Employees with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often can’t seem to get it when it comes to safety. Here’s why:
At your monthly safety meeting, you’ve just given a group of employees some important information to look over before a discussion of the subject, followed by a quiz.
After about 10 minutes, you wander through the meeting room to check their progress.
Most are working diligently, but not Joe. He’s flipping around the pages, and has jumped to the quiz without bothering to read the text. That’s in between checking his cell phone repeatedly for text messages that are never there.
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Ken, meanwhile is fidgeting and fussing and can’t sit still long enough to deal with the task, and Terry is just sitting there, her mind apparently in an alternate universe.
Welcome to the world of the ADHD employee.
ADHD stands for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It’s the inability to concentrate on key tasks for anything longer than a short period of time, leading to mistakes and sometimes accidents. That makes it a crucial problem when safety is concerned.
Some 8-10 million adult Americans have ADHD, or about 5 percent of the population, which means some in your workforce very likely exhibit its symptoms. An even larger proportion of children have it, with about two-thirds expected to carry the disorder into their adult years. It’s therefore not an issue that’s going away soon.
Many blame ADHD on growing up in a world of fast-paced video games and 30-second TV ads, (Even the popular educational show, “Sesame Street”, was “sponsored by the letter A and the number 3”). But mental health professionals consider it more a product of brain chemistry than what input the child received, growing up.
The question is, when safety is concerned, what do you do about the ADHD employee?
It depends on the boss’s behavior as much as the worker’s, says Nancy Snell, writing in Small Business Review. “Managers who recognize that ADHD is complex neurobiological conditions … find ways to accommodate a valued employee’s special needs, the way they’d provide a wheelchair ramp for a handicapped worker” she writes. “[This] can make a diagnosis of ADHD the start of a new, more effective relationship. On the other hand, a boss who ignores the symptoms … is inviting disaster.”
Recognizing ADHD starts with knowing its symptoms. Cornell University researchers divide ADHD sufferers into three types:
· Inattentive Type: This ADHD worker (Terry, above) doesn’t seem to listen to what you ask, and consequently fails to finish assigned work or to follow procedures as instructed. He or she may seem to be daydreaming, and in fact, cannot function effectively without constant supervision. He or she “is confused and seems to be in a fog,” says Cornell University researchers.
· Impulsive Type: While the inattentive type is off in another reality, the impulsive type, (That’s Joe.) can’t seem to wait for this one to take its course. He or she may jump from one focus to another repeatedly, take shortcuts, and leave out intermediate steps. Behind the wheel, you’ll find them speeding and cutting in and out of traffic, even if it only saves seconds on the trip — possibly at a cost of lives.
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· Hyperactive Type: Workers with these issues (Hello, Ken) are usually easy to spot by their physical behaviors. They constantly fidget, show “unnecessary gross bodily movements”, and are overly talkative. Of course, while they’re talking, they’re not listening to you, and often distract others trying to do so.
As workplace safety is all about listening, focus, and proper procedure, you can see the challenges ADHD workers present to a safety program. And because such workers’ actions (or inaction) affect the well-being of others, it’s even more important to find strategies to deal with them.
We’ll get into some of those in tomorrow’s Safety Daily Advisor.
The title of this article is what caught my eye: “Workers with ADHD: Can You Train Them in Safety?” I am an HR professional with 15 years of experience and I was shocked. Then I read: “Employees with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often can’t seem to get it when it comes to safety.” That’s when I got angry.
The purpose of employment training is to provide important information, and safety is definately one of them. Any qualified HR professional will understand that ALL employees have their preferred learning style. Some are visual, some auditory, some kinesthetic learners. To cover all of the preferred styles, you must use all three to ensure people are engaged and focused. Employees who have ADHD are no different. These individuals do not have “special needs” that cannot be met by meeting the needs of your entire audience.
You then generalize employees with ADHD as individuals who lack the ability to be attentive to safety concerns; individuals who constantly fidget and are overly talkative; and individuals who cannot function effectively without constant supervision. This generalization is grossly irresponsible and in no way is indicative of the employees that I have had the pleasure of working with who have this diagnosis. Due to the struggles that these individuals have had during their school years, they have typically developed quite a few coping strategies and are NOT at all like employee you describe.