Practical neurodiversity training that helps managers understand what might be going on beneath the surface – and feel more confident knowing what to do next.
Sessions cover ADHD, autism and other forms of neurodivergence, with a focus on communication, performance, reasonable adjustments and preventing burnout.
Most organisations genuinely want to support neurodivergent employees. The difficult bit is knowing what that looks like in practice.
An employee who has always been capable and reliable starts missing deadlines. Someone appears disengaged in meetings. Communication breaks down. Performance changes. A team member becomes overwhelmed by something that seems relatively straightforward.
And the manager is left wondering:
Meanwhile, the employee may be putting an enormous amount of energy into appearing as though everything is fine.
Neurodiversity training helps managers become curious about what they’re seeing rather than jumping straight to conclusions about why it’s happening.
Because once we understand what might be getting in the way, it becomes much easier to have useful conversations about what could help.
Organisations often come to me because managers are dealing with situations like:
It’s to help them understand what they might be seeing, ask better questions and feel more confident about what to do next.
A neurodivergent employee may process information, manage time, communicate, prioritise or respond to their environment differently from their colleagues.
That can sometimes show up at work in ways that are easily misunderstood.
Knowing what ADHD or autism is is useful.
Knowing what to do when someone on your team is struggling is much more useful.
My neurodiversity training is designed around the situations managers actually encounter at work.
Rather than simply working through a list of traits and definitions, we’ll look at how neurodivergence can affect things like:
Sessions are interactive and can be shaped around the situations, questions and challenges that are most relevant to your organisation.
They don’t need all the answers – they need to know how to ask better questions.
Clearer performance conversations, more useful support and fewer assumptions.
Spotting when somebody may be struggling before everything reaches crisis point.
Less energy spent trying to fit into ways of working that make their job unnecessarily difficult.
This is an important part of the training.
Two people with ADHD won’t necessarily struggle with the same things.
Two autistic employees won’t necessarily need the same adjustments.
And something that helps one person might make absolutely no difference to somebody else.
EMCC-accredited ADHD and neurodiversity coach, Graduate Member of the BPS, MSc in Positive Psychology and Coaching in progress.
Operational experience means Sarah understands people, performance, deadlines, competing priorities and the realities managers are actually dealing with.
She also knows what it feels like to work inside systems that don’t always suit a neurodivergent brain.
The training combines psychology, coaching practice, operational experience and lived experience – so it’s useful in the real world, not just technically correct.
It means understanding the person well enough to work out what might help them succeed – while still considering what the team and organisation need too.
Understanding executive functioning and the ‘invisible workload’ has changed how we approach support, and we’re already seeing more consistency as a result.
Having clarity on how best to use that support effectively has made a noticeable difference for both the PA and the staff member they support.
Neurodiversity training helps people understand how neurological differences can affect somebody’s experience of work.
My training goes beyond general awareness to explore what this can look like in everyday situations and what managers can actually do when someone on their team needs support.
Training can be tailored for managers, leadership teams, HR professionals or wider staff groups.
We’ll shape the content and format around who is attending, what they already know and the situations they’re likely to encounter in their roles.
There’s no single neurodivergent experience.
Depending on the individual, difficulties might involve planning, prioritisation, starting tasks, communication, sensory processing, emotional regulation, time, working memory or managing competing demands.
Some employees may also be using a significant amount of energy masking difficulties that aren’t immediately obvious to the people around them.
There’s no universal list of adjustments that works for everyone.
A useful starting point is often getting curious about what’s difficult for that individual, being clear about expectations and having an open conversation about what might help.
From there, support could involve changes to communication, workload, priorities, environment or other reasonable adjustments.
No.
Supporting someone effectively and managing their performance aren’t mutually exclusive.
Understanding what’s contributing to a difficulty can actually make performance conversations more useful because you’re in a better position to agree clear expectations and identify what support or changes may be needed.
Yes. Reasonable adjustments and Access to Work can be covered as part of training, particularly around understanding individual needs, having useful conversations about support and exploring what might help in practice. I don’t provide legal or employment law advice on reasonable adjustments. Where specific legal guidance is needed, I’d always recommend speaking to your HR team or an appropriately qualified employment law professional.
Yes. Training can be delivered virtually through Zoom or Microsoft Teams, or in person in Greater Manchester and across the UK.
Your managers don’t need to know everything about neurodivergence.
They need enough understanding to recognise when something might be going on, enough curiosity to ask rather than assume, and enough confidence to have a useful conversation about what happens next.
If you’d like to explore neurodiversity training for your organisation, get in touch and tell me a little about your team and what you’re looking for.
