emotional regulation and it's important that that's understood.

And finally, probably most personally, people with ADHD are not lazy. So if you have somebody in the workplace that has ADHD and it looks like they're struggling or they're coming in late or they've taken an extra long break, this is because of the condition. It's not because they're lazy or unmotivated. ADHD is a different cognitive style, and what's really important is that myself as a business owner, myself as a discrimination lawyer, we equip all of our commercial clients and individuals to represent themselves so that people understand that it's important that legal obligations are met, but the people are treated with compassion in the workplace, not just so they survive, but so that they can thrive in their employment.

Thanks, Henry. Next slide. So let's skip on to the legal protections that essentially underpin workplace rights of people with ADHD kicking off with the disability definition. So the definition of a disability and I have say this is a legal definition or a medical definition is a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long term adverse effect on an employee's individual or an individual's ability to carry out normal day to day activities. So let's break that down. Substantial. Substantial means more than minor or trivial. So an employee with time blindness, they may miss their train, their bus, they might arrive late to work, they might by mistake taking extra long lunch break, they might forget to prioritize.

Tasks with deadlines. And, of course, all of that will lead to frustrations in the workplace and potentially performance concerns in some circumstances, see disciplinary proceedings. These struggles occur daily or often rather than occasionally. So an individual that occasionally does this will likely not meet the legal definition test, notwithstanding the fact they may have an ADHD diagnosis. So it's really important that you're able to impact as an individual the the consequence of your ADHD and the struggles that you experience.

It also needs to be long term, which means that it's likely to last at least twelve months or indeed already is existing for more than twelve months. And I think with ADHD that there's no difficulty with that. It's not something that gets better. Sometimes people have coping strategies and medication which assists with kind of managing ADHD. And also the day to day activities must it must affect daily activities and that is really simple, basic, straightforward things like just concentrating. So concentrating in a work environment, following instructions like meeting this deadline, managing your time, interacting with people, those are all day to day activities. So I think to take away from this slide, ADHD can qualify under the.

Legal equality act as a as a disability, but it doesn't necessarily and it will all come down to the adverse substantial impact on your day to day activities. If you have managed to develop coping strategies over the years and it doesn't present as a substantial disadvantage, then you are less likely to qualify as disabled. I'm gonna come on to this case in a moment, but there is a really interesting case that came out in 2025. One of the things I love about seeing tribunal cases coming out is that there's just such a broader, better awareness of how ADHD can affect people in the workplace. But this case this year.

Was particularly pleasing. It's the case of Stedman and Haven Leisure Centre, and I'll talk about it in a moment in a bit more detail, but just to kind of follow-up on this slide, it kind of directly relates to the definition of disability. And in this case, mister Stedman, he went to the employment tribunal and the tribunal were trying to determine whether or in his individual circumstances, he qualified as disabled under the equality act. And the employment tribunal decided that he didn't. The he appealed this decision. He didn't accept that he wasn't a disabled individual. And And the employment appeals tribunal said the EAT clarified that a single activity suffices.

So you don't have to have multiple day to day activities affected by your condition to qualify as disabled under the act. And that's really important because it lowers the hurdle for individuals with ADHD in being able to illustrate that you are disabled under the act and ensuring that you get sort of appropriate workplace protection and support. So that's a really important case. What is important to understand this is not the diagnosis of ADHD that gives you the legal protection. It is the substantial impact on your day to day activities.

So I do see clients that say to me, but I've been diagnosed with ADHD. That is not a slam dunk. You do have other cases you do have other conditions that qualify automatically as a disability under the Equality Act, but ADHD as of yet isn't one of those. But once you are qualified as disabled or recognized as disabled, then an employer immediately has additional duties to you as an individual with ADHD. So firstly, have a duty to prevent discrimination. They also have a duty to make regional adjustments, and these are not wholesale adjustments. These are tailoring adjustments so so that the substantial disadvantage that you're experiencing is either removed or at least lessened.

And they have to ensure that the environment that you're working in fosters a con inclusive environment. So all employers have a duty to provide a healthy and safe working environment and this all forms part of the same thing. So this is not about legal compliance, it's about making sure that people come to work and psychologically they feel safe in their work environment. Thank you, Henry. Next slide. So disclosure. So this is a sort of what I call a highly sensitive personal decision. Disclosure isn't entirely necessary in order to ensure your employer owes you obligations to make adjustments under the Equality Act. However, disclosure is often necessary in order to ensure that those adjustments occur.

So whilst you're not legally required to disclose your ADHD, we do recommend our clients do so. Well, why wouldn't people disclose ADHD? I think I've already covered it, and I'm sure we covered a lot in the next sort of twenty five, twenty six hours. There's a fear of stigma. We still there's still a lot of stigma attached to ADHD. People are concerned about judgment. Are concerned about if they disclose that, whether that will affect their career progression. And really, the ultimate aim has to be that we will work to a full more inclusive environment where people ask to feel psychologically safe so they can talk about their condition and reach the right support.

So I think the starting point is you don't have to disclose that you have ADHD but my recommendation to clients almost always is. Once you disclose that ADHD diagnosis that information is confidential information. So that shouldn't be shared without your consent around the business, and it must be treated with care under data protection laws. So it is important to understand. So just because you make a disclosure to your people and well-being team or your HR team or even at a local level, your manager, you can be clear on who you want in the business to know. We do have quite an interesting.

Principle in employment law where we have kind of what we call actual versus constructive knowledge. So actual knowledge, it would be no no surprise, you know, an employer actually knows that you have ADHD, of course, that comes directly through being informed of the condition as we just spoke about. Constructive knowledge is where an employer should reasonably know that an individual has ADHD. Obviously, that is more difficult to prove that you'd expect the employer to know. But as an example, if you imagine an employee with ADHD, they regularly miss deadlines. They regularly spend longer in the office than they're required to do. They struggle with organization organization. They forget instructions. Sometimes you see feeling overwhelmed.

They have difficulty concentrating or switching between tasks, or you see some emotional outbursts. Some of the really typical ADHD traits, you could reasonably expect an employer in those circumstances to have enough knowledge to understand that that individual may have ADHD. And in those circumstances, it may be possible to make out a case for what we call constructive knowledge. So the employer should reasonably know based on the observed behaviors or the circumstances that the individual has ADHD. As you can imagine for any lawyer.

Ensuring that there is actual knowledge that the that the employer or the workplace knows about is always a far safer set of circumstances. However, it's not unusual for us to talk about constructive knowledge when representing our clients. And like I say, that broadly stems from employees not wanting to make disclosures and not feeling comfortable to make disclosures to their employer. Once an employer knows about ADHD in the workplace, legal duties apply.

Regardless of whether or not they've been directly told or whether or not they have a suspicion. So it is not a good enough excuse for an employer to say hey, I suspected that individual had ADHD but I didn't ever ask them so you can't expect me to make reasonable adjustments at the point you suspect there is a legal duty. And that duty is to avoid discrimination. So as an employer, you have a legal obligation to avoid any discrimination in the workplace. You have a duty to make these adjustments and Henry, I think, had mentioned that kind of the introduction of this. Making adjustments to support individuals in the workplace is probably the most pertinent support you can provide any employee with ADHD.

And beyond that, creating a clue inclusive work environment so it saves employees for safe coming to work and supported. So let's move on to talk about reasonable adjustments. Next slide, please, Henry. So reasonable adjustments. So this is really us looking at the practical action, both that an employer can take on your behalf or if you're an employer on the call, what we what that support might look like in real terms. So under the Equality Act, an employer has a duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled employees. The purpose of that adjustment is to remove the barriers so that everybody can essentially thrive in the workplace.

What we're really looking is looking at for is employees to make adjustments to remove the substantial disadvantage, and this will come out in some of the case law that we'll look at later, but the substantial disadvantage caused by the condition. But beyond that, and I've talked to education establishments as well as kind of employers, some of these adjustments are really good for everybody. And I know Henry says what's good for everybody is is actually essential for people with ADHD. So for the employees on the call, it's really good to start seeing a move to quieter work environments, partitions, sort of offering people the opportunity to work in smaller rooms. For people with ADHD.

Time and scheduling, so flexible start times. So if there's an employee that, you know, really does struggle with time blindness or really does struggle to get into the office at a certain time of day, be alive to that, be more flexible, either change their starting start times or their end times, or we just have more flexibility. So enabling them to make up their time at the end of the day or beginning of another day if they're sort of extra early to having that flexibility. Extending deadlines for employees. Sometimes I've got I've got some commercial clients to make sure that their deadlines are never a hard deadline.

So there's always a bit of movement on a deadline. In some professions, that's harder. So for the legal professional represents the city city lawyers, you know, those deadlines can be really, really challenging because the statutory deadline doesn't get moved. But ensuring that sort of flexibility so that you can put people around those individuals to support them so that they can meet those deadlines so that they feel equipped to meet those deadlines is really important. I've currently got an individual who has chipped it across. They transferred from one employer to a new employer and has been advised that he now can't work from home and is expected to work in an office.

So he's working in an office now five days a week whereas previously he visited the office two days a week. It's a very busy sales environment, lots of noise, and we have made an application that he'd be given noise cancelling headphones and the ability to work in a smaller quieter room which has been rejected by his employer as entirely unnecessary. He's gone on to make a a flexible working application request to say, can I work from home as were the circumstances before I transferred? And they have again said that's unnecessary and it's not conducive for a sales environment.

That is an example where an employer not only has a policy that is essentially discriminatory, so it's an indirect discriminatory policy requiring him to be in the office. But it's just an absolute wholesale failure to make a reasonable adjustment to support him in his work environment and sadly as a consequence last week, he resigned from his employment because he no longer felt able to cope. But that's that's at the most extreme circumstance where an individual leaves the business because they just don't feel supported. Moving on to some of the other adjustments, you've kind of got task management. So follow-up.

Instructions in writing or ask your employer that, you know, if you're in a meeting and and there's lots of information being provided to you, there's no harm in asking your employer for to to sort of bullet point it. Sometimes I've got the clients that take in dictaphone to record the meetings so they can go away. We've now got brilliant AI tools that will provide summaries of meetings that you can then use as a checklist so you know step by step what's required of you. But again, it it is incumbent employers to make sure that they are ensuring task management is available for employees. Make sure your communication is clear and concise. Written follow ups are really important. And training and support. So training.

For individuals in the workplace because a lot of this is this isn't always intolerance actually of colleagues, although that's sometimes how it it appears. Actually, in fact, people just don't understand some of the traits of neurodiversity. They don't understand how to manage it. So making sure that you roll out training across your business, it really does help both inclusivity but that sort of tolerance piece so people understand. People can respond proactively to their colleagues rather than reactively when they're having to ask for that support, and that is really, really important. A tool that I think is really useful, and I would love to see legislation on this, is what we call a reasonable adjustment passport.

We might have some people on the call that already got reasonable adjustment passports or they're thinking about them. But this is basically a document that records how an individual's disability affects them or the ADHD affects them. It lists the reasonable adjustments that have been agreed through a consultation process. It includes any future adjustments that might be needed. Perhaps if somebody's role gets bigger, perhaps if they move through their working career. It is a document that is reviewed, which I recommend at least sort of every six months. What you should have in place with your employees.

Neurodivergent employees is kind of regular check-in so that it is remains an open dialogue and people can talk about what's working and what's not working. The other real positivity about a reason adjustment possible is that the individual can decide who they share it with. They don't have to keep making the same disclosures. So if they go for promotion in the business, they're successful and they move to a new part of the business, they can choose to share at local level that reason adjustment possible. So what works for them it allows the dialogue to continue without the without sometimes the sort of the difficulty of having to go right the way back through disclosure. So I think this is a really kind of good document.

For individuals to have. Next slide, please, Henry. Thank you. So what I think what's really important for everybody to understand whether you're an individual with ADHD looking to move to a new employer or alternatively you are an employer. Inclusion doesn't start at the point that the individual joins your business. It is really, really important that anybody with ADHD is supported from the moment they look at the job advert. So recruitment practices need to be considered and reviewed and I, you know, I really believe that that's right across the country. You still see job adverts that use inappropriate job jargon like.

Join this fast paced environment or require requiring excellent communication skills or interpersonal skills. Be specific about what's essential for the role and what is a desire desirable criteria because you may want to just put off an absolutely brilliant neurodivergent candidate when they read those sorts of those sorts of requirements. Be ready to adjust into your formats. So again, you know, ADHD individuals may have challenges as early as the interview stage. Something I always recommend my commercial clients and businesses to do is make sure you share questions in advance so that they can go away, process that, and not feel overwhelmed in an interview. Allow the individuals to take notes.

Be sort of flexible with the timings of the interviews and maybe extend it. So you might normally have an hour interview. Might want to extend it beyond the hour, or you might want to break the interview down so you have two shorter interview processes. So think about how you can adjust the process for the individual. Make sure the environment is a disclosure friendly environment. So before an individual arrives at the interview, ask if they need any adjustments that will immediately platform that you're an inclusive environment and that you want to make sure that the the interviewee is comfortable in that environment. So that is really, really important.

Of course, once you're onboarding the individuals, early support really sets the tone of the workplace. So ensuring that you are clear on the expectations for the employee, the timelines are structured. So if there's an onboarding process, provide them with a a scheduled timeline so they know what they need to be, where they need to be, what's expected. You might need to work with them to sort of track that process because there's an awful lot of information when people join a business. It can be quite overwhelming for for anybody, particularly individuals with ADHD. So ensure you get that support right early on. I recommend body systems.

So pair new new individuals in the business with trained colleagues. If you've got ADHD champions in the business, make sure they're paired with those individuals if you, you know, if you're at that stage or aware of a diagnosis. You can offer informal guidance and help navigate all of the sort of workplace norms to make that sort of onboarding process more supportive and include inclusive. And And as I've already said this this afternoon, recognizing ADHD related challenges is the best thing that you can do for anybody in your business. Make sure the environment that they work in is supportive, it is inclusive, and adapt adapt the workplace so the communication around these matters is ongoing. There's dialogues. It's spoken about openly.

And starts to break down some of the challenges attached to ADHD and neurodiversity. Henry, let's move on to the next slide. And this is quite quite a sobering this is quite a sobering legal precedent, which I had to talk about today. Actually, you can imagine lots of my ADHD clients love to talk about this case with me because there was a record £4,600,000 awarded for disability discrimination in this case. So what I'm going to do is take you through a bit of background of this case, where the employer went wrong, and then we've got some legal takeaways. So Rachel Wright Turner was a senior public sector employee, and she had previous to joining Hammersmith. She had been diagnosed with ADHD and PTSD.

Following her work on the Grenfell Tower responses. So she was a super senior individual and she'd worked and she'd had those circumstances quite unsurprisingly had a profound impact on her. She disclosed the condition to her ADHD and PTSD prior to joining them. Notwithstanding this, there was a serious series of frankly quite frightening circumstances which included them failing to make any adjustments for her. So she disclosed her ADHD and PTSD to the council before joining. Despite this, her line manager discussed on the first day of her employment a traumatic YouTube video that she'd seen that related to the Grenfell fire triggering a PTSD episode. Despite her discussing her neurodiversity, there were no adjustments made for her.

She was accused when flagging it later on that she had failed to disclose the ADHD during the recruitment process despite having already done so. All of the conduct that she was subjected to led to her having a mental health crisis at a work event, and she essentially had a breakdown in a bar and was unable to leave the toilets and had to be sort of escorted from the toilets. This was then misrepresented by senior members of staff at the council who indicated to multiple employees that she was so intoxicated that she'd had to be removed from the premises which was later proven as false. Her probation period, she subsequently signed off work, but her probation period was extended.

Without any proper justification or notice because she was unable to work. The tribunal actually found during the course of the tribunal proceedings that her dismissal letter had been doctored. So it would appear that the dismissal had been issued before she raised agreement. So when she was off on leave, she raised agreements about the conduct she'd been subjected to and the failure to make recent adjustments. At the employment tribunal, we had senior staff giving false and misleading testimonies around her condition, how that condition represented, and her behavior was just broadly misrepresented. And the tribunal concluded that key figures at council the had conspired not only to cover up procedural failures.

But to include inaccuracies around her discrimination. They'd also ignored medical advice, occupational health advice which said do not do not touch her, sorry do not contact her. Despite this attempts repeated attempts were made to meet meet with her. The employment tribunal found at the end of this this harrowing tribunal proceedings that that disability discrimination had occurred including harassment. So we had direct discrimination, we had indirect discrimination, we had harassment, some of the conduct she was subjected to and most pertinent there was a complete wholesale failure to make any decent adjustments to support her in her in her employment. So she was awarded, as I say, a record £4,600,000 for the discrimination.

I think it's important to highlight here that she is it was thought that she was quite likely to not work again as a result of the conduct and the impact that that had on her mental health. But turning back to kind of ADHD and the relevance of this case or what is the legal takeaways for an employer on this on this call today. The disclosure of ADHD is frankly irrelevant. Whether somebody tells you prior to joining your organization or whether they tell you at the time, protection applies even if an individual discloses ADHD after their employment. Dismissal linked to disability related absence is discrimination.

So she was essentially dismissed because she was unable to work. She was unable to work because of the harassment she'd experienced in the workplace, the mental health deterioration and the face of any adjustments support in the workplace. Her probation was extended and wasn't justified. It wasn't procedurally fair and the occupational health advice as I just mentioned a moment ago that was, you know, completely ignored. So this is a case where you see where you get it wrong and it can be a very, very large tribunal award. And I have to say that just to put that into context, I think that I think the probably average tribunal award is sort of around 20,000, less than £20,000. So that is 4,600,000 is huge when employees get discrimination.

Wrong. Thank you, Henry. Next slide. So back to my case of mister where the tribunal misapplied the disability test. I think, again, going back to what is really interesting about this case and for for individuals with ADHD on the court is that the tribunal provided really kind of sound guidance and guidelines to employers. So So in the very first hearing, the employment tribunal decided that mister was not disabled under the Equality Act because he had academic success. He was described as a social person. He could clearly perform in his role, and he only struggled. The evidence suggested he only struggled when he kind of crowded public transport. And as as you know, as I mentioned a moment ago, mister Severn appealed, and the tribunal.

Said on the basis of his appeal was that the tribunal had focused on what he could do rather than what he struggled with. Unfortunately, the employment appeal tribunal agreed with this and they overturned the decision. So the legal takeaways from this case is diagnosis must be considered even if it's not determinative. So mister had an ADHD diagnosis and as we spoke earlier on in this presentation, the fact you have a diagnosis does not does not necessarily mean you have the legal definition. But what is important is the next bullet point, the functional functional impact of your condition. So just because you're academically successful, just because you're a senior individual, that absolutely doesn't mean that you don't have ADHD.

That absolutely doesn't mean that it has a substantial adverse impact on your day to day activities. ADHD, ASD can qualify as disabilities under the under the Equality Act. It's all very fact dependent for for any employees on this call that wants to make representations about how it impacts them in the workplace. I would say just prepare a table. So what is it that you find challenging? So it could be if it's time blindness that, you know, you regularly find you miss your train in the morning so you get to work late. If it's that you really struggle with, you know, audio disruptions, it causes disruptions. Put that down and then explain it to your employer how that impacts you in the work environment.

Be clear on the substantial impact that has on your day to day activities as it really helps an employer understand what you're having to process, how you're having to manage these things. Thank you, Henry. Next slide, please. Creating a neuro neuro inclusive culture. Look, this is really, really important. And, you know, most people on the call will understand why that's so important. But people with ADHD, neurodivergent thinkers, they often approach problems from an entirely unique angle. They're creative problem solvers. They've got diverse perspectives. They can excel in lots of different areas of of their work and it's really, really important that neurodiversity is not considered a challenge.

Instead, it's a strength that we need to harness in our businesses. Employers need to make sure that they have the right strategies in place. So there needs to be manager training, equip managers so they're knowledgeable of ADHD, recognize neurodivergent traits, respond with empathy, respond with flexibility, how you're going to make this individual thrive in your business rather than treating them like they're a nuisance. I make the adjustments proactively like I said. The individuals don't need to always have to to ask if you've got a really open inclusive environment. Individuals see those adjustments being made across the workplace and the stick the stigma and the challenges around that will eventually sort of break down.

Peer awareness, I think talking about it openly so that people do feel psychologically safe is also really, really important. Make sure that support is normalized and employees feel safe to disclose. Sometimes it might be that you've got senior leaders in the business that have got these conditions and again, it's really, really important to make sure that they feel equipped and able to say, I have these conditions. These are how I, you know, how how I cope. So just making sure there is a greater awareness in your business. Next slide. Thanks, Henry. So support support resources.

I think people probably will be aware of this, but we've got the access to work. So it's a government funded workplace support. I think this is the one of the most underused, underutilized resources available and possibly one of the most impactful. I And always say to my commercial clients and individuals is that making adjustments for ADHD does not have to be expensive, but it can be so important to kind of overcome those challenges. But this government funded scheme enables workplace assessments. It funds ADHD coaching, which is brilliant for personalized plans. So coaching enables individuals to really talk about what are the most profound.

Challenges that they experience in their workplace because it will it will vary from individual to individual. So these plans can be put together to better support them in the workplace. I mean, what's really, really important for individuals with ADHD is to see that they've got career progression in a business. So they are entitled to thrive in the business just in exactly the same way as anyone else. And I think if you've got clear plans in place, you've got support from coaches, mentors, senior people in the business, they're provided with tools to enable them to sort of move through the business successfully, then you'll find that you have a really diverse work environment where you have lots of neurodiverse.

Employees that are thriving, that represent your business really, really well. So I'm gonna round off with some practical tips for employers. So next slide, please, Henry. Thank you. So communication, it sounds obvious, but it's hard, like, you know, when you're, you know, a busy employer, getting communication right is really, really important. Be empathetic, be supportive, but be clear. Sometimes you need to break down your instructions. Follow, you know, following up in writing is really important but work with the individual to see what works for them, you know, in in the same way you might have two children, three children, you you know, you need to manage your instructions to them differently and that that's absolutely fine.

Be careful with your any sort of performance management. Make sure it's strength based and be empathetic with your feedback. Individuals with ADHD, they really sort of they really struggle with kind of criticism or negative feedback. So think about how you can kind of manage that And that that's a skill in itself, and that's where training your managers and people in the business to be more empathetic, to think about how you feedback. And the the reality is everybody's running businesses, and businesses need to be successful and businesses need to make money, but it's not an either or situation. Make sure you've got regular check ins and collaborative goal settings. So make sure all of your goal setting is realistic.

You know, and breaking it down. Asking somebody where they want to be in five years might be entirely overwhelming, but asking them what they want to achieve in the next six months might feel far more sort of achievable for them. So have that in mind. And my final slide is practical tips for employees. So self advocacy. So know your rights, and hopefully this presentation, if you want to come along to any of our sort of support groups we do through ADHD UK, know your rights. That just equips you to come speak to your employer more confidently. You know, it isn't an adversarial process asking for adjustments to be made. Once you can identify what substantial disadvantages that that's caused by some of the traits.

The challenges that you face, it makes it so much easier to explain to employer why those adjustments are so important. Manage manage your own kind of energy. So, you know, make sure that you're able to take breaks, that you're able to move kind of regularly. Task rotation. So an individual that has a job where they need to answer the telephone constantly, they've got to respond to emails, they've got to upload something to a case status, case management system, and update other teams. That's a lot of things that are needing to be done all at the same time.

Make sure that those individuals maybe have blocks of time where they're responsible for answering the phone and they've got periods of time to come deal with their their email so that they can really break down those responsibilities and they can be successful in their their roles and responsibilities. And finally, disclosure. Disclosure, of course, it's really hard. It's it's it's difficult sometimes talking about these things. Think about your timing. Think about the context. Do you want to disclose at interview stage.

So that you understand the employer that you're going to work for? Do you want to wait until you secure the job? Do you want to wait and see how you pay cope at work? Like I said a moment ago, this is a really, really personal decision. But what's important is once you make that disclosure, your employer is obliged to support you. They are obliged to make adjustments. And it hopefully gives you the opportunity to understand the support networks within the business that you can then utilize to make sure that you're able to thrive in your employment. So I think just as a roundup really, you know, there's a lot of information there to absorb but really I say to all of my commercial clients, I say as a business leader myself.

That tolerance and that education piece continues to be so important for everybody in across across the country, whether that's kind of politicians, whether that's business leaders, or whether that's in education where you see sort of intolerance with pupils with ADHD. Once we start breaking down that stigma, we can all begin to move forward far more positively, making sure everybody's supported. Thank you.

It's amazing. Thank you. And, I mean, three minutes after the allotted time too, after we started at twenty four, it's a very impressive chopped some bits out to catch up on myself. You did a very good job. And we've had a few questions, we'll do just a couple very quickly and then obviously we need to jump on. I've put it up on the screen, but Darren Thomas is there. Are there any info packs we can share with our employers? The slides, hopefully with your permission, are available now at globalaidscom, people can download those right now. Any other info packs that you can recommend?

We prepare bespoke policies for our commercial clients or anybody that wants that support. So what we would say is don't ever put a policy in place and think you've ticked ticked a sort of compliance box. I'm not suggesting for a minute that anyone's thinking about doing that, but tailoring a policy to your workplace is really important. So making sure you've got lots of access, and and you'll find on my slides the the workplace schemes and that sort of stuff is fantastic.

But actually having a really meaningful policy in place, which talks about some of the challenges that people might experience in your industry or in your sort of work environment is really important. So if anybody wants to sort of chat to us about that, we're more than happy to kinda give some guidance.

And we have a download pack book called the ADHD Work Welfare Pack. That's well, that's less about the legal. That's about supporting the workplace. It's got a description of ADHD for an employer. It's got a structured conversation to help people have a good conversation. It's got some ideas for adjustments. Structured conversation because often it's a really hard conversation to have and many times both parties find it so awkward. Almost shut it down. The employee is struggling with the answers. And sometimes that's like the kind but awful question of potentially very difficult question of, like, how can I help? You kinda look back at them going, well, why do think I know?

I really hope you'd know. And that and that you're you're absolutely right, Henry. That's the education piece and that we need to make sure that everybody's educated. It's a wholesale education right across the country, isn't it?

Yeah. You're not obligated to know all the answers, but I think some of the approaches are trying to find them out, which could be an occupational therapist. It could be a practice assessment.

I think that's right. But also the statement case I've mentioned a couple of times now because I just think it's such a brilliant judgment even though it's only quite a discrete point. But the judges are making noises now about saying, where are your ADHD champions or where's your training on why isn't there a better understanding? And honestly, it's brilliant to read these things because I would say twelve months ago, two years ago, five years ago, they're just you just weren't reading that sort thing in judgment. So there's such a shift even legally, there's a better understanding. And our judges are sort of saying, no. No. You have a duty to understand how to support individuals, which should hopefully be music to everybody's ears.

It's important. And we had this comment coming from Kathleen Anne. This is fourteen months wait currently. That's around access to work. Mhmm. That is a big problem. It is. Yeah. I mean, it is.

And and, look, that's why we have a we do have a lot of people reaching out to us or Henry, the support group, was really kind of oversubscribed last time because people just want to access that sort of legal support. And, you know, if you're interested, come on to the next one and you can put questions in. It's a very open group, a supportive group. So put put the questions in and we'll we'll always answer as best we can.

And actually, because we speeded across. One of the things you said as you arrived was I'm very keen. I think he and was that we've been working together for some time and actually that belies the fact that Emma has been extremely kind for their time and when we've got problems that we don't understand we're trying to advise people, we're trying to put information on the site, She's been really helping us and thank you for that. It really is a pleasure. It's a lot of the sort of background stuff that people don't know about and people being so kind for their time, so thank you. Yeah, and you obviously got your support group, which is wonderful that people can go to if you've got legal questions. All.

Our support groups, just like this conference, they're free but donate if you can. We don't believe in putting a financial barrier between people and information from the charitable side. Like we as a charity think we're places to try and help people access everything and Emma very generously gives some of her time to support that. So you've got someone you can go and talk to. Yeah, the last one and then we'll have to run from Joshua. Thank you so much for these poignant and important discussions. The corporate sector in my country is not particularly keen on making some of these accommodations for ADHD. It's it's very sad. Which I hadn't I hadn't thought that was in my country, so, like, that's.

I was different. I think I think how I'd if a if a sort of an individual came to me and explained that I think it shouldn't be incumbent on you to educate your employer. However, explaining why you're such a strength and such a you know, how valuable you are to the business is really important. So So, actually, you need neurodiverse thinkers in your business. You need people out of box. Some of the best lawyers in my business are neurodiverse and.

Being able to educate employers why you need to meet them. Make sure that those people are able to thrive in the business. And when you haven't kind of got laws or governments supporting that, that is is a bigger battle. But I do think that this is all beginning to get sort of better better momentum. So I do hope that that changes for you. You're amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you. And apologies, and thanks to everybody for the tolerance whilst my IT let me down.

Well, you're amazing at recovery and sorting it out under deep pressure. And so well done, and thank you.