Start by finding out where you actually are
Start with a baseline audit of policies, recruitment and culture, then track disclosure comfort, time-to-adjustment and retention for neurodivergent staff, and benchmark against the City & Guilds Neurodiversity Index. The first move is the audit: walk through your policies, your recruitment and selection process, your physical and digital workspaces and your day-to-day culture, and write down where each one puts a neurodivergent person at a disadvantage. Both the CIPD and Acas put this first: understand where you are now, then set a plan of action. It matters because so few employers have done it. CIPD found only 19% of organisations had reviewed their policies for neuroinclusivity, and Acas reported that while 48% of businesses had an equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) strategy, just 17% measured its impact.
Then track outcomes, not a headcount of diagnoses
The trap most guidance walks into is measuring neuroinclusion by counting how many staff have disclosed a diagnosis. Do not. Most neurodivergent people at work are undiagnosed or undisclosed, so a headcount punishes the good cultures where people feel safe to speak up and flatters the silent ones. Measure the environment and the outcomes instead, gathered through anonymous self-identification so no one is forced to out themselves:
| What to measure | Why it tells you something |
|---|---|
| Disclosure comfort | Whether people feel safe to discuss neurodivergence; a proxy for psychological safety. |
| Time-to-adjustment | Days from request to delivery. Delays of three months or more are common and are a red flag. |
| Retention and progression | Whether neurodivergent staff stay and get promoted at the same rate as colleagues. |
| Engagement and sentiment | Survey scores split out for neurodivergent versus non-neurodivergent staff, to expose the gap. |
Splitting the scores is the point. CIPD’s warning is that the real gap is between your policy and your people’s lived experience, and you only see it when you compare the two groups side by side.
Benchmark outward, and tie it back to the law
Your own numbers tell you whether you are improving; they do not tell you how you compare. For that, take part in the City & Guilds Neurodiversity Index, the annual UK employer survey now in its fourth report (2026), which measures the gap between employer confidence and employees’ lived experience, including those three-month-plus delays in adjustments. It is a research benchmark you join, not a badge you award yourself, so it sits alongside your internal metrics rather than replacing them. Anchor all of it in the legal duty: tracking whether reasonable adjustments are requested, granted and delivered on time is how you evidence compliance with the duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled employees under the Equality Act 2010 (s.20) — a duty that covers many neurodivergent people, and whose breach is itself discrimination (s.21).
Where the law comes from
Related
This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.