ADHD and Workplace Challenges

“Could you please calm your nerves, or do you have ADHD?”
“Why can’t you just concentrate and do it right for just one time?”
“Please get back to your room, and save me from trouble”

All of us have had parents/caregivers complaining at one point about us as a child. And that was quite normal. But there are some children or indeed grown-ups who are delicate to deal with. They are impulsive, and hyperactive, can concentrate on simple tasks, or sustain their attention. Eventually, they mess up their relationships too. When similar difficulties are found to hinder one’s daily functioning on their personal, social and occupational fronts, we can consider it to qualify for the diagnosis of ADHD.

Read More: ADHD: Diagnosis, Types and Treatment

So what is ADHD?

(‘Aaj Dil Hain Deewana’? – Nah, just kidding)

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder or ADHD is a neuro-developmental disorder that is exhibited through intense inattentiveness, impulsivity, hyperactivity and profound disruption in regular activities. Often initiated in childhood and persisting into adulthood, it presents challenges in task organization, attention maintenance impulse control and behavior regulation. In adults, although it is called Adult ADHD, its symptoms start in early childhood.

Read More: ADHD & Social Skills

If left untreated, it may carry itself to adulthood, getting more severe over time. In some cases, ADHD is not recognized until adulthood, when it has already started adversely affecting the regular life activities of the person, causing chronic stress, disruption and intense disequilibrium. Here, we will be looking at the impact of ADHD on the work life of an individual, thus causing workplace challenges.

ADHD and Workplace Challenges

In adults, ADHD symptoms may get suppressed due to age but may lead to major repercussions. The symptoms, from mild to severe, may include :

• Intense impulsiveness
• Disorganized decisions
• Poor time management skills
• Trouble in multitasking and delivering of tasks
• Excessive activity or restlessness
• Poor planning
• Low frustration tolerance, thus leading to an increase in reactivity
• Frequent mood swings, which may range from hopelessness to aggression
• Hot temper
• Trouble coping with stress

Any workplace, be it formal or informal, governmental or private, prescribes certain rules about the behavioural conduct of the employees. This includes norms about their organizational culture, deadlines for submitting projects and assignments, and organizational policies. For an employee with ADHD, challenges include managing tasks, maintaining relationships, communicating effectively, and resolving conflicts.

Their hypervigilance and hyperreactivity to situations bar them from giving their best to their organization, thus reducing their sense of job satisfaction (positive evaluation of their job), organizational commitment (sense of loyalty and belongingness with the organization) and organizational citizenship behaviour (engaging in pro-social activities due to one’s commitment towards their organization).

Read More: What Is ADHD Masking and How Can It Be Managed?

ADHD in their workplace:

The following challenges are commonly faced by employees with

• Lack of concentration on the task to be done, regularly, leads to a decreasing trend in job performance, resulting in decrements and loss of incentives.
• Messing up tasks or even interpersonal relationships due to hyperactivity, intense impulsivity and lack of flexible thinking.
• Problems in effective decision-making and time management, make multitasking almost impossible.
• Chronic stress leads to frustration due to long stacks of pending work, the addition of new tasks, and the inability to meet deadlines persistently. This frustration is displaced in personal or even workplace relationships through active or passive aggression (popularly known as the Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis.)
• Not to mention, the employees’ emotional well-being is at stake due to their life’s daily hassles, often leading them to rely on substances like drugs and alcohol to escape exhaustion temporarily.
• Lack of patience, difficulty with managing emotions and nerve control forbid their need for belongingness in a group, as it makes them appear harsh, inconsiderate, arrogant, and unappealing with their colleagues.
• They face trouble in staying focused. Zoning out while the boss or supervisor is giving directions makes them miss information, which is reflected in their performance.
• Jumping from orientation program to team meetings, researching on a PPT to presenting it, attending lectures from HRs participating in team projects, or moving from one job to another is not just difficult, but physically and mentally exhausting for them.

As a consequence, it is seen that employees with ADHD are more likely to be fired, less likely to receive promotions in comparison to peers, and more likely to shift from one job to another or remain unemployed. The Journal of Attention Disorders found that only 67% of adults with ADHD were employed, compared to 87% of adults without ADHD.

Note: Want to have better insights into the life of an employee with ADHD? Then read A Day in the Life of an Employee with ADHD.

Research on ADHD continues to reveal new insights about attention deficit — its relationship to trauma, race, emotional dysregulation, rejection-sensitive dysphoria, heredity, social environment, depression, substance abuse and treatments ranging from medication to video games. – ADHD Research: New ADD Studies, Findings and Insights.

Read More: Understanding ADHD in Women: Symptoms and Recognition

Globally known personalities like Virgin Atlantic’s Sir Richard Branson, co-founder of Microsoft and one of the world’s most influential philanthropists Bill Gates, Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad, and JetBlue founder David Neeleman, notable musicians, athletes and celebrities like Justin Timberlake, Michael Phelps, Michael Jordan, Simone Biles, and Adam Levin – have ADHD, and have been open and accepting towards their diagnosis and treatment. They have set examples that ADHD does not limit excellence. It will never be if properly addressed.

If “ kuch Toofani karte hain” could be equated with a psychological disorder, it would be ADHD (Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder).
It is unfortunate how psychological problems like ADHD do not receive the legitimate importance they deserve. People will choose to watch their children suffer and regard their impulsivity and anhedonia as baseless causes, but still won’t resort to asking for psychological help. Taboos, unawareness, social stigmas and rigid beliefs are what that need to be addressed primarily, to allow successful diagnosis and treatment of the disorder in the primary and secondary levels of intervention.

Read More: Actor Fahadh Faasil Aka FAFA Reveals His diagnosed with ADHD

“If you’re going through hell, keep going” – Winston Churchill