How to Manage ADHD in the Workplace (and Why It’s a Superpower)

It's estimated that at least 10% of the population have ADHD and that many of them don't have formal diagnosis because often it wasn't recognized particularly in women, but we are now talking about it. We are now recognizing it. Many more people are going for diagnosis. So what does this mean for employers? What does it mean in the workplace? In this video, I'm gonna explain all. My name is Jennifer, I'm the founder of Silk Helix. We help employers with all things, managing and leading people, which includes supporting them when they've got disabilities that impact their performance in the workplace and how we get the best out of people. So in this video, I'm gonna explain exactly what ADHD is and how we support people with ADHD in the work environment. ADHD is a neurological condition. It was thought that it affects behavior. It often conjures up the image of the kind of nine-year-old naughty little boy. And in fact, the NHS website still has it as a definition of something that affects behavior. The reality is it's actually much wider than that. It impacts executive function, which is our ability to organize ourselves, to manage time, to remember things, to have working memory, as well as regulate our moods and our emotions. So it has a wide-ranging impact on people and it's certainly not something that is a childhood condition that people grow out of. It was at one point thought that this couldn't impact adults. It's now known that it does impact adults. It has significant impact. And as such, it is a disability under the Equality Act. The challenge we have in a work environment is that many people were not diagnosed as children. Many people, therefore, had experiences and experienced their weaknesses, the things that they don't do so well or find challenging because of their ADHD as quite embarrassing. Often, it's the simpler things. So for example, being able to deal with relatively straightforward emails can be really challenging for somebody with ADHD who might be able to do really complex issues or project management and things from a top-down, seeing the bigger picture. They may be great at being creative and there's lots of strengths that come with ADHD as well, like creativity, like problem-solving, being good in a crisis. But then you might find that this person is great at these things, but suddenly they've been given this, what seems a really simple admin task to do and they really struggle with it. And that could be really embarrassing for people, particularly where they couldn't explain it. They couldn't explain why they could do all these really complex things at work, but get the simple thing and they struggled with it. So often people were left hiding it, trying to pretend like it wasn't happening, dealing with criticism, dealing with frustration from managers and colleagues, and just not understanding. So this increase now in diagnosis and understanding it is really helpful because it means that we can give people the support they need to get those benefits in the work environment and overcome some of the challenges that people do experience. And they do experience challenges in a work environment. Many ADHD people have lost jobs, found themselves going on through performance management programmes and things because of the difficulties that they experience in the work environment. In addition to this, because of the lack of diagnosis, lack of understanding about the condition, even when you are diagnosed, there's very little support out there. It's hard to find accurate information. There's a lack of research that's been done over time with ADHD, which means it can be really difficult for people to be able to explain what supports they need, what their challenges are, and how they can overcome them. So really, we need to work with people to understand what supports that we can give them. Now, I am in this video going to give some examples of adjustments that can be made and ways that employers can support people with ADHD. What I do want to add to that is that ADHD presents differently for everyone with ADHD. So if you've met one person with ADHD, you've met one person. What one person needs is going to be different to what other people need. It's also really common to have co-occurring conditions. So autism, dyslexia, for example, often co-occur with ADHD. So the challenges that people face really do vary, which means it's absolutely crucial that we have an environment where we can speak to individuals and understand the support that they need to understand their challenges and what could help them to overcome those challenges. With ADHD, this is where ADHD coaching can come in and be really helpful to somebody in trying to understand their condition, understand how it impacts them, working with a coach who understands ADHD. It's not a general coach, but an ADHD specialist coach can work with somebody to understand how their ADHD impacts them at work and help them to start understanding how they can use tools and techniques to overcome some of the challenges and put supports in place. These are what we would look at as reasonable adjustments. Under the Equality Act, employers do have to make reasonable adjustments to help individuals to overcome the challenges of their disabilities and put them onto a level playing field. These are adjustments that are reasonable. So what's reasonable is gonna vary from employer to employer, but it is a relatively high bar in terms of what employers should be providing. In addition, though, to reasonable adjustments, and it is in addition, not in replacement of, we have got the Access to Work Scheme, and this is not often known about. It is something that the individual needs to apply for, but it is a way of getting funding towards supports, which could be practical tools like, for example, smartwatches to put reminders on or electronic notebooks, for example, additional monitors, things that could help people from a practical point of view with their job role, or it could be things like ADHD coaching, for example. That could be paid for through Access to Work in order to get people the support that they need. So there's a variety of things that we can apply for through the Access to Work Scheme. It's a government scheme to help people to be in and stay in work. So what other supports could we provide as employers? Well, I've just mentioned there things around kind of scheduling tools. One of the challenges that people often have with ADHD is managing time, remembering to do things, there's short-term memory, they need to write everything down. There could be challenges with receiving instructions. All of these things, there are so many softwares and hardware-type tools available that can support us now from smartphones to laptops to electronic notebooks, likes of Remarkable, for example, to project management softwares like monday.com, Trello. Those sorts of things could be really useful to someone with ADHD or even a paper planner. What's most useful is gonna vary from person to person in terms of how their brain works and what works for them. One person may really struggle with a paper planner, find that they lose it, they forget it. Somebody else might find that actually if it's not paper open in front of them, then forget it. If it's in a Trello board, you've got to remember to open the Trello board or you've saved a document, you'll never remember where you've saved the document and therefore you need it kind of glaring you in the face. Post-it notes, really useful tool. Sticking post-it notes everywhere. If it's not an in-your-face reminder sometimes, it can just get forgotten. So there's all of these tools. And again, that's gonna be about working with the individual to work out what works best for them. This is also often why hot desking doesn't work for people with ADHD because they need a desk set up that works for their brain and helps them to remember things. So if I need post-it notes all over my monitor, for example, then I need to be able to leave them there because every time you pack away, you forget that you've packed the thing away. It's now no longer there, no longer in existence. So bringing that into the forefront and making sure that that's on your desk so it's on your mind can be really useful. So a reasonable adjustment in a hot desking environment would be to enable somebody to have a fixed desk rather than partaking in hot desking. Alongside that, you've also got remote working. So being able to work with your own brain, your own challenges, allowing remote working can be really useful. For some people with ADHD and other neurodivergent conditions, they may find that remote working is most benefit to them so that they can focus. Other people prefer to be in an office. So body doubling can be really useful to somebody with ADHD where you're sitting with somebody who's doing the same task to help you to avoid distractions. But again, one thing might work for one, something for somebody else, and it might vary between tasks as well. So you might want that mix between being in the office and being remote, but having that flexibility can be really useful. And then you've got tools within that. So if you are in an office and perhaps you're distracted by every conversation that's happening, then noise-canceling headphones could be really useful. Often ADHD can be linked to sensory issues, so sensory overload, so excessive noise, for example, can be really challenging, as well as the fact that often you can pick up every single conversation that's going on so you tend to end up getting involved in every conversation which can be really distracting. So noise-canceling headphones can be a really useful way to avoid that. Given the challenges with working memory and sometimes the overlap with things like dyslexia, communication can be challenging. So receiving instructions, particularly verbal instructions, receiving multiple instructions in one go can be really difficult. So having things in writing so you can refer back to them or recorded meetings where you can record the meeting because it's done in Zoom or another tool, or using video meetings where you can record the meeting so you can refer back to it, and there's also transcribing software as well that you can use on those to enable things to be written down, can be really useful because, again, working memory can be a struggle, so can taking in that information. Equally, if dyslexia is sitting alongside ADHD, you might find that written instructions are challenging and needing to also hear those instructions verbally or perhaps even the mix of both. So if somebody is asking for instructions in writing or asking them to be given verbally or asking for clarification, perhaps going back and asking questions, this can be because they need that extra support because of their ADHD as opposed to they weren't listening or they couldn't be bothered or they just can't both think for themselves, and these are the types of labels that often get put on people with ADHD, and it's not a lack of concentration. And in fact, the whole hyperactivity and attention deficit name to ADHD is not ideal in itself because A, hyperactivity doesn't represent everybody with ADHD, and sometimes that hyperactivity is internalised, so it may be your brain that's hyperactive as opposed to sort of jumping around like a nine-year-old boy because not everyone presents like a jumping-around nine-year-old boy even if they are hyperactive. And then you've got the attention deficit, which implies that you're not paying attention, that you're sidetracked all the time. Actually, it can be a difficulty in regulating that attention. So somebody with ADHD may go into hyperfocus where they can really focus for a long time, and then you've got this cross between, well, they were able to use their attention there and not here, then are they faking it? No, that's ADHD, that's how it works, that's how it influences the brain of somebody with ADHD. And absolutely crucial with all of these things is providing a supportive environment. It can be confusing to understand ADHD for the person who's got it and the person around them, training people, providing awareness training for colleagues, providing training for managers on the tools and techniques to be able to support somebody with ADHD, as well as the support structures that they may need. That is really important that employers are doing that because it means that somebody with ADHD can actually say, this is my ADHD, or because of my ADHD, I've got this challenge. And it's not about excuses, it's about reasons. It's about, because of my ADHD, this is a struggle, however, therefore, we can look to this thing to overcome it rather than just, oh, that's my ADHD, can't do it because of my ADHD. It is about those, it's about reasons. And when we've got that training and that awareness so people understand, it does enable those conversations to open up. And when we're in a supportive work environment, we're much more likely to thrive in that environment. As I said in the beginning, ADHD presents differently for everybody that has it. So just because you've met one ADHD person doesn't mean you've met them all. It's really important that you talk to somebody with ADHD individually to find out what they need. So I've given you some examples in this video of things that might help, but do talk to the young individual, help them to understand their brains and how you can support them in a work environment. 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