How both employers and workers can succeed with ADHD in the workplace

Fitting in at work and surviving the corporate rat race is difficult on its own, but having a spectrum disorder such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can make it much harder. The trait is often stigmatized or underdiagnosed, and treatment is sometimes out of reach, but that doesn’t mean people with ADHD can’t thrive in their careers, as attorney Haley L. Moss knows firsthand.

In some respects, Moss is a real-life version of her hero Elle Woods, the glamorous fictional lawyer from the “Legally Blonde” movie series. For much of her professional life, Moss can be found in court or on the speaking circuit. Yet as the first openly autistic woman in Florida history to become a lawyer, she subsequently developed a substantial following as a neurodiversity influencer.Perhaps for this reason, Moss has a lot of empathy for neurodivergent people who struggle in the workplace because of ADHD. 

“People with ADHD can struggle with executive functioning tasks, such as organization and prioritization,” Moss said. “They can also be curious and novelty seekers, which can present as easily distractible. A lot of ADHD-related traits are often misconstrued as that people with ADHD are lazy, unprofessional or unmotivated, when really they are passionate and their neurodivergence can make certain expectations and tasks exceedingly difficult.”

The underlying difficulty associated with ADHD, as Moss alluded to when referencing struggles “with executive functioning tasks,” is that patients struggle to focus for extended periods of time. Imagine watching a television where an impolite houseguest holds the remote control and arbitrarily changes the channels. In a similar fashion, a person with ADHD may need to force themselves a little harder to pay attention (imagine seizing the remote from the rude houseguest), and during that time not absorb all of the information expected by their employers.

Scientists have spent years documenting the seemingly-inevitable problems that ADHD causes in the workplace, going back to research from nearly two decades ago. Scholars identified a number of ways ableist biases impede people with ADHD as they pursue careers for which they are otherwise qualified, to the point where there is an untapped reservoir of talented potential employees all over the world being under-utilized or not properly utilized at all. All of this for no other reason than their brains are wired differently from the neurotypical.

“ADHD is not just about inattentiveness and distraction, or even just hyperactivity, but it affects executive functioning – functions subserved by the frontal and prefrontal cortex — and this can impact behaviors such as organization, sequencing and planning, and some difficulties with focusing on details and prioritization of tasks,” Dr. Ramani Durvasula, a licensed clinical psychologist and professor of psychology, told Salon. The patient with ADHD can be misperceived as lacking capacity or ability, but can easily thrive if their employers supply “devices that provide push notifications or reminders, working in teams – where you bring together with different strengths vis a vis details, big picture, creativity, implementation, quantitative analysis,” Durvasula said.

Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter Lab Notes.

Durvasula added that, because people with ADHD are on the neurodiversity spectrum, it is essential that employers keep “communications focused and bulleted.” If necessary, this can involve “bringing in coaching support around specific skill sets such as organization” as well as “giving employees options ergonomically in the workplace.”

The primary challenge to this is that ADHD continues to be suffused with negative stereotypes, many of which shame those with the condition away from seeking the help they need. The misconceptions begin with the name itself, according to University of California, Berkeley psychology professor Dr. Stephen P. Hinshaw.

“It’s not an 'attention deficit' per se, but instead a set of problems in regulating attention (and memory and organization) when situations and tasks change,” Hinshaw said. “Think of ‘hyperfocus’ — many people with ADHD stay with a particularly rewarding activity for hours on end, neglecting other responsibilities. ADHD is largely a result of the effects of a large number of genes that predispose to acting quickly without sufficient thought, problems developing intrinsic motivation for difficult tasks and regulating full attention to the many expectations that now immerse us.”

ADHD is on the extreme of a larger continuum in how humans regulate their ability to focus versus spontaneously explore the world around them. Because of this, Hinshaw explained that many ADHD traits “predict creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.” The problem for those with ADHD is that larger institutions and organizations, from schools to businesses, will penalize people for “poor regulation of focus and issues in organization and time management.”

For ADHD patients without empathetic employers, Durvasula suggested that they provide themselves with personal time at the end of each day to tidy up their workplace, whether at an office or at home. They can also benefit from using reminders with alarms on their phones or other personal devices to stay on task.

“Break time up into manageable chunks and then take a break and step away from your desk for a moment, or if your workplace allows it,” Durvasula said. “Work in different spaces throughout the day.” If possible, it always helps to get therapy or ADHD coaching, as these services can help you “learn skills to tailor approaches to the challenges you face as well as your strengths.”

Moss suggested that employees with ADHD “break down tasks to avoid getting overwhelmed, and to reward yourself accordingly since neurodivergent brains sometimes need that dopamine satisfaction, especially if something is boring or unexciting to you.” She does this herself, pointing out that “getting little things off of your plate can make it easier to focus on the bigger tasks that you might chunk out. Also, people with ADHD are great leaders and very creative, so don't be afraid to delegate tasks if possible or to automate certain processes (like paying bills, for instance) whenever possible so they take up less space in your brain.”

In an ideal world, of course, people with ADHD won’t need to find coping methods. Such a reality would not only benefit those with ADHD, but the world of the workplace in general.

“A lot of the time, the workplace expects ADHDers and other neurodivergent people to change how they work and how their brains work, but really, what's more necessary is an environmental change,” Moss said. “We need to build workplace cultures that account for different brains.”