Managing ADHD in the office: What employees and employers need to know

“For adults with ADHD, getting started on tasks can feel like climbing Mount Everest,” Dr. George Sachs tells me. As an adult with ADHD, it feels like he’s speaking directly to me.

“So really ADHD is a motivation deficit disorder. It’s a problem of motivation, more than a problem of attention and focus, because if you’re excited about something and you have ADHD, you’re not going to have problems with focus and attention,” Sachs, who is an expert on ADHD, and who has ADHD himself, says.

I was once excited to write this article, but as I stare at the nearly empty page, again it feels like Sachs is speaking only to me. It must be the gloomy weather.

But he’s not speaking only to me. The prevalence rate of adult ADHD is estimated at 4.4 percent of the population, according to America’s National Institutes of Health. Individuals are born with ADHD, and diagnosis rates among children have climbed over the last decade, although boys are still more likely to be diagnosed than girls.

ADHD, classified as a neurodivergent condition, comes with many related issues – lack of motivation, struggling to focus, and inability to perform mundane tasks among them. However, adults with ADHD still have to fit into the mould society has created for us, but it’s not a comfortable one. One in three ADHD adults has associated depression, and one in eight has anxiety.

For someone with ADHD, working in a traditional office environment can be especially frustrating. Sachs, a co-founder of the app Inflow app that uses cognitive behavioural therapy techniques to help individuals with ADHD manage their daily struggles, gives me some tips for how to manage my day-to-day off-kilter world.

Sachs is breaking down how individuals with ADHD can work best in an office environment, and what managers can do to support their neurodivergent employees.

AB: Can you share some practical advice for individuals struggling with getting tasks across the finish line?

Sachs: Adults with ADHD really struggle with motivation and reward. If we’re not excited about something, it’s very hard to get started.

There are a couple ways to get ourselves going even if we’re not super excited.

The main thing is what I call externalising the motivation. And this means acknowledging that the internal motivation, the willpower, inside us is a little bit weaker than in your neurotypical person. We have to consider the power of the external sources, like other people, like co-working, which has really taken off during Covid-19. There are a number of companies where you can sign in and work with other people virtually.

Everybody’s working on something differently, but you see their video up there, and you see them working hard. And there’s a timer on the screen.

Another one is what I call the SPS – the smallest possible step. And a lot of times we get overwhelmed with the idea of this giant project. If we can break the project down into steps and do the smallest possible step as the first one, this can really prime the pump, so to speak.

Some people benefit from setting external deadlines. You can use your supervisor or somebody who works for you as a kind of external motivation, to sit down and come up with a deadline, put the deadline on the calendar, break the project down, and then set up meetings to deliver small pieces along the way.

AB: Let’s talk about offices, especially open-floor plan offices. They’re not designed for people with ADHD who are easily distracted and hypersensitive to sounds. How do you suggest managing these distractions that for someone with ADHD are so magnified and can make it seem just absolutely impossible to get anything done?

Sachs: I am actually writing letters for my clients with ADHD and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) on behalf of them to get accommodations in the workplace for their neurodiversity. Those accommodations include working from home, which really seems to help them. You can also request an office or a cubicle that’s far away, or you can wear headphones.

AB: Do you have any advice for managers whose team includes individuals with ADHD?

Sachs: Yeah, that’s a very good question. I think managing adults with ADHD can be challenging, but there’s a lot of rewards and gifts that people with ADHD can offer.

The first question I would ask is ‘How best do you work?’ and then hold them accountable to that.

A lot of times what I’ve seen is that the manager is more detail-oriented and anxious about the fact that their employee or their subordinate has ADHD. And there’s a lot of following up and a lot of questions that can actually overwhelm someone with ADHD.

And I know that sounds counterintuitive, but too much structure can be overwhelming.

AB: That also operates on the assumption that the employees feel comfortable disclosing that they have ADHD, or ASD or any other neurodivergent condition. What would you say to people who are afraid to disclose their ADHD or other neurodivergence to their employers?

For people with ASD, I recommend to all my clients that they disclose, because more than likely people already know. Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates are on the spectrum, and ASD, as opposed to ADHD, has a little bit more of a positive reputation.

With ADHD, there is still more of a stigma around the fact that you might miss deadlines or not be detail oriented. But if disclosing will keep you from being fired, then it might be a good idea.

If you disclose to your supervisor, then you can work with them on setting up a work environment and a system that works for you. So you really have to gauge the answer to the question, “Is this going to help or hurt me?”