ADHD disclosure at work usually arrives late. Here’s why, and what a good manager does next.
“My employee has just told me they have ADHD. But why have they waited until they’re on a performance improvement plan to tell me?”
That question came in during our last workplace Q&A with employment solicitor Jodie Hill, founder of Thrive Law. And I get it. You’re the manager. You’ve had the conversations, you’re about to go formal, and now ADHD lands on the table. You want to be supportive. You’re also wondering about the timing.
I’m Rosie Turner, founder of ADHD Untangled. I was diagnosed at 33 after 8 jobs in 10 years, and I now coach ADHD adults and train the managers who work with them. This post covers why ADHD disclosure at work so often happens at the worst possible moment, what the research says about it, what UK law expects of you, and the one question that changes the whole conversation.
Nothing here is legal advice. Where it touches the law, it’s Jodie’s general guidance, and your own situation needs your own solicitor.
Why do employees wait to disclose ADHD at work?
Because most of them don’t feel safe doing it sooner. The 2026 Birkbeck, University of London and Neurodiversity in Business survey of over 600 people found that 82% of neurodivergent employees mask at work, and only 1 in 3 feel safe telling their employer. The same survey found 64% of employers admit their own managers don’t understand neurodiversity.
So the employee in front of you is not an outlier. They’re the norm. And there are usually three things going on:
They didn’t know. Most adults with ADHD are diagnosed late, often in their thirties or forties. The performance conversation is frequently what sends someone to get assessed in the first place.
They’d learnt not to. Years of being told to try harder. Watching what happened to the last colleague who asked for an adjustment. Disclosing felt like handing over ammunition.
They couldn’t explain it. Knowing something is hard and knowing how to explain why are two different things. Until there’s a name for it, “I struggle with deadlines” just sounds like an admission.
I did 8 jobs in 10 years before anyone, including me, worked out what was going on. Working twice as hard to look like everyone else, thinking if I just tried harder I’d get it right. Nobody asked. I didn’t know how to say.
The bit that should bother every manager
When a coaching client asks me “should I tell my employer?”, I want to say yes, always. I never do.
Because I don’t know who they’d be telling. I don’t know if the person on the other side of that conversation has been trained to hear it, or whether it goes straight into the file that gets used against them. So the people who’d benefit most from disclosing are the ones I can’t tell to do it.
That’s not on them. That’s on us.
ADHD is an explanation, not an excuse
Understanding the explanation doesn’t remove accountability. It means asking better questions before you decide what happens next.
Look at what’s actually on the performance plan. Missed deadlines. Admin that slipped. “Attitude” in meetings. Inconsistency. For a lot of ADHD employees, the items on the PIP are the ADHD. Managing them harder doesn’t fix it. It makes it worse, and it burns the person out while you do it.
What to do when an employee tells you they have ADHD
This is Jodie’s answer from the legal side, and it’s also just good management.
Thank them. They’ve handed you something that matters. Don’t question the timing out loud. If they haven’t told you before, it’s usually because it didn’t feel safe, and that’s not necessarily your fault, but it is now your job.
Pause the formal process. Not cancel. Pause. Pressing on with a PIP the day after a disclosure is where employers end up at tribunal.
Find out what they need. Don’t expect them to arrive with a list of adjustments. Most people don’t know. Break the role down together. Where do they fly? Where do they drown?
Look at adjustments and write them down. Agree what you’re trying, what good looks like, and when you’ll review it. If you can’t say what an adjustment is meant to fix, you’ll never know if it worked.
Then decide. If, after real adjustments and a fair review, the role still isn’t right, that’s a different conversation. But it shouldn’t come first.
Imagine the time, talent and money saved if that happened before someone hit breaking point.
What does UK law expect when an employee discloses ADHD?
In the UK, ADHD will usually meet the definition of a disability under the Equality Act 2010 if it’s long term and has a substantial effect on day to day activities. A formal diagnosis isn’t required for the duty to apply. The duty to make reasonable adjustments starts at the point of knowledge, and that can be behaviour you’ve noticed, not just a disclosure.
The risk most employers miss is “discrimination arising from disability”, section 15. If the reason someone isn’t performing is linked to their ADHD, and you performance manage or dismiss them without first considering adjustments, that can be discrimination even if the process itself was fair. Compensation in these claims is uncapped.
It’s not theoretical. UK tribunal claims citing neurodiversity almost doubled in five years, from 265 in 2020 to 517 in 2025. In 2026 a tribunal awarded £45,000 against Lidl after a manager read an employee’s ADHD communication style as “a lack of remorse”. The CIPD’s view is that most of these cases come down to managers who were never given the training or the time to have the right conversations.
Similar duties exist across Europe. In the Netherlands the Wgbh/cz requires effective accommodations. The language differs, the principle doesn’t: don’t wait for a diagnosis, adjust before you decide, get advice when it gets complicated.
The one question that changes it
You don’t need all the answers. You need one question, asked before the PIP rather than after:
“What’s getting in the way?”
Followed by: “What would help?”
That’s it. Everything Jodie and I teach starts there.
Frequently asked questions
Should I question why an employee waited to disclose ADHD?
No. Thank them, then move on to what they need. Late disclosure almost always means the person didn’t feel safe sooner, or didn’t know themselves. Questioning the timing tells them they were right to wait.
Do I have to pause a performance improvement plan if an employee discloses ADHD?
In the UK, once you know or should reasonably know an employee may have a disability, you have a duty to consider reasonable adjustments before taking decisions that could disadvantage them. Pausing the formal process while you do that is the safest route and the fairest one. Take legal advice before any dismissal where ADHD may be a factor.
Does an employee need a formal ADHD diagnosis before I make adjustments?
No. The duty under the Equality Act applies from the point of knowledge, not the point of diagnosis. If someone tells you they think they have ADHD, or you’ve noticed patterns that suggest it, start the conversation. Waiting for paperwork is one of the most common mistakes employers make.
What are reasonable adjustments for ADHD at work?
It depends on the person and the role, which is why you work it out together. Common ones include written follow ups after verbal instructions, clear single priorities rather than long lists, flexible or quiet working time, regular short check ins, and agreed review points. Noise cancelling headphones on their own are not a plan.
Is ADHD coaching the same as therapy?
No. Coaching is forward facing and practical: how someone works, what gets in the way, what to try next. Therapy addresses mental health and the past. Our workplace training teaches managers coaching skills, with clinical psychologist Michaela Thomas covering where coaching stops and signposting starts.
What happens next is on you. And it’s learnable.
Your employee didn’t hide it to get one over on you. Most of the time they didn’t know, or they’d learnt the hard way that saying it out loud wasn’t safe. The PIP is often the moment the two things collide.
Jodie and I built the Neurodiversity Workplace Coach Training for exactly this. Six weeks, live online, from 10 February 2027. Your managers learn disclosure to adjustment with Jodie, how to hold the adjustments conversation, how to spot ADHD being read as attitude, what the law expects in the UK and the Netherlands, and how to coach instead of tell.
