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Remote work is now so widely framed as the default accommodation for employees who need flexibility that it has become a kind of shorthand for inclusion. Need flexibility? Work from home. Need adjustments? Remote is the answer.
For many people with ADHD, this assumption does not hold. The home environment can be precisely the context in which ADHD symptoms are most impairing: no external structure, no social accountability, no physical separation between work and rest, and a home full of the stimuli that attention regulation finds irresistible. For these employees, working in an office is not a burden to be avoided. It is the adjustment they need.
A lawsuit filed in July 2025 by a former employee of professional services firm Aon has placed this reality at the centre of a legal dispute that carries implications for how employers think about disability accommodation, ADHD, and the limits of their own assumptions about what helps.
The case is Gomez v. Aon Private Risk Management Insurance Agency, Inc. The employee alleges she was fired after requesting to work in the office full time because of her ADHD. She is pursuing claims of disability discrimination, harassment, and retaliation under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
According to the complaint, the employee was hired as an account specialist at Aon after being told by a recruiter that the role would allow full-time in-office work, an arrangement she specifically sought because of her ADHD. After joining, she was informed the position would be predominantly remote.
The employee found that working from home made it genuinely difficult to stay on task and absorb new information, difficulties directly connected to her ADHD. When she raised concerns about her performance with her manager, she alleges she was told the role might not be a good fit for her and was placed on a performance improvement plan.
She then made a formal accommodation request to work in the office full time, supported by medical documentation. The request was granted. Shortly after she began working under the approved arrangement, according to the complaint, she was terminated.
The employee is pursuing claims of disability discrimination, harassment, and retaliation under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Aon has not publicly responded to the allegations. The case is being reported based on court filings and HR Dive coverage of those documents.
The prevailing narrative around workplace accommodations for disability in the post-pandemic era has strongly associated accommodation with remote work. Remote work enables employees with physical disabilities or chronic health conditions to manage their conditions without the demands of commuting. It offers flexibility that many disabled workers value.
For a significant proportion of people with ADHD, however, this narrative inverts the clinical reality.
ADHD produces impairment in executive function, attention regulation, and impulse control. The home environment confronts these difficulties with a specific set of challenges: an absence of the external structure that workplaces provide; proximity to the activities and stimuli that attention regulation finds most difficult to resist; a loss of social accountability, the regulatory effect of working in the presence of other people; and a blurring of the boundary between work and rest that makes task initiation and sustained effort harder to maintain.
The office, for many people with ADHD, provides exactly what the ADHD brain needs to function more effectively: a consistent routine, a physically distinct work environment, the focusing effect of other people working nearby, and a social context in which the expectation of working is shared and reinforced.
This is not a minor preference. For employees with ADHD whose symptoms are significantly worsened by remote work, the request to work in the office is clinically grounded, functionally necessary, and in many cases the most straightforward adjustment an employer could make.
For more on how ADHD creates specific challenges in workplace settings and what helps, see our articles on working with ADHD: difficulties and solutions and ADHD accommodations at work.
The Americans with Disabilities Act requires employers with fifteen or more employees to provide reasonable accommodations to qualified employees with disabilities, unless doing so would cause undue hardship to the business.
ADHD is well established as a qualifying disability under the ADA. It is a neurological condition that substantially limits major life activities including concentrating, learning, reading, thinking, and communicating. The impairment need not be constant or affect every area of functioning to qualify. It must substantially limit one or more major life activities relative to the general population.
A reasonable accommodation under the ADA is any modification or adjustment to a job, work environment, or the way things are usually done that enables a qualified employee with a disability to enjoy equal employment opportunities. The range of what counts as reasonable is deliberately broad and includes adjustments to where work is performed. This means that requesting in-office work as a disability accommodation is as legitimate under the ADA as requesting remote work as an accommodation.
The ADA does not require employers to provide the exact accommodation an employee requests, but it does require them to engage genuinely with the request, explore what would address the employee's needs, and provide an effective accommodation. Refusing to engage with a request, or approving a request and then terminating the employee shortly afterwards, engages the ADA's protections in specific ways that courts have addressed directly.
The ADA requires employers and employees to engage in what courts and the EEOC call the interactive process: a genuine, two-way dialogue about what the employee needs, what accommodations might address those needs, and what the employer can practically provide. Both parties are expected to participate in good faith.
The interactive process is not a formality. It is the mechanism through which accommodation decisions are supposed to be made, and the quality of an employer's engagement with it is often central to whether a disability discrimination claim succeeds or fails.
Courts have held that an employer who refuses to engage in the interactive process, who terminates an employee immediately after an accommodation is approved, or who approves an accommodation but then eliminates the role on a timeline that appears connected to the accommodation request may have failed in its ADA obligations.
In the Aon case, the allegation that the employee was terminated shortly after her approved accommodation arrangement began places the timing of her dismissal directly at the centre of the legal question. The claims of retaliation rest on the inference that the accommodation request, rather than any legitimate performance concern, was what triggered her termination.
Retaliation under the ADA occurs when an employer takes an adverse employment action against an employee because they exercised a right protected under the Act. Requesting a disability accommodation is a protected activity. Terminating, demoting, or otherwise disadvantaging an employee because they made an accommodation request is unlawful retaliation, regardless of whether the underlying discrimination claim succeeds.
The timing of an adverse action relative to a protected activity is one of the most significant pieces of evidence in a retaliation claim. When an employee is placed on a performance improvement plan immediately after raising disability-related difficulties, and then terminated shortly after an accommodation is formally approved and implemented, the sequence of events creates an inference of retaliation that the employer must rebut.
This does not mean the employer automatically loses such a case. But it does mean the burden of establishing a legitimate, non-retaliatory reason for the termination falls squarely on the employer, and that reason must be supported by documented evidence that predates the accommodation request.
The consequences of failing to engage genuinely with the ADA's interactive process are illustrated by a case involving Wells Fargo, which was ordered to pay $22.1 million after allegedly denying a director's accommodation request without meaningfully exploring alternatives.
The director had requested to work from home because of a medical condition requiring immediate restroom access. His role was eliminated before the issue was resolved, and the court found a legitimate question about whether the company had engaged in meaningful dialogue about what adjustments were possible.
The scale of the award reflects both the financial losses the claimant suffered and the injury to feelings damages that accompany serious disability discrimination findings. It also reflects what courts regard as the employer's obligation: not simply to have a process on paper, but to use it genuinely when a disabled employee makes a request.
The lesson for employers from Wells Fargo, and from the trajectory of the Aon case, is consistent: the interactive process is not a compliance box to tick. It is a legal obligation the consequences of failing to meet are substantial and in some cases uncapped.
A separate but instructive case illustrates how well-intentioned policies can become barriers to accommodation when they are applied without flexibility.
Three City of Berkeley commission members with disabilities requested to attend public meetings remotely. The city agreed, but only on the condition that they publicly disclose their home addresses and permit members of the public to attend those locations in person, as required by California's open-meeting laws. The US Department of Justice subsequently sued Berkeley for violating the ADA, and the city changed its policy to waive those requirements for disability-related remote attendance.
The case demonstrates that even policies that are themselves reasonable in general application can become ADA violations when they are applied inflexibly in ways that deny disabled people access to the same opportunities as non-disabled people. The principle applies directly to remote work policies: a blanket policy that restricts in-office access for roles designated as remote, applied without consideration of whether a specific employee's disability-related needs require an exception, may itself constitute a failure to provide reasonable accommodation.
The Aon case highlights a broader reality about ADHD and workplace accommodation that many employers have not yet incorporated into their thinking.
ADHD is not a single, uniform condition producing a single, uniform set of workplace challenges. It presents across a spectrum of severity and presentation. The optimal working environment for a person with ADHD depends on their specific presentation, their specific role, and the specific ways in which their symptoms interact with their work demands.
Some people with ADHD find remote work genuinely helpful. Those with sensory processing difficulties that make open-plan offices overwhelming, or those who find the constant social demands of office environments cognitively exhausting, may perform significantly better at home. Others, as the Aon case illustrates, find that the structure, social presence, and physical separation of an office setting are what enables them to function effectively.
What both groups share is the need for an employer who will ask the right question: what does this person need to do their best work, given their specific disability? Not: what does our general remote work policy say? Not: what does flexible working usually mean? But: what does this person, with this condition, in this role, actually need?
For more on how different ADHD presentations affect workplace needs and what kinds of roles and environments tend to work well, see our article on best jobs for people with ADHD.
While the Aon case is a US lawsuit under the ADA, the underlying principles apply directly to UK workplaces under the Equality Act 2010.
The Equality Act requires UK employers to make reasonable adjustments for employees with disabilities when a provision, criterion, or practice puts them at a substantial disadvantage compared to non-disabled employees. Like the ADA, this framework is indifferent to whether the disability is physical or neurodevelopmental. ADHD qualifies as a disability under the Equality Act in cases where it produces a substantial and long-term adverse effect on day-to-day activities.
A UK equivalent of the Aon case would involve an ADHD employee requesting in-office work as a reasonable adjustment when a predominantly remote working arrangement was impairing their ability to perform their role. UK employers have the same obligation to engage genuinely with such a request as US employers do under the ADA, and the same exposure to claims of disability discrimination and unlawful detriment if they refuse without adequate justification or take adverse action connected to the request.
For UK employees navigating accommodation requests and for UK employers trying to understand their obligations, the frameworks are different in name but consistent in principle: accommodation is an individual matter, the obligation is to engage genuinely with what the disabled person needs, and adverse consequences for making a protected request are unlawful.
Several consistent patterns in how employers respond to ADHD accommodation requests create both legal risk and poor outcomes for neurodivergent employees.
Assuming remote work is always the right answer reflects a failure to engage with the individual. Remote work is an accommodation for some ADHD employees. For others, as the Aon case makes clear, it is the primary barrier to their effective performance. The right answer is what this person, in this role, actually needs.
Conflating accommodation with performance management is one of the most damaging patterns. When an employee's ADHD-related difficulties, including inconsistent performance, time management challenges, or organisational difficulties, are responded to with performance improvement plans rather than an accommodation conversation, the employer has typically failed its legal obligation and compounded the employee's difficulties simultaneously.
Approving accommodations as a formality without genuine implementation is another pattern. An accommodation that is approved on paper but undermined in practice, through manager behaviour, informal pressure, or role elimination, is not a compliance success. It is a legal exposure.
Training line managers to recognise ADHD-related difficulties and respond appropriately is not a nice-to-have. It is the mechanism through which accommodation obligations are actually discharged, because most accommodation needs arise and are either addressed or ignored at the level of the individual manager relationship.
Genuine inclusion for neurodivergent employees requires a shift from policy compliance to individual engagement.
It starts with the right questions. When an employee discloses ADHD or requests accommodation, the first question should not be "does this fit our remote working policy" but "what does this person need to do their best work, and how can we provide it?" The second question is the legally relevant one, and it is also the question that produces good outcomes.
It requires early, open dialogue. The evidence from disability discrimination cases consistently shows that cases that are resolved well are resolved early, through genuine conversation, before the employee's performance has been compromised by an inadequate working arrangement and before grievance processes have been initiated.
It means documenting every step of the accommodation process: the request, the discussion, the decision, the rationale, and the implementation. This documentation protects employers who are acting in good faith and provides the evidence that contested cases turn on.
And it means recognising that flexibility is not a single thing. Flexible work means work that flexes to meet individual needs, whether that means working from home, working in the office, having structured check-ins, having quiet space, or having adjusted deadlines. The need drives the adjustment. The trend does not.
Clinicians who work with employed adults with ADHD regularly encounter the gap between what remote work is assumed to provide and what it actually delivers for many ADHD presentations. The assumption that flexible working means working from home is pervasive, and it creates a specific problem for ADHD employees who need the opposite.
What is needed from employers is not a more sophisticated remote work policy. It is the clinical literacy to understand that ADHD affects attention regulation, executive function, and motivation in ways that are highly context-sensitive, that different working environments produce very different functional outcomes for the same person, and that the individual's experience of their own condition is the most reliable guide to what accommodation they actually need.
For healthcare professionals who want to develop their clinical expertise in ADHD and how it presents in adult life, including in occupational contexts, our ADHD assessor training course and ADHD training for professionals provide CPD-certified education grounded in current international clinical frameworks.
If remote work is impairing your ability to do your job because of ADHD, you have the right to request an accommodation to work in the office, and this is as legitimate an accommodation request as any other. Document specifically how remote work affects your ADHD symptoms and your work performance, and make your request formally, in writing.
If your employer responds to your accommodation request by placing you on a performance improvement plan, document the sequence of events carefully. The timing of a performance management process relative to an accommodation request is legally significant.
If your accommodation is approved but you are then terminated or demoted on a timeline that appears connected to your request, seek employment law advice promptly. The time limits for bringing claims under both the ADA and the UK Equality Act are tight, and early advice matters.
If you are uncertain about how to approach an accommodation conversation with your employer, our article on ADHD accommodations at work provides detailed practical guidance on how to frame requests, what documentation to provide, and what to do if an employer is unresponsive.
Can an ADHD employee request in-office work as a disability accommodation?
Yes. Both the ADA in the US and the Equality Act in the UK require employers to consider accommodation requests based on what the disabled employee needs, not on what accommodations look like in general. Requesting in-office work because ADHD makes remote work impairing is a legitimate accommodation request.
What is the interactive process under the ADA?
It is the required two-way dialogue between employer and employee about what accommodation is needed and what solutions are available. Both parties must participate in good faith. Failure to engage in this process is itself a legal risk for employers, regardless of the outcome of any underlying discrimination claim.
Can an employer terminate an employee after approving their accommodation?
An employer can terminate an employee for legitimate reasons unconnected to their disability or accommodation request. The legal risk arises when the timing of a termination suggests it was triggered by the accommodation request or the disability disclosure rather than a pre-existing performance concern. This is what the retaliation provision of the ADA addresses.
Do UK employers have the same obligations as US employers?
The specific legal frameworks differ, but the underlying principles are consistent. UK employers must make reasonable adjustments for disabled employees under the Equality Act 2010, engage with accommodation requests genuinely, and must not take adverse action against employees because of their disability or because they requested an adjustment.
What should I do if my employer refuses to engage with my ADHD accommodation request?
Document the request and the refusal in writing. In the UK, raise a formal grievance and seek support from a trade union or employment law solicitor. In the US, consider filing a charge with the EEOC. Both jurisdictions have time limits within which claims must be brought, so early advice is important.
The Aon lawsuit is a specific legal dispute between a specific employer and a specific employee. But the question it raises is broadly relevant to every employer that has adopted remote work as a default and assumed that default is inclusive.
For many employees with ADHD, it is not. The office provides structure, accountability, social presence, and the physical separation between work and rest that attention regulation needs. Assuming otherwise, without asking the individual, is the assumption that this case is challenging in court.
What genuine workplace inclusion for neurodivergent employees requires is not a better remote work policy. It is the willingness to ask each person what they actually need, to engage with that answer genuinely, and to recognise that the adjustment most worth making is the one that enables the individual in front of you to do their best work.
Every mind works differently. Accommodation that works with that reality, rather than around it, is both legally required and practically right.
Legal Disclaimer
This article discusses an ongoing legal case and provides general information about disability accommodation law for educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice. Details are drawn from court filings and published reporting. Aon has not publicly commented on the case.
