Welcome back for part two of ADHD in the workplace. If you haven't listened to the first one, I'd encourage you to go back — but having said that, I've probably forgotten what I spoke about anyway, so you can probably start from here. There might be some useful things in part one, so it's worth going back if you can.

What I want to talk about today is some of the strategies and things that help people who might be in leadership or management positions with people in their team with ADHD. But I'm also speaking to peers and people with ADHD themselves, because there might be useful information here as well. I'm going to swap between who I'm talking to or about, and you'll just have to flow with me on that.

In the last episode I did talk about some things that can work, but I was mainly focusing on the friction points. I want to make sure I cover the types of strategies that can really allow ADHDers to be at their best — and potentially make the job of managing neurodiverse folk a little bit easier for managers who don't have experience with people who may not think or work in a neurotypical way.

The reminder from the last episode: this is completely individual. Everybody is different. What I'm sharing is what works for me, and what works for others based on the research I've read — but also on six years of running focus groups with employees who have experience of marginalisation or underrepresentation. A lot of the time when I work with organisations, we run focus groups specifically around neurodivergence, because it's an area employers are taking more seriously. They're recognising that they need to be more neuro-inclusive to get the best productivity out of their staff, and to maintain health and wellbeing — particularly in the Australian context, where psychosocial hazards are getting a lot more attention due to legislation.

I do want to acknowledge that I am on Wadawurrung country, pay my respects to elders past and present, and I call out to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders listening today.

Redefining Productivity

When I think about what strategies work, what managers really need to do — and I think this translates across neurodivergent and neurotypical employees — is shift their focus towards productivity, not time at desk. We know this. It's not new information. But the number of employees who still tell me their managers clock-watch is genuinely problematic.

What we're seeing with hybrid working is that it's often applied rigidly — two or three days in the office, the rest from home — but that's not flexibility. It's an arbitrary number. It's not about the needs of the individual employee, and it's not in the best interests of productivity, health, wellbeing, or workforce sustainability.

I'm a fan of hybrid working. I'm not a fan of structured, rigid hybrid formats. It needs to be individualised and team-based, depending on what the team actually needs.

Managers need to redefine what productivity looks like. That requires active management around outcomes and outputs — and this is where I often see managers shifting responsibility onto employees without doing the hard work themselves. "Just be at your desk when I expect you to be. Be responsive on Teams." But they're not doing the heavy lifting of making it clear what outcomes they actually expect in a week.

If a manager defines outcomes and expectations clearly, an employee is an adult and can manage their time accordingly. And then we have mechanisms we can use if someone isn't meeting those expectations. We really need to spend more time thinking about KPIs and outcomes — because that stops us equating desk time with value. There is no value in someone who shows up on time every day, leaves on time every day, and delivers nothing in between.

Structured Flexibility

I want to talk about the concept of structured flexibility. Clear deadlines on outcomes — deadlines are absolutely our friend. Of course there needs to be some flexibility; life happens. But ADHDers do not need a "do whatever you want" approach. We actually benefit from structure. Often the best approach is for us to develop that structure ourselves, based on the outcomes we know are expected.

And I think that's true for so many employees. There's a framework — I can't remember the name, but it's called something like self-determination theory — and in it, there are three things that keep an employee engaged and productive. One is connection: to peers, to leaders, to the workplace, to clients. One is autonomy: having agency over how you do the work. You won't always have autonomy over what work you do, but having autonomy over the how gives people purpose. And the third is competence: doing a job you feel skilled and confident in.

Those three things really dictate how well an employee performs, how much job satisfaction they have, and whether they stay. Autonomy, in my experience, is even more critical for people with ADHD. Having agency over how and when we do the work — knowing we can't always control the what, but owning the when and the how — lets us work with our natural rhythms. As long as we know when the deadline is and when the work's expected.

Breaking Work Into Chunks

The next point is about breaking work into smaller chunks. I talked about this a lot in the last episode in terms of how I manage my ability to deliver on projects — but smaller milestones are genuinely helpful. As a manager, you don't need to do that for your employee, but you can encourage them to do it and share it with you, so there's some interaction and accountability across those smaller milestones.

For many ADHDers, one big mammoth task is a procrastination point. And I want to talk about that — because procrastination in ADHD can look like laziness. It can look like we just don't want to start, we can't be bothered, we don't care. But there's a real barrier here around executive functioning. Not knowing where to start or how to start. If you've got an employee who really seems to be struggling to begin a task, encourage them to develop a project plan with smaller milestones. Get them to do that piece — or if they can't, support them, because planning is an executive function. Help them break it down, and you might find they can get going because now they know what they need to do this week.

Very clear starting points and deadlines matter.

Cognitive Load and How Instructions Are Delivered

One thing I didn't cover in the last episode is cognitive load. ADHDers carry a lot of it, and we can find it difficult to follow sequences. For example, if I'm given a recipe, I'll read the step — and by the time I've walked to the other side of the kitchen to measure something out, I've forgotten the measurement. Remembering what I needed and getting the things out took everything my brain had.

Not all ADHD is experienced this way, but many people have trouble following steps and sequences. So if you're a manager sitting down with your employee to tell them what you need done — and you tell them ten things verbally — that's going to be really hard for them to retain and act on. They might remember a couple, then get stuck.

I've been doing some work recently with managers in a construction environment, and we talked about how written or visual instructions are really important. An employee asking multiple questions isn't not listening — they're just not able to retain what's being shared. In a construction environment there's not always a notepad handy, so we looked at using digital tools: voice memo on a phone as instructions are being given, then dropping that transcript into ChatGPT on the spot and asking for the steps to be listed out. Now there are eight steps written down and ready to go — saving time for both the manager and the employee.

In an office setting, yes, people can take notes — but let's work with individuals and find out what's actually getting in the way. You might find they retained steps one and two, but the meeting went for two hours and they lost the rest.

Meetings

Fewer meetings, clearer agendas, shorter meetings. Two-hour meetings are an absolute nightmare for me. I was involved in a training course recently — full day, five days, with two hours before the first break. Two hours is too long. I cannot sit still and function and listen and learn for that stretch.

45 minutes is widely considered the ideal concentration window for anyone. When I run online workshops, I never go an hour and a half without a break — and if the session is longer, we break every hour, even if it's just five or ten minutes to clear the brain, refocus, and move the body.

Be conscious about how long you're asking people to concentrate, and what's okay in terms of how they can move in that time. For me, I'm more likely to concentrate standing up. At a conference recently I stood at the back, and the ushers kept coming over to ask if I needed help finding a seat. I didn't. I just couldn't listen sitting down that day — I needed to be on my feet, moving, rocking back and forth. And then I could concentrate. But that can feel really awkward as an employee when everyone else is sitting quietly.

Creating an environment where that's okay matters. At the start of a longer meeting you might say: "I know we've got a lot to get through today. If you need to take a break, take one. If you need to stand up or move around, do what works for you." That gives people permission and sets a culture where adjustments are normal and inclusive.

Normalising Different Working Styles

The last point: normalise different ways of working. Some people want noise-cancelling headphones and no interruptions. Some people need you to not break their focus because they'll never get back into it. Some people need to move, use a sit-stand desk, or step outside for a bit.

Most of what I've talked about today benefits everyone — not just people with ADHD. That's worth saying clearly.

Culture

I talked a little about culture in the last episode. A lot of the time it's not just managers getting in the way — it's how peers interact with each other and the expectations teams set amongst themselves.

We need to stop glorifying burnout. We do this a lot. Managers can unknowingly reinforce extreme working practices to meet a deadline. If your whole team had to work around the clock for two weeks to deliver a project, don't only celebrate hitting the deadline — hold a debrief afterwards and ask what went wrong. Why did it come to that?

Stop glorifying burnout. Actively plan against it. Reward people for saying "I'm not doing well today, I need some time." Reward people for putting their self-care first and managing their own headspace so they can be at their best at work. Focus on outcomes so you're not punishing people for working differently — for needing to go for a walk before they can move on to the next task.

Make it safe for people to say "this environment isn't working for me, I need some adjustments" — without fearing it will affect their role or their chances of progression. And leaders: own flexibility in how you work. Verbalise it. Share it with your team. Make it okay and normal throughout the organisation.

To Close

If you want the best out of your employees with ADHD, stop trying to make them work like everyone else. Our brains don't work like everyone else's. The workplace was designed for neurotypical people — and it's full of neurodivergent people. So we need new ways of working. Work with your employees. And for those ADHDers listening in, I hope you've picked up something from these two episodes that helps with your productivity, your engagement, and your job satisfaction. Because ultimately, what we're after is well, happy employees who can actually contribute to your organisation.