Neurodiversity awareness is rising, but impact is stalling
Over the past decade, neurodiversity has moved firmly onto the HR and DEI agenda. More organisations than ever are running awareness sessions, celebrating Neurodiversity Celebration Week, and encouraging employees to disclose neurodivergent identities such as ADHD, autism, dyslexia and dyspraxia.
Yet despite this progress, many organisations are seeing a frustrating pattern emerge:
- Neurodivergent employees continue to struggle day to day
- Managers report low confidence in supporting individual needs
- Reasonable adjustments are applied inconsistently, or not at all
- HR teams are pulled into repeated escalations
The issue isn’t intent. Most organisations genuinely want to be inclusive. The problem is that neurodiversity strategies often collapse at manager level.
Where neurodiversity strategies typically break down
In many organisations, neurodiversity initiatives are designed at a strategic level but executed at an operational one. This creates a disconnect between ambition and reality.
Common failure points include:
1. Over-reliance on awareness training
Awareness sessions are an important starting point, but they are often treated as the solution rather than the foundation.
Managers may leave a session understanding what neurodiversity is, but not:
- how to adapt their management style
- how to have practical conversations about needs
- how to balance fairness, performance and adjustments
Without applied follow-up, confidence quickly drops.
2. Inconsistent manager capability
Most organisations rely heavily on individual managers to “do the right thing”. In practice, this creates a postcode lottery of support.
Some managers are confident, curious and flexible. Others are risk-averse, time-poor or unsure where their responsibility ends and HR’s begins.
Research from the CIPD consistently shows that line managers play a critical role in employee experience, yet many report feeling under prepared for inclusive leadership.
3. Lack of practical frameworks
Managers are often told to “be inclusive” without being given tools to do so.
This leaves them asking:
- What is reasonable in this situation?
- How do I respond without saying the wrong thing?
- How do I support someone without lowering expectations?
In the absence of clarity, many managers default to avoidance or over-reliance on HR.
Why this matters more than ever
This gap has real consequences for organisations.
When managers lack confidence:
- Neurodivergent employees are more likely to disengage or mask
- Reasonable adjustments are delayed or inconsistently applied
- Performance issues escalate unnecessarily
- The trust in DEI initiatives erodes
Over time, this creates reputational risk and undermines retention, particularly among experienced neurodivergent talent.
What effective neurodiversity strategies do differently
Organisations that see real impact approach neurodiversity as a capability issue, not just a cultural one.
They focus on:
Firstly, building manager confidence, not just their knowledge.
Manager confidence can come from:
- Understanding how to have structured conversations with employees
- Having clear decision making frameworks surrounding reasonable adjustments
- Having clear escalation routes so they know who to approach if theres a performance or safeguarding problem
- Having permission to practice and trial things from their senior leadership team, without the expectation to be perfect
This aligns with findings from the Chartered Management Institute, which highlights confidence and clarity as core components of effective people management.
Standardising support while allowing flexibility
Successful organisations:
- Create consistent reasonable adjustment processes that your managers can follow
- Define clear principles for fairness and have policies to support this
- Support their managers to adapt within boundaries
This reduces risk while empowering managers to act and take initiative.
Embedding neurodiversity into everyday management
Rather than treating neurodiversity as an “add-on”, leading organisations integrate it into:
- Their performance management processes, ensuring they are fully inclusive
- Communication expectations, including using neuroinclusive language and accessible design principles
- Inclusive workload planning, encouraging things such as flexible working and remote working where possible
- Inclusive team norms
This benefits all employees, not just those who disclose or who even are neurodivergent.
How to fix the confidence gap managers face
If your organisation is serious about neurodiversity, the question to ask is not “Are we aware?” but “Are our managers equipped?”
Practical next steps include:
- Auditing manager confidence and capability
- Providing applied, role specific training
- Creating clear frameworks for having inclusive conversations and implementing reasonable adjustment
- Reinforcing neuroinclusive expectations through leadership behaviours
Neurodiversity strategies succeed when managers are supported to translate their good intentions into action.
Final thought
Neurodiversity does not fail because managers don’t care. It fails because they are asked to deliver inclusion without the skills, structures or support to do so confidently.
Fix the manager gap and the strategy will start to work.