What did Khorram v Capgemini decide?

The Central London Employment Tribunal found that Capgemini UK failed to make five reasonable adjustments for Bahar Khorram, an employee with ADHD. The failures included not setting achievable and realistic tasks, not implementing ADHD and neurodiversity awareness training for colleagues and managers, not providing six coaching sessions focused on ADHD and time management, and not holding coaching sessions with the line manager. An occupational health report had recommended all five adjustments. They were not implemented. The tribunal found this constituted a continuing act of discrimination. The remedy judgment, issued December 2025, confirmed an award of £24,200.

Does the duty to make reasonable adjustments apply during probation?

Yes. The Equality Act 2010 does not exempt probationary periods from the reasonable adjustments duty. Where an employer knows, or ought to know, that an employee has a disability, the duty is active. In Khorram v Capgemini, the ADHD disclosure happened three months into a six-month probation. The tribunal found that the duty was triggered at that point, and that the failure to implement the recommended adjustments during the probation period was a continuing act of discrimination.

What counts as a reasonable adjustment for ADHD?

Reasonable adjustments for ADHD vary by individual and role, but the tribunal in Khorram v Capgemini confirmed that they can include: setting structured and achievable tasks, providing coaching focused on time management and coping strategies, arranging ADHD awareness training for managers and colleagues, and creating a working environment with clarity and reduced ambiguity. The key principle is that adjustments address the specific disadvantage created by the disability — in Khorram's case, the multitasking requirements and tight deadlines that her ADHD made significantly harder.

What is a "continuing act" of discrimination under the Equality Act?

A continuing act is where a series of related failures or decisions, taken together, represent an ongoing breach rather than a series of discrete events. In Khorram v Capgemini, the tribunal found that the objectives set in December 2023 were still live in January 2024, and that the ongoing failure to implement the OH-recommended adjustments meant the discrimination was not a one-off event — it continued for as long as the adjustments remained unimplemented. This matters for time limits: where a continuing act is found, the limitation period runs from the end of the act, not its start.

Can an employer argue that an employee declined reasonable adjustments?

Capgemini argued that Khorram had not wanted the ADHD training. The tribunal rejected this. Khorram had objected to one specific delivery format — a private session that would obviously be about her. She had made clear she was comfortable attending as one of many in a group session. The tribunal found that the employer's obligation was to find a workable format, not to abandon the adjustment because one format was unsuitable. An employee declining a specific format is not the same as declining the adjustment itself.

What is the average award for reasonable adjustment failures at employment tribunal?

Awards vary significantly depending on injury to feelings, financial loss, and the specific facts. The award in Khorram v Capgemini was £24,200. In 2024, average disability discrimination awards at employment tribunal were approximately £30,600, with uncapped awards in the most serious cases exceeding £200,000. Legal costs — incurred before any award is made — routinely run to five figures. The cost of the ADHD training that was not arranged in Khorram v Capgemini was described by the tribunal as "not a prohibitive difficulty."

Khorram v Capgemini: The Email That Nobody Answered

Ruth-Ellen Danquah · Published 6 April 2026

An occupational health report arrived in October 2023. It recommended five adjustments for an employee with ADHD. None of them were implemented. In February 2024, the employee was dismissed. In July 2025, the tribunal handed down its judgment. Five reasonable adjustment failures. Award: £24,200.

She sent him an email in November 2023.

She asked her line manager, Steve Baldwin, to attend ADHD awareness training with her. She had been on the waiting list. She had the OH report recommending it. She had found a format that would work — a group session, not a spotlight, not a private session that made it obvious the training existed because of her.

She sent the email. He didn’t respond.

Not a no. Not a “let me check with HR.” Not a “can we talk about this next week.” No response.

Four months later, Bahar Khorram was dismissed from her £120,000-a-year role at Capgemini UK for “ongoing concerns about her performance.” She had 25 years of experience in cloud architecture and pre-sales. She had disclosed her ADHD diagnosis. She had been referred to occupational health. She had done everything the system asks employees to do.

The system, in return, did not respond to her email.

The tribunal found five reasonable adjustment failures. The award was £24,200. But before you get to the legal analysis, there is a simpler question worth sitting with: what kind of organisation receives an email like that and says nothing?

Not a cruel one. Not a negligent one in the way people usually mean negligent. A normal one. A busy one. One where a manager had a full diary and an inbox and a list of things to do before the end of quarter, and an employee’s email asking about training slipped through without anyone noticing that it wasn’t just an email — it was the moment the case was decided.

What happened in Khorram v Capgemini

Khorram v Capgemini drift timeline from ADHD disclosure to dismissal five months five failures

Bahar Khorram joined Capgemini UK in June 2023 as Presales Market Lead in their cloud infrastructure services business unit. Her salary was £120,000 plus benefits. She was a cloud technologist with over 25 years of international experience, having worked at well-known tech firms across the US and London.

She had ADHD, diagnosed in November 2022 following a psychiatric assessment. Her condition significantly affected her executive functioning — particularly her ability to manage unstructured tasks, cope with ambiguity, handle excessive multitasking, and maintain focus in environments that lacked clarity or routine. She could do the work. She needed the work to be structured in a way that worked with her brain, not against it.

She told her line manager, Steve Baldwin, about her ADHD in September 2023, three months into her six-month probation. Baldwin referred her to occupational health. The OH assessment came back in October 2023 with specific, costed, practicable recommendations:

Setting achievable and realistic tasks to prevent her becoming overwhelmed
Neurodiversity awareness training for colleagues and managers (a one-hour or three-hour group webinar for up to 15 people — cost: a few hundred pounds)
ADHD awareness training for the team
Six two-hour coaching sessions focused on ADHD, time management, and coping strategies
Coaching sessions with her line manager

These were not radical asks. The training was a webinar. The coaching was six sessions. The tribunal later noted that the cost “was not a prohibitive difficulty” for a company the size of Capgemini.

In November 2023, Khorram sent the email. She invited Baldwin to attend the ADHD training with her. She had made clear she was comfortable being one of many attendees — she just did not want it delivered as a private session that made it obvious the training existed solely because of her. The tribunal accepted this as a reasonable position. The training was for everyone. Its purpose was to help colleagues understand how to work with her.

Baldwin did not respond.

Khorram took two weeks of sick leave and one week of annual leave. She explored a role change. Her sick note cited her struggles functioning at work and a medication change — she was on sertraline, recently increased. In December 2023, a further probation review set new objectives. The tribunal later found that these objectives, still live in January 2024, represented a continuing act of discrimination — because the adjustments that might have helped her meet them had never been put in place.

In January 2024, Khorram notified HR of her intention to raise a formal grievance, citing lack of support and an intimidating working relationship with her manager. Her probation was extended. Then, on 31 January 2024, a probation meeting was held in her absence. The following day, she was dismissed for “ongoing concerns about her performance.”

The claim was heard in May 2025. The judgment was handed down in July 2025. Five failures to make reasonable adjustments were upheld. The award was confirmed in a remedy judgment in December 2025: £24,200.

The harassment claims did not succeed. The section 15 claims did not succeed. But the core of what Khorram had said all along — that Capgemini received an OH report with specific recommendations and did not act on them — was upheld.

The four people in this case. You know all of them.

Four decision making personas in Khorram v Capgemini reasonable adjustments failure

Every case like this has the same cast. Not villains. Not bad people. People doing normal things inside a system that didn’t prompt them to ask the one question that would have changed everything.

The Line Manager Steve Baldwin referred Khorram to occupational health when she disclosed her ADHD. That’s what the process says to do. The OH report arrived. He was busy. The email about training came in. He didn’t respond — not because he decided not to, but because the email didn’t feel like a decision point. It felt like something to get to later. Later became never. A tribunal found that this silence was the moment the adjustment failure was established.

What looks reasonable: He followed the referral process. He didn’t refuse anything explicitly. What was missing: A system that told him that not responding was itself a decision — and a legally significant one.

The HR Business Partner HR knew Khorram had been referred to occupational health. HR received the report. HR’s role in the months that followed appears to have been largely procedural — managing the probation process, setting review dates, noting concerns. The OH report sat in the system. Nobody cross-referenced it against what was actually happening in the probation reviews. Nobody asked: have the adjustments been implemented? If not, why not? When the grievance landed in January 2024, the response was to extend the probation. One month later, Khorram was dismissed.

What looks reasonable: HR tracked the process. They extended the probation when concerns were raised. What was missing: Visibility of what was happening at manager level before it escalated. The loop never closed.

The Objective-Setter In December 2023, new objectives were set. These objectives required the same things the OH report had identified as difficult for Khorram without adjustment: managing multiple workstreams, meeting deadlines, operating in ambiguous environments. The objectives were not created to be punitive. They were created because that was the work. Nobody stopped to ask whether the work, structured the way it was structured, was still appropriate given that the adjustments intended to support her through it had not been put in place.

What looks reasonable: Objectives reflect the role requirements. That’s what probation is for. What was missing: A prompt to ask whether the objectives were being set into conditions that had already been identified as creating a barrier.

The Decision-Maker The decision to dismiss was made after a probation meeting held in Khorram’s absence. The reason given: “ongoing concerns about her performance.” The decision-maker had the probation records. They had the documentation of the meetings. They had evidence of underperformance against objectives. What they did not have — what nobody had produced — was a record showing that the five OH-recommended adjustments had been implemented and had not changed the outcome. That record did not exist. It did not exist because the adjustments had never been put in place.

What looks reasonable: A documented probation process with a clear reason for dismissal. What was missing: The evidence that would have made the dismissal defensible — proof that Capgemini had done what the law required before concluding the work could not be done.

The four people in this case are not unusual. They are operating inside a system that has no mechanism for asking, at the point of decision, whether an OH report has been acted on — and whether any pending adjustments change what the next decision should be. The question was never asked. The system was never designed to ask it.

What the system doesn’t count

I built ANCHOR because of this pattern. Not because I read about it in a case report.

I saw it first as a trainer — building frameworks for managers, watching them leave the room with the right language and then return to environments that had no mechanism for using it. The training was good. The environment hadn’t changed. The manager sat down, opened their inbox, and the next decision happened without the prompt.

Then I saw it as a coach — sitting with neurodivergent individuals who were not failing at their jobs but were exhausted from doing the emotional and administrative labour that should have belonged to the system. They had a workplace needs assessment. They had an OH report. They had documentation of exactly what they needed. And they were spending cognitive resource — resource that should have been available for the work — chasing follow-up, managing their own distress at not being prioritised, presenting their needs again in a slightly different way to see if this time someone would act on them.

That is not an individual failing. That is what happens when a system produces a document and then outsources the follow-through to the person with the least power to enforce it.

In Khorram v Capgemini, Bahar Khorram did everything the system asks. She disclosed her diagnosis. She went through occupational health. She identified training that would work, in a format that would not single her out. She sent the email. She was not passive. She was doing the labour of a system that had abdicated its responsibility to act.

The tribunal found five failures. The award was £24,200. What the tribunal did not and could not measure is the cost that preceded it — the months of following up, the sick leave, the medication changes, the annual leave taken because the environment had become untenable. The legal figure is the floor, not the ceiling.

ANCHOR is built for the moment before that cost accumulates. Not after the grievance. Not after the tribunal bundle. At the manager’s decision point — before the email goes unanswered, before the objective is set into conditions that were already flagged as a barrier, before the individual has to become their own case manager inside an organisation that was already told what they needed.

The downstream problem — the emotional labour placed on the individual when systems fail upstream — is the reason the upstream system exists.

The question is never why didn’t she push harder. She pushed. She emailed. She disclosed. She went through every process available to her. The question is why the system had no mechanism to respond.

The question nobody asked

Khorram v Capgemini three minutes of structured thinking versus eight months of drift

There is one question that, asked at any point between October 2023 and February 2024, would have changed what followed.

We have an OH report recommending adjustments for this employee. Which of those adjustments have been implemented? Which haven’t? And is anything happening in this probation process that those adjustments were supposed to support?

That question is not complicated. It does not require a legal team or an HR director. It requires a prompt — something in the system that fires before a manager sends an email, before new objectives are set, before a probation review is scheduled — that asks: have we done what we said we’d do?

In Khorram v Capgemini, the answer to that question, at every stage, was no. The training had not been arranged. The coaching sessions had not been scheduled. The task-setting guidance had not been applied. The objectives set in December 2023 were set into conditions that the OH report had already identified as creating a barrier — and nobody paused to notice.

The tribunal found that the objectives set in December 2023 were still live in January 2024. Employment Judge Adkin found this represented a continuing act of discrimination — not a single decision, but an ongoing failure that accumulated across months. The discrimination was not in any one action. It was in the sustained absence of the question.

The reasonable a