From Awareness to Action
How Torus Group built all-company neurodiversity training across an 800-strong workforce.
Great intentions. Limited practical tools.
Torus Group is a registered social landlord operating across Warrington, St Helens, Liverpool and the wider North West. With a workforce spanning office-based colleagues, neighbourhood officers, and a large team of frontline operatives working directly in customers' homes, the organisation serves some of the most vulnerable communities in the region.
Debbie Appleton joined Torus as its first Group Inclusion Lead — a newly created role that reflected the organisation's ambition to move beyond checkbox inclusion and build something genuinely embedded. What she found was a picture familiar to many organisations: genuine intent, but a significant gap between aspiration and practice.
Occupational health reports were recommending neurodiversity training. Lexxic workplace assessments were flagging the same need from a different angle. Managers lacked the knowledge or confidence to respond effectively. And some employees had spent years masking their neurodivergent traits, expending significant energy adapting to workplace norms.
"We had people saying they'd been struggling for years, keeping it masked. All of the reports were pointing to the same thing: we needed proper training. Something a little bit more robust and substantial."
— Debbie Appleton, Group Inclusion Lead, Torus Group
The cost of not acting
- Reputational risk as an employer and as a landlord
- Staff retention: employees struggling in silence, eventually leaving
- Legal exposure under the Equality Act 2010
- Missed opportunity across an 800+ strong workforce
- Internal credibility: values mean nothing if the reality doesn't match
A trusted partner, not just a provider.
When Torus set about finding a training partner, the shortlist was short. Lexxic was already embedded in Torus's world — providing workplace assessments, generating the very reports that were recommending training in the first place.
Other options were considered, but they were either too generic for Torus's specific workforce mix, or unable to handle the scale and sector-specific complexity of what Torus needed. A generic provider couldn't flex to that. Lexxic could.
"We already had that professional relationship with Lexxic. You already understood some of the mechanics here. It was like a trusted provider — somebody we were already in that business relationship with, that was already supporting us."
— Debbie Appleton
Three programmes. One workforce. Built for Torus.
All sessions were delivered live on Microsoft Teams — live, interactive, facilitated by Lexxic specialists, with real-time dialogue. Making the training mandatory was a deliberate and important decision. Recordings were produced as standalone training modules, uploaded to the LMS, and embedded into onboarding for new starters.
Colleagues (office & site-based)
Awareness-focused training designed to build understanding, reduce stigma, and give colleagues the confidence to be open about their own experiences and supportive of those around them.
Operatives (field-based workforce)
A version specifically designed for those who rarely sit at a desk — practical, relevant, and mindful of how operatives interact with neurodivergent customers in their homes, not just with neurodivergent colleagues.
Managers & Team Leaders
A deeper programme focused on practical tools, conversation frameworks, and the responsibilities that come with a management role — including reasonable adjustments, disclosure, and how to support without overstepping.
Fewer people hiding. More people asking.
The most immediate change was one of atmosphere. Employees who had previously masked their neurodivergent traits began to feel safer being open. Reasonable adjustment requests increased — not because the need was new, but because people now felt confident enough to ask.
Among managers, the training shifted behaviour as well as awareness. Managers now have language, tools, and a process. The reasonable adjustment pathway is clearer.
For customer-facing staff, customer survey scores on communication, responsiveness, and feeling understood have improved — an outcome Torus attributes, in part, to the shift in workforce awareness.
"There's been a massive shift. It's okay to have differences here. It's not hidden. People don't have to pretend."
— Debbie Appleton
"We had operatives who'd been quite upset afterwards — in a positive way. They'd finally had some validation. They'd seen themselves in it. Some didn't even realise that's what they'd been struggling with."
— Debbie Appleton
What changed at Torus Group
- 800+ employees trained across all levels and job types
- All feedback across the three programmes was positive
- Reasonable adjustment requests increased — a sign of greater psychological safety
- Neurodiversity awareness embedded into the management development programme (8 modules)
- Training modules uploaded to LMS and included in new starter onboarding
- Customer survey scores on communication and understanding have improved
- Operatives reported feeling better equipped to serve neurodivergent customers
- Some employees self-identified as neurodivergent for the first time, accessing support they hadn't known was available
"Mandatory means there's value in it."
When asked what she would say to someone in a similar position, Debbie was direct.
"If it doesn't affect individuals, they're not invested in it. By putting things on that might seem like a nice-to-have — if you've got time, go to that webinar — people think of it as optional. But these are really critical. Mandatory means there's a cost to ignoring it. It's a cost to how we look after somebody."
— Debbie Appleton, Group Inclusion Lead, Torus Group
She also spoke about the importance of live, interactive delivery — even where face-to-face is not possible — and planning for the long term: neurodiversity awareness is not a one-time event. Debbie is already thinking about a refresh cycle of every three to five years.
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