By Esyllt Carr Business reporter Taking one of the UK's biggest grocery chains to an employment tribunal was something that Ryan Toghill says almost took over his life. "It was all I could think about for 18 months and more," he says. The deputy store manager at Lidl, who'd told his bosses he'd been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), was called to a disciplinary meeting after breaking company rules by using equipment he hadn't been trained to use. After that meeting, Ryan was dismissed for gross misconduct. He successfully appealed the decision and was offered a lower-paid role. He rejected it and took his case to a tribunal. Eventually, he was awarded more than 45,000 when the judge found his former employer hadn't fully taken his ADHD diagnosis into account during the disciplinary process. The judgement found reasonable adjustments during the process hadn't been offered to him, such as additional breaks. He'd been described by a manager as showing "a lack of remorse," something the tribunal found was clearly linked with his communication differences associated with having ADHD. "I don't show a lot of emotions," Ryan explains. "I could be incredibly happy, angry, upset, or remorseful, and my facial expressions and tone of voice would essentially remain the same." The tribunal upheld part of his claims for unfair dismissal, wrongful dismissal and a failure to make reasonable adjustments. Lidl says it's "committed to ensuring that everyone receives the reasonable adjustments, clear communication and support they need to thrive." Campaigners, lawyers and HR teams say cases like this highlight a shift that businesses should be paying attention to. Thousands of people have been diagnosed as neurodivergent in the last few years, an umbrella term that covers autism, ADHD and other conditions such as dyslexia and Tourette's syndrome. Since the pandemic in particular, diagnosis rates for ADHD and autism have been rising, and they're featuring more regularly in disputes in employment tribunals. While many people who are neurodivergent don't consider themselves disabled, the Equality Act 2010 may give them protection by recognising their condition as a disability, regardless of whether they have a formal diagnosis. They're entitled to reasonable adjustments if they can show that their condition has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to do normal day-to-day activities. These are widely defined and aren't limited to work tasks. Cases going to tribunal can be around employers not making those adjustments, but they can also be about how people are treated at work. For example, a 2025 tribunal found a software engineer who had ADHD had faced discrimination because a manager sighed and made other expressions of "non-verbal frustration" towards him. "What we're seeing in tribunals is rarely the result of deliberate discrimination," says Lutfur Ali, a diversity and inclusion adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, the professional body for HR. "Cases commonly stem from reasonable adjustments being overlooked, performance processes that were never designed with different thinking styles in mind, and managers lacking...
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