Episode 15 – The Risks of Disclosing ADHD at Work: What You Need to Know

Jane McFadden:
Welcome to the ADHD Mums Podcast, a safe place for everyday Australian mums to discuss their struggles with ADHD, motherhood and life. Hello and welcome to the next episode of ADHD Mums. Today we have a HR consultant, Nikki Johnson, here with me.

How are you, Nikki?

Nikki Johnson:
I’m good, thanks, Jane. How are you?

Jane McFadden:
Good. Nikki has very generously given her time to talk about a really tricky topic, which is ADHD in the workplace.

Small background on Nikki, she is a HR consultant who supports small business owners and business leaders in Australia in all areas of HR. Her passion is people and working to make sure that the business and the leaders are equipped to support their employees to be the best version of themselves. Top it all off, Nikki is a ADHD mum.

She has two kids and was diagnosed with ADHD last year at 45. I just revealed my age. You write it in the bio, I just read whatever I find.

Nikki Johnson:
I know. Sorry.

Jane McFadden:
You could say she likes cakes and weird shit.

I just read it out anyway. So Nikki, before we jump in, because obviously I’m very excited to get into the content, we get lots of questions about this all the time. I just want to do a really small background around how you were diagnosed with ADHD and how that felt for you, just to get a bit of an idea of who you are before we jump into just picking your brain.

Nikki Johnson:
So I’ve always thought that my son had ADHD, probably from about three, when all of a sudden he just started attacking me. And my husband was like, no, no, it’s normal. It’s normal.

And then he had a guest on before and she was getting these ADHD things coming at her. And I was the same. Yeah.

And I’m like, why am I getting all this? And I kept researching more and I kept hearing about ADHD in girls and what it was like. And then I went on Attitude and I went through the test and I was like, holy shit, this is, I’ve got ADHD. I haven’t got postnatal anxiety.

I haven’t got postnatal depression, which is what happened when I had kids. I just went into an absolute spiral and I was a mess all the time. I just couldn’t keep my life in check.

And I had a breakdown. I think my son was a year and a half and I was six months back in the workplace. And I just, I started crying one day and I couldn’t stop and I didn’t go back to work. And then I ended up having to quit my job. And at that point I was told I had PTSD from a traumatic birth experience. And this pattern was repeating.

Like I was on that verge again after having my second child, exactly the same point. And I did lots of research and I went to see a psychologist who specialized in that area. And she recommended I see their psychiatrist.

And I started looking into it more and still now I’m like, oh, that was my ADHD. All right. Yeah. Okay. That was my ADHD.

So I have massive RSD. So I’m rejection, sensitivity, dysmorphia, 100%. I used to leave jobs because someone gave me feedback, like normal feedback and I’d walk away and go and tear up my job. I’m going and I’d leave.

So my career has been up and down, impulsive behavior, shopping, debts, the whole lot. At school, my mum, when I had to go through the questionnaire with my parents, my mum was like, no, you were the easy child. And I said, okay, so what about homework? Oh, you didn’t do it.

What about projects? Oh, you start them. She was like, do you remember your year 10 project? She started this amazing elaborate design on a dress. And one night at 10 o’clock you went, oh, that’ll do. I’m bored. I’m done. And it had to be in the next day.

So my mum sat up till two o’clock in the morning, finishing it. So it’s just, it was all those kind of patterns and stimming and things that she thought was normal. My dad, 100% has ADHD. My brother’s autistic. Like we are from a neurodivergent family. So they just saw that as, oh, this is normal to dress my 16 year old and get her out the door to go to school.

Jane McFadden:
It’s so jarring when you know that you’re not normal because actually it’s like your whole family, if you’re from a neurodivergent family and then a therapist starts like picking at like one of your children and saying, what’s normal, what’s not, you’re like, no, that’s normal. And they’re like, no, it isn’t. And then you think, oh my God, my whole life in childhood, there’s no one normal that I know.

And then you don’t even realize it’s anyway. So it’s so hilarious. So see, one of my friends has ADHD and I was at her house and I needed a Panadol and she just passed me a tablet and it actually turned out to be a Dex, which—

Nikki Johnson:
Oh, and they do look similar. Yeah.

Jane McFadden:
And I just, I was like, oh, everything’s gone. Why it like, I just feel focused. Like it was such a different, it just made me realize that, okay, all these anti-anxiety tablets that actually made me feel worse or hyperactive. Like I remember taking Zoloft and being sat in the car and going, I need to get out of the car.

I can’t sit here any longer. I just, I don’t run, but I want to just run. Whereas that, it just, the anxiety went away. Like it just went, my thoughts in my head and the overwhelm of just doing life went. So that spurred me on then to go, okay. Well, so it would.

Jane McFadden:
And then, you know what, why don’t people listen to this podcast that don’t believe that ADHD is neurological. Okay, cool. So if it’s not neurological, why would somebody have a reaction like that? That’s very consistent to a lot of other people, myself included.

And then they have to go get a diagnosis, right? Because I actually know, and they can’t then be gaslit or told because they’ve had this reaction to the drug.

Nikki Johnson:
I mean, I was really lucky. The diagnosed ADHD as well. She was beautiful. The night before I had my appointment, I found all the paperwork that was supposed to do, completed it. Didn’t do it right. Cause it was, I was tired. I’m like, I don’t know what it means.

Hadn’t read the questions correctly. Thought, why are they repeating these questions? But then I realized it was asking the childhood not like me to repeat.

Jane McFadden:
Oh my God. Don’t you love it? Like the ADHD ride on even going to the assessment. Like there’s so many people that have come on and been like, I got there really late. I had the wrong office and all this flurry of activity. Right.

Nikki Johnson:
And then I remember actually when a psychiatrist said to me, okay, now I need to call your husband and had said that they wanted to talk to him. But you know, a neurotypical person would have organized that. I’d organized that.

So I thought I’d been really efficient, but I told him the wrong time. So then the psychiatrist called him and there’s all this background noise and I can hear it on speaker. And then my husband’s going, I don’t know.

What do you mean? She told me it was in an hour. I’m at the gym and he’s going, I’m doing a set. And it’s like, the psychiatrist is just like, and then he goes, did you organize this? And I said, yeah, but I think he has ADHD too.

So like, I don’t know what’s happening. And then he’s just, he’s just going, okay, well that’s just ticked a few boxes for me. This whole scenario with you and your husband.

Jane McFadden:
Yeah. It’s so funny, isn’t it?

Nikki Johnson:
So for my husband, he filled out, so we just got the questionnaire that I had to give to my parents and give to my husband. And as I was going through it, my parents were going through theirs and because they didn’t see anything different, I kind of had to coach them and say, okay, let’s think about, read this question and let’s think about some different scenarios.

What was I like? And they were like, oh, right. Always. Whereas my husband, he’s like, you’re not very impatient. You seem okay.

And I was like, so all those times when you’re getting annoyed with me, cause I’m trying to get into the sink while you’re washing up. Cause I want a drink. Do you, what do you think now? And he was like, oh, oh yeah. Like you’re jumping into conversations when you shouldn’t, you’re always—

Jane McFadden:
But if like your husband and your family members are also neurodivergent, a lot of that can be normal for them. They don’t realize it’s an issue.

Nikki Johnson:
No, exactly. Exactly. And that’s the challenge, isn’t it? She was amazing. I spoke about university. I spoke about as much as I can remember as a child, even interests, like I used to love dance.

But my mom had to force me to go every day. And when I was there, I’d frustrate everyone because I’m do or die. And I would just stand there and walk through the actions and then it would come to exam time and I’d smash it.

And then we come to show time and I’d be like, and they just go, who is this person on stage or in the exam? It’s so frustrating. I look back now and just go, oh, what?

And when I did finally get the diagnosis, she started me straight away on 30 milligrams of Vyvanse. We talked about a dental appointment that I had text messages about that was supposed to have booked like six or seven months ago. And she said, oh, maybe we should start you on the 40 milligrams. Cause she thought I was that bad.

I was like, no, no, I’ll start cause I was nervous. I was like, I’ll start it low. We started on the 30 and I took my first Vyvanse on a Sunday and went food shopping. And it was just, I cried.

I actually cried in the supermarket because I was like, oh, there’s someone in front of me and they’re taking ages and I’m not getting really angry at them. And I’m not overstimulated by all these people talking about what they’re trying to get whilst I’m also trying to focus on my list and what I need.

And I came out and it wasn’t a hot bundle of stress. When I walked out the doors, I was actually singing and happy listening to my music and just like wandering through the shops with my trolley thinking, wow, this is so different. And then for work, I was terrible at procrastinating.

I still no good with projects of no end date. Like that’s really hard for me, but I can now focus, like there’s a massive difference. I noticed we’ve talked to, you’ve talked about PMS and how it affects like medication.

I do notice just about 10 days before my period, I really struggle again with focus. And it’s so frustrating because I’m like, why am I on Instagram when I should be focusing on this piece of work?

Jane McFadden:
Yeah. And then you like have it too. So you’ve experienced focus and then it’s like taken again and you’re like, what?

Nikki Johnson:
Yeah. You know that you can operate better. Whereas before it was like, oh, that’s normal for me. It’s a real journey. I think when you get a late diagnosis, you really go on the change curve. I don’t, most people you’ll know about it.

Massively yet you go down denial. Then I was like, oh, am I really, am I going to get found out that I’m not, is this really who I am? And then you get into a bit, I got into a bit of a rabbit hole and I’d kept reading all these Instagram things and all these people’s negative comments about addiction and the drug. And then I started to like, the anxiety would kick in at everything.

My overthinking would happen and I’d be like, oh no, what am I doing? No, I’m just an addict.

Jane McFadden:
Oh yeah. Yeah.

Nikki Johnson:
Yeah. Or, you know, maybe everyone has this reaction and I’m just now addicted to pills because I can’t cope because I’m crap.

Jane McFadden:
I think we’ve all, we’ve all been there. I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to anybody who said that they just took it in their stride, took the meds and didn’t really do any self-reflection or massive overhaul identity-wise worry. Yeah. I think that’s part of it.

Nikki Johnson:
Yeah. It’s a big deal. And then I think about, you know, I did go on a journey with, oh, what could I have been if I’d, I wouldn’t have had all this debt that I got into. Maybe I’d have actually got a decent degree rather than messing around and probably would have had more confidence because I was told I wasn’t very clever, but it wasn’t that I wasn’t clever. It’s just, I wasn’t focused on listening.

And at, you know, at university I did nothing. And it was at a time where there was no internet and it was all reading books and photocopying from the library.

Jane McFadden:
Yeah. Yeah.

Nikki Johnson:
And for my dissertation that you do in the UK, I went backwards and forwards, couldn’t decide what title I, what I wanted to do my dissertation on. And then two days before it’s due, I pull all-nighters and write 9,000 words.

Jane McFadden:
Oh my God.

Nikki Johnson:
And I got a degree. And I just think, how did that, obviously I’m not stupid.

Jane McFadden:
It’s just bizarre though, because you think a neurotypical person could never pull that together 48 hours before due date. Like they could not do that.

Nikki Johnson:
No.

Jane McFadden:
But it’s also not what you should do. Sorry.

Nikki Johnson:
No, it’s not. It’s like, I am a person at work that in a crisis just goes, oh yeah, I can do that. And I will spit out probably four or five hours work in half the time and I will be pumped and I’m like, give me more because that’s what I, I thrive on that adrenaline and that need to just get shit done and under pressure.

Jane McFadden:
Yeah. Or I go into complete paralysis, but most of the time, it’s hard to know which way you’re going to go, isn’t it? I think in a real crisis, I do like my kids go to run across the road and I, when I freeze and I don’t, someone else’s kid, I’m like, I don’t know what, what it is, but.

Well, it’s, they talk about high levels of emotion, decrease intelligence immediately. So if it’s your own child, I assume that just pure fear immobilizes you. That’s what happens to me.

Although I’m bad in any crisis, like I would be like a small child would be a bit more helpful than I would be. I just panic, just sheer panic.

I think it was one of my kids split their head open the other day. It was my five-year-old and then Gigi, my eight-year-old, I had to go to the hospital right now. I knew he was okay. I knew he wasn’t going to die or anything, but I knew they had to stitch his head.

I was just like sweating. I was a wreck. My daughter had to calm down and tell me to breathe because I was like, couldn’t cope. And then we got there and she goes, I’ve been looking after mom and it’s been hard to my husband.

I was like, oh my God, I’m really in absolute shit fire. Anyway, let’s move on.

Jane McFadden:
Okay. ADHD at work. So what would be, a lot of people ask constantly, and I think it’s like the RSD in ADHD where you start to take a conversation personally and then you like ruminate that maybe you’ve disclosed ADHD and then you don’t know, it’s a whole thing. So what would be the major risks of disclosing ADHD or a mental health condition at work?

Nikki Johnson:
So legally there is no risks. You’re protected. And I think the only risks I could think of and come up with are what you mentioned is your RSD. It’s your own personal thoughts and feelings about it.

Or you’ve got a workplace that doesn’t understand it, doesn’t want to understand it or someone that thinks it doesn’t exist. So I think it’s more on a, it’s more the personal journey or the person that you’re speaking to and how they react is the risk over actual protections within the organization.

You reveal it and you’re protected by the Discrimination Act. It’s listed as a disability within the Discrimination Act. And as soon as you disclose that you have a mental health disorder, ADHD, autism, you are protected by the Discrimination Act and your organization, the people that you work for have to make reasonable changes to your working conditions. They have responsibility to do that.

Jane McFadden:
Wow. Okay. I’m just loving this. Could we go through like a quick example of someone that, of a reason why you would disclose and how that could work out positively? Obviously it’s a personal choice and it depends on your job and it depends on what’s going on for you in your job.

Nikki Johnson:
Personally, I disclosed straight away. As soon as I went on the journey, I disclosed. I work in a very safe, secure environment for an amazing person, but I have seen it go wrong.

It might be things like I think about my past reviews when I was undiagnosed and I would always get feedback that my prioritization skills are terrible, my time management skills are terrible, or think about what you’re writing in an email. Don’t be so impulsive. I didn’t know I had ADHD, so I’d work on it.

But if you do know, then it just gives you that open opportunity to turn around and say, I have ADHD and this is how it shows up for me. These are the changes and this is the support I need. I feel overstimulated in the workplace some days because of the noise or I need focus and I can’t get that and the lights are too bright and there’s too many smells, all the things that might trigger your overstimulation.

I have RSD. If you turn around to me and say, can I have a minute? My head goes into, oh shit, what have I done? What have I done? Why do you want to talk to me right now? And it’s probably positive, but that’s just what can happen. Saying to someone with ADHD a lot of the time, have you got a minute to chat is probably the worst thing.

So I need context when you want to talk to me. Another way is by explaining, I suppose, if you do have issues with finishing projects, trying to work on different ways that your leader can support your strengths and support your weaknesses.

What can work really well as well is working as a team. So if you’ve got team members who are really great at doing projects and you’re the person that comes up with the ideas, be that person that initiates everything and then someone else can take on that work.

So it’s just trying to look at what’s going on for you and how that business can support you because that way, you know that you’re going to do a great job. There’s less likelihood of any kind of under performance coming up because you’re aware of where your weaknesses lie and then you can get some support from your leader.

Jane McFadden:
What can happen is you can make excuses for your ADHD, like you’re rude to people or generally just aggressive within the workplace.

Nikki Johnson:
This is where the challenge can be because you can’t really blame and victimize. You have to be responsible for your actions and apologize and try and find ways to change that. But a workplace also has to protect people from that kind of behavior as well.

And what I’ve seen a few times is, and this is more males with the impulsive, aggressive and hyperactive behaviors, they can get quite hyper-focused and find themselves getting into a hole. And if they’ve got a very dominant, strong senior leader, it then becomes this fight and it’s not repairable.

Jane McFadden:
Yeah, because ADHD people don’t want to be told and they will hold stubborn a lot of the time. So wow, that would be a bad combination.

Nikki Johnson:
Yeah. So look, majority of the time it goes well and it has to go well because they have to make reasonable changes. There’s so many parts of Fair Work and the Discrimination Act, as I mentioned before, that protect you because it’s listed as a disability.

So another thing that happened this year has been so many employment law changes. Sometimes it’s really hard to keep across them at the moment. In December, 2023, Work Health and Safety Act changed and psychosocial hazards was included as part of the WH&S Act.

So it’s not just about now having a physically safe environment to work. It’s about having an emotionally safe environment. And that means looking at job demand, having job descriptions and expectations set so you’re clear on exactly what you need to do.

So there’s no ambiguity about what I need to do and things that might create stress. And it’s also about having an inclusive environment where people feel safe to come to work and happy to come to work. And again, reasonable adjustments need to be made.

In New South Wales, for anyone that’s in New South Wales, the Black Dog Institute were doing free training on this, on the new psychosocial hazards and along with how to address mental health in the workplace and how leaders can have those conversations and also how to have those conversations with your leader as well. So really good positive change.

Jane McFadden:
I also think after COVID, there’s been a real blur now between home and workplace. So many people were working from home, they had kids home, they’d be on meetings and kids would be in the background. And it just created this situation where work is now almost an extension of—

Yeah, that hasn’t been good.

Nikki Johnson:
It has been bad, but what’s been great about that is people have been able to start bringing their whole selves to work. I mean, I worked in the 90s and 2000s and I remember being told, oh, you’ll never get far in this business. You’re way too dizzy and overbearing. You need to calm that down if you want to be someone in this business.

And I remember all of a sudden coming into work and being serious and then that kind of bled into my personal life as well. So I was a different person in work versus home. Whereas now I feel that offices are bringing in this whole, you can be you.

Jane McFadden:
Yeah, I hear you. I hear you. Because then that’s got such a massive toll if you have a work personality that you must put on part-time, full-time. And then that’s not who you are, but that’s who you think you’re supposed to be. And then you have to take that on and off. That’s weird.

That’s really hard actually, when you put it that way.

Nikki Johnson:
Yeah. And that’s what it’s like, I suppose, if you’re not disclosing your ADHD as well, is that if you’re hiding and masking, how stressful can that be for you? If you’re spending your whole day pretending to be someone you’re not, it’s tough.

Jane McFadden:
That’s where depression and anxiety lives. That’s where that lives, long-term masking.

I think you said before that you had been diagnosed with PTSD and postnatal. And a lot of people, women that are diagnosed with ADHD have three to four other diagnoses before that. And then it’s like a mixing pot. You don’t actually know what’s what at that point.

Jane McFadden:
We’ve got some positives of disclosing. I think they’re great. You talked about the legislation differing in each state. Have we finished on that question or did you have more to add?

Nikki Johnson:
In regards to each state, the legislation is pretty much the same across the board for most employees. Work Health and Safety has different legislations within states, but the nuance, the majority of the actual what you have to do is pretty straightforward. It’s pretty standard.

There might be some extra protections, but nothing less than what’s Australia-wide standards. It’s probably the best thing to explain.

Jane McFadden:
There’s been a little bit of speculation within the Facebook group around if you have ADHD, is it better to be in a large company or a small company? You’ve got any thoughts on that?

Nikki Johnson:
No, I don’t think it has anything to do with the size of your company. I think it’s more to do with the culture, because you can have a large organisation that has an inclusivity officer who walks around and goes, okay, we need to change all this, and this is what we’ve got to do, which is great from a company perspective, but not everything that they will come up with or do, like dimming lights or having a quiet space, is going to be suitable for everybody. Everybody’s an individual.

I think if you have a great leader who will support you and understand, and a company that’s even open to neurodiversions training, there’s a number of organisations now that do mental health and neurodiversion training on how to help and support people and your employees with neurodiversity.

Also, how to remove bias around that too. If you have a company that’s open to do that, or even a leader that’s just open to understand it to work with you and support you, then that’s what matters. It’s about working in a safe culture where you know you can be open.

I suppose one of the things I thought about the other day is that if you work in an environment that drug tests and you are taking the medication, it is so important that you disclose that, because if anything, if you were pulled up for a random drug test and you’ve tested positive for amphetamine, then you’re having to backtrack. At least they know prior that that can come up.

Jane McFadden:
Yeah. And then it can kind of sound sus, can’t it? After a positive, oh, I’m actually got this script. It’s like, oh, okay.

Nikki Johnson:
Yeah.

Jane McFadden:
That’s a great point.

Nikki Johnson:
It’s just something I thought about the other day, but me working in consultancy, we have loads of stuff that comes up on a regular basis. All the weird and wonderful things of HR, come on.

Jane McFadden:
I’m going to keep going with some questions in the Facebook group because I love the questions that people write in. If you’re not in the Facebook group, you should jump in because I often say what guest is coming up and then people like to comment, which I love. It makes my life easier.

Someone said, if your boss is really nice and they really like you, does this help? So I suppose this is interplay around my boss doesn’t like me, my boss likes me, does it help? Then you’ve got people that write in and go, well, it shouldn’t matter if they like you or not. But does it matter?

Nikki Johnson:
I think it’s more about your relationship. I think I’ve mentioned this a few times. It’s about being safe. If you don’t have a great relationship with your leader or your manager or your boss, or if you want to call them, is it the right company to work at for a start? Like, is that a great work environment? It’s my first question.

Two, if you feel worried that they might react, is there someone else in the business that’s in a leadership position or HR that you can talk to and trust, and they can help you approach that person to have those conversations? It’s hard.

If your boss doesn’t like you, then you’d be lucky to be in a job for whatever reason I find. If they’ve taken a disliking to you, then I’d certainly probably start looking for a new role because that’s not a great work environment to be in.

Jane McFadden:
That’s a great point. It’s a great point. If you’re not feeling safe in any conversation with a direct boss, then is it the right company? That’s a great question just in itself.

And then if you have ADHD and you’re not working for somebody that you like back, because generally if you don’t like somebody, they don’t like you, it’s a whole thing, then are you motivated? Because for me, I would find that really demotivating. And having ADHD, you want to be motivated.

Nikki Johnson:
Yeah, exactly. But on that, if you feel like you’re being targeted by that person and no one else is, then you need to speak to someone about that as well.

Jane McFadden:
This is opening up a whole can of worms. I’ve been gaslit in an organization by quite a senior leader and he would complain to me. We’d have great conversations.

It was almost like he saw into my soul. I think he was a bit of a narcissist and I’m an empath. So I think that was just—

Nikki Johnson:
Such an easy relationship waiting to happen.

Jane McFadden:
Yeah, exactly. But in a workplace.

Nikki Johnson:
Yeah, but in a workplace, of course.

Jane McFadden:
Yeah. And he’d make up conversations that we’d have. It’s like he almost knew that I had memory issues, but I would write everything down and he would turn around and say, no, we had this conversation and I’m HR.

So who do I go and complain to?

Nikki Johnson:
Of course.

Jane McFadden:
So I was the head of HR at the time. It’s just things like that. If that is happening and you feel like that’s happening, then you’ve got to report it. And if it’s someone really senior, like a CEO, and you don’t have anyone else to go to, then it’s time to get out because that’s not going to change.

But if it’s a middle manager, you need to take that further. I think is my thought on that.

Nikki Johnson:
I was also thinking about red flags after you’ve disclosed as well. So it’s things like feeling like you’re being treated differently now you’ve disclosed your mental health in a bad way. Like having work taken away from you, having negative comments, and then gaslighting as well is another thing that might come up where they tell you to your face that you’re doing a good job, but complain to you about someone else or make up conversations that have happened.

That’s gaslighting and that’s a form of bullying. It’s looking at those. And if those red flags do start to show after you’ve disclosed, then you need to start making a diary and a note of things that are going on and happening. And any conversations that happen, you make sure they’re in writing as well. And you respond in writing too.

So that if anything then happens post that in regards to a dismissal or poor performance or anything that they start to pull out, then you have a case to be able to turn around and say to Fair Work I’m being treated, I’m being discriminated against. Then you can start that kind of process. It’s more the fact that I suppose, if people just start to be a bit sort of weird towards you.

Jane McFadden:
But see, this is the part that I think is really hard because we talked about RSD. So it’s like you go and you do it and you build yourself up and you say it. And then the person doesn’t react the way you think they’re going to, or maybe they don’t know what to say.

A lot of people don’t know what to say. So they say the wrong thing. And then you feel like you’re getting targeted or are you just being managed the way you always were and it’s all in your head. It’s really hard.

I have an inmate. So I get emails sometimes and I get a reaction to that email. And that’s my RSD. I’m reading between the lines 100%. I have a great colleague who is really level headed.

And I’ll speak to her and I’ll tell her what’s going on for me. And she will put it in a different slant. And that really helps.

Nikki Johnson:
So that’s, I think it’s having your ally that you know that you can really confide in and have conversations that won’t go anywhere. And you can be really open and raw and they can help you through that mental process that you might be, or the reaction that you’re having that probably isn’t necessary.

And then if it is, or they go, oh, well, that’s a bit weird. I’ve not seen them treat you like that before. Or that’s when it would be, okay, I’m not going crazy. I need to start addressing this.

Jane McFadden:
Yeah. Or, you know, like creating that paper trail possibly.

I was going to ask when you talked about the positives to disclosing, you talked about that you could ask for some accommodations. I think that’s great. Let’s just imagine that you disclosed and then your boss or someone at work has gone, oh, okay, cool. That’s good to know.

And then you’ve kind of like sidled up trying to like, oh, maybe we could have some accommodations and you’ve been kind of like shot down or kind of like quite quiet, that kind of vibe. And no one really wants to talk about the accommodation. What are some things that you should be able to ask for?

Nikki Johnson:
Flexibility is a big one. So that’s for disability and working parents. And especially most of us have got kids with ADHD, so we need flexibility.

And flexibility can look like working from a different location a few times a week. It can be working different hours to accommodate appointments or just because you work better in the morning. So you’d rather be in the office at 7am till 4pm.

Or you like to go to the gym because the exercise really helps you with your mental health, ADHD, autism, just making sure that you can do that so that you can come to work and be productive because that really helps you release and do—or a lunchtime session or whatever it is. So it’s just really looking at those reasonable adjustments that doesn’t put pressure on your team to have to do the work. That doesn’t mean someone else has to stand in to do your job.

And most of those are reasonable, I would say in regards to when work actually gets done. If you’re a shift worker, it becomes really hard. And if you’re in a customer service role, or retail or nursing or medical profession, again, those things are quite hard to change.

But again, it’s just looking at having a think about what do you need to support you? And is that actually 38 hours a week is really tough, but I know I can do my job in 35. Can I have an extra three?

It’s kind of being proactive, understanding what you need, putting it forward in writing. Again, another employment law change that happened last year is changes to flexibility. A company now has to have a conversation with you and try and work out how it’s going to work. And if what you’ve asked is too much, then trying to figure out where you can meet in the middle.

It used to be that it could be declined on reasonable business grounds. And that’s tightened a lot. And there’s a lot more restriction around that. So from an employee perspective, that’s really great. Because if you request to work from home, and you can do your job, because you have a quiet space and a laptop and a mobile phone, like most of us do these days, it can happen.

Jane McFadden:
Like why can’t you, if you’ve got good internet, we’ve done it, we’ve proved it works, make it work. To turn down that kind of thing becomes really hard from the employer perspective.

And I suppose as well taking responsibility, which is what you talked about earlier. So not using ADHD as an excuse versus this is what will help me, these three things here. If I could receive those or have those, whatever the words are, then I would be able to be more productive. And then you would need to hold up your end of the bargain, you would then need to pick things that are going to actively help you perform and then perform.

You can’t then after the accommodations, I would imagine this would piss someone off after they give you the accommodations, then start going, oh, well, of course, I didn’t get that done because I have ADHD.

Nikki Johnson:
And I suppose as well, that kind of like gives the bosses and the workplaces a bit of a nasty taste in the mouth, because then the next person that comes through that discloses that is really legitimately trying to do their best may then have bias against them.

It creates the thing called unconscious bias. So you don’t think that you have that bias and then you start to have reactions to things or not all through the recruitment process, turn around someone and go, oh, we don’t like them because of this. And it’s probably because they remind you of someone else or something that’s happened.

But there are also small changes that can be made as well. It’s like saying, I found projects really hard that have no end date. So my manager has this really great thing where I’m turning around and if I like two weeks later, I’m still going, oh yeah, I’m still just working on this work for this client.

They didn’t say it was a rush and it just keeps going down my to-do list. She’ll just turn around and go, okay, that needs to be done this week for billing purposes. I like, make some, I know what she’s doing, but I’m like, oh cool. Yeah. Okay. I’ll get it done. I’ll get it done.

So she’ll give me deadlines if there is no deadline, that sort of stuff. We’ve got this really great relationship where she knows what happens for me and where things go wrong.

If I’m having a moment of overwhelm, which usually happens around my period, I don’t know where to start. Oh my God, my to-do list is massive. It’s all urgent. We will have regular daily catch-ups where she’ll say what’s on today and we’ll go through it.

And then it takes five minutes to do a morning roundup of my day. And she’ll say, is that really urgent though? Because everything to me, I have no triage. Like it’s all urgent. All has to be done. It all has to be done now.

And she’ll talk me through that. Again, that’s someone helping you with what needs to be done versus what doesn’t need to be done right now.

And the same with knowing if you sit in your emails all day, getting someone just to give you some help around that. Or if you talk too much in a meeting, having a safe word to just give you that self-awareness again. Or knowing that you think that if you’re doing a brainstorming meeting and you think better on your feet, creating an environment where it’s okay for everyone to stand up and move around the room, if that’s what you need.

So it’s just having those kind of like an agreement between you and your leader around what helps you be really effective in your day-to-day and just having that honest conversation.

Nikki Johnson:
We’re really pushing in regards to leadership now anyway, that those one-on-ones and those conversations about wellbeing are the most important things you need to have with all employees because you just don’t know what’s going on with someone’s life. And you need to know what’s going on because that affects performance if they’re not feeling comfortable and open to talk to you.

It is like anything that pops up where you go, this is real struggle. Have a chat with your leader, talk about what you need, talk about it with your team, come up with some kind of plan and an idea and take it from there.

Jane McFadden:
I was actually going to add in there something that someone did for me once. I’m known for being a bit of a sledgehammer, I’m very direct and I actually love it when people are direct with me. So it doesn’t occur to me that people don’t enjoy direct communication.

I’ve been in trouble with it many times at work. I had somebody pull me up on it and teach me how to reframe what I’m saying. So for example, we had subcontractors and they would all want the work because they all want to get paid. And there’d be one that’s like really good at one thing, but he always wanted more work, but he was only good at one thing, but he’d always end up with all the jobs.

And then I’d be so frustrated with him and then like just threatened violence basically at the end of this whole thing. Anyway, this person came to me and said, instead of saying, I can’t give you the work because you’re crap and you won’t do it and just sledgehammer him and he hates you, why don’t you just say, hey, I just want to leave you in this particular field doing this particular thing to free you up, to make sure you’ve got the time for the next project.

And I was like, oh, I’ve never, never occurred to me. And it’s like that retraining, just that little, it’s still direct. It’s a direct conversation. I’m not bluffing around. I’m just making it a positive conversation as opposed to a negative. And that had honestly never occurred to me ever.

Nikki Johnson:
You need people, you need to surround yourself with people like that. I feel, I remember someone complained to me about an email I’d written. I’d had emotional response and I just went, and my manager just turned around and said, whenever you feel like that, send the email to me, send the email to your colleague, do what you need to do to get that emotion out.

Take a deep breath, go for a walk, come back and then rewrite it. Then approach it. Do not react on emotion. Everyone needs that person. If it’s your best friend, a partner, someone at work, everyone needs like a sanity point where they’re just like, nah man, you’re cooked. Like that’s ridiculous. Stop doing that.

Jane McFadden:
It’s like that friend when you like message them about your husband or something, you’re like, I’m so angry. And then they’re like, you have PMS. That’s not that bad. Oh, sorry. Okay. So you just need someone to pull you up.

I’m imagining just a quick one that you would probably need for these conversations, a diagnosis on paper, as opposed to a self-diagnosis for a lot of these conversations.

Nikki Johnson:
Look for protections, I would say yes, 100%. So if you want changes to be made, like big changes that are flexible, that will be classed as flexibility in the eyes of Fair Work, 100% for the small changes, for the small tweaks of how to perform better and how you’re more effective. I think everybody needs that.

Like every person, even neurotypical, everyone has a thing that works for them. Everyone has a weakness.

Jane McFadden:
Yeah.

Nikki Johnson:
I don’t know someone I worked with once. All she wanted to do was to finish half an hour earlier to go to Pilates. She’s like, I won’t have a lunch break or whatever. I just really love to go to Pilates. And I was just thinking, why is this so fucking hard?

Jane McFadden:
Oh gosh. Yeah. Why? I don’t care if she goes, she sits next to me.

Nikki Johnson:
Yeah. I used to work in recruitment as a recruitment consultant. And it was so, you have to be in your desk at eight o’clock. You have to be at your desk till six o’clock. You can’t have a lunch.

Like my compliance straw was overflowing and I was forced to stay until it had all finished once. It was like punishment. It was like school. That’s innate in me.

And then I worked for someone and I had to go to a doctor’s appointment at four o’clock in the afternoon. And I asked permission and he was like, can you stop asking permission to leave an hour early? I know you work hard. I know you work on the bus on the way home. I know you take calls in your outside of hours, but you have to stop just because you’re going to be here at quarter to nine instead of eight-thirty. You don’t need to text me to tell me you’re going to be late.

Jane McFadden:
Okay. All right. So yeah, it’s hard when you work in an environment that’s really strict and structured, but I think some of us, our work ethic is so ingrained either from our parents or from past experiences that 30 minutes and having to ask permission can be really hard when sometimes you don’t actually need to just ask, depending on the culture that you’re working in.

Oh, I totally agree. I totally agree. And RSD can turn up as I don’t want to upset someone. I don’t want to hurt their feelings. Like I have both sides. I find it really hard to have direct conversations. I will shy away from it and be like, no, I can’t have that conversation with you. It’s funny, but anyway.

Nikki Johnson:
Oh, that’s so funny. See, my anxiety around it just drives me. So I can’t wait, impulsively ring someone with no plan and then just sledgehammer them. And then I’m like, that felt like something I could have done differently.

Jane McFadden:
But you know, I’m learning.

Nikki Johnson:
Oh yeah, I try. I try.

Jane McFadden:
And look, I’ve managed to sort my workouts. I don’t have large teams and stuff. It would be different if I was, well, I would never be a high-level manager. Let’s just be honest. I don’t have the skills.

Anyway, is there a website that is helpful or accurate? If someone wants to know more and they want to go down to Rabbit Warren, is there any website you would recommend?

Nikki Johnson:
There’s lots. Obviously in regards to legal, Fair Work is your place to go. Fair Work and Work Health and Safety for the psychosocial information. So anything to do with mental health, Black Dog Institute has some great work resources and so does Beyond Blue. They have a specific work section within there.

LinkedIn, I go in a massive rabbit hole a lot. I follow ADHD Australia and they do a lot of workplace articles. One that they did recently was around overstimulation in the workplace and how to help yourself through that and what to do. They republish a number of articles from lots of organizations.

And then there’s a lot of places that now offer mental health and neurodiversity training. So they again have a number of really interesting blogs on what to do and how to support yourself. The best ones I find and the ones that we always talk about a lot with our clients are Black Dog and Beyond Blue really in regards to mental health and having the right conversations with your leader. If you’re a leader, having the right conversations with your employees as well.

Jane McFadden:
Yeah, beautiful. There might be some leaders on this podcast that may be wanting to learn more as well. That would be really interesting for them.

And one final question, are there any do’s and don’ts generally that you think are helpful or unhelpful?

Nikki Johnson:
Yeah, so I suppose I was having a think about this and my do’s are, and I’ve said this so many times, ensure you feel safe. That is a massive thing. You are about to open up about something that has so much stigma attached to it still that you need to feel safe to be able to do that knowing that there’s no judgment or some kind of strange response.

And if there is, walk away, tell them you’ll come back once they’ve re-educated themselves. Be ready to educate as well. Everyone has lots of ideas of what it is. It doesn’t exist. Oh, we all have ADHD. Don’t we all have ADHD? Or no, we don’t.

Do you spend every single day walking around the house wondering why the heck you’re in this room? Because you’ve forgotten? Like, yes, we all do that sometimes, but not every single hour of every single day. It’s exhausting. So, no, we don’t all have ADHD.

Jane McFadden:
But maybe though, maybe we need to lower expectations in that conversation because from what you’ve just said, you’ve just listed out something awesome and something probably common is that that person might then go, oh, yeah, I forget things. Everyone has that. And minimise.

Then if you’re the person that’s asking for the accommodations, maybe we need to just give the employer a moment to process. I don’t think we want to get on the attack if they start minimising.

Nikki Johnson:
Yeah, let’s just maybe let that fly for that moment. And that’s where we talk about having difficult conversations in general. If you see that there’s a reaction that either you don’t like, it’s okay to take a break. It’s okay to say, look, this is a lot. I just need five minutes. Or can we just reconvene? Or can we go for a walk?

I love walking meetings because you don’t have to give eye contact. You think better on your feet. And it also creates that if you’re in an office space, in a room, it’s really intense looking at someone. Eye contact’s not a thing for us. It’s hard.

Jane McFadden:
True. And your RSD is going over and over. How are they looking? Are they looking angry? Yeah.

Nikki Johnson:
Good point. Do say, can we go for a walk? Can we go for a coffee and walk around the block? Anything that was an emotional conversation that I’ve ever had to have with a leader or an employee, or even feedback to an employee who had bipolar, I would take her on walking meetings and we would have really great conversations. And it just feels less intimidating for both sides. So that’s a really great way to start.

Be open and honest and communicate a lot. So if something’s not working for you, or you’re finding it hard that day, for whatever reason, have that conversation. Don’t hold it in. I think once you’ve done all the disclosing, you need to continue that open and honest two-way conversation and just tell them where you’re at.

If you’re particularly struggling one day for whatever, because the work that you’re doing is so, so boring and you hate it and you can’t get started, be honest and help them help you find a way out of that hole so you can get started.

And then my other thing was being a neurodiversity advocate. So if your company doesn’t have, if their inclusivity doesn’t cover neurodiversity as we’d like it to, see if you can be that advocate that joins that inclusivity club or whatever, or organize for that to happen, I think, so that you can be the person within your business that helps drive what needs to be driven within the workplace.

Jane McFadden:
I think that’s an incredible point because then you’re offering something back as well. Let me help you get the best out of the neurodiverse population. And then, as you said earlier, if you’re saying there’s one in four that are diagnosed with this and these are the statistics on it, then probably there’s more than just you. And how can they get the best out of their staff?

And then advocating for that, offering adjustments and being a bit of an expert, really. I mean, it’s a low bar. If they don’t know anything, it’d be easy to be an expert. That’s a really great point because even you’re turning it to positive rather than I’m taking, which I know that we’re not, but I’m just saying from the employer’s point of view, like I’m taking, I’m asking. It’s like, well, actually, I’m helping as well. That’s a great point.

Nikki Johnson:
Yeah. I was in a conference a few months ago and someone was at, we were talking about inclusivity policies and programs, and they were all talking about women and parents and all this kind of stuff. And someone said, what are you doing for neurodiversity?

And they just said, we use a special recruitment agency to recruit autistic employees in programming and IT. And we also have a quiet space for people. And I was like, this is really triggering for me because it’s not just, that’s not just what you find for anyone with neurodivergence. So yes, there’s a lot of education that needs to be done.

And I think if you can be that person that turns around and says, hey, I work in HR and I’m neurodiverse. I work in marketing and amazingly, I’m really creative and I have ADHD.

Jane McFadden:
Do you know something really interesting that I just, I know this is off topic, but we’re about to finish. I just had to tell you, because it’s just, it does my head in, right?

I go to the netball and I won’t say what club, but everyone will guess because it’s what area I live in. They’re really nice and they try very hard, but they’re so uneducated. So they go on about inclusivity constantly, right? And about how they’re so inclusive and that’s lovely. And I love to go to the netball games and I take my kids who have sensory processing.

And so they have a sensory room, right? And that’s lovely. But when you go into the sensory room, which I would like to go into the sensory room, what it actually is, is it’s like decked out with all this like kid stuff. And so when you go in there, it’s a sensory room, but I think they think it’s just for kids.

And so then you get kids that have all kinds of neurodiversities running around, burning off energy because they’ve been sitting at a game. The parents take them there to run them out kind of thing. So then when you go there needing a quiet space, because it’s a sensory room, actually it’s worse than outside, but they don’t seem to understand that it’s, I suppose it depends on what do you think a sensory room is?

Because if you’ve got kids that are hyperactive that are sitting in a game, they probably do need to run. But then I’m looking at it lifconke, isn’t this also for adults that need a quiet space?

Nikki Johnson:
What’s it advertised as? Just a sensory room?

Jane McFadden:
It says sensory room and it prides itself on inclusivity.

Nikki Johnson:
Right. I assume it thinks it’s for neurodivergent children because it’s like a children’s play area.

Jane McFadden:
Yeah. With a screen on mute. So you can’t hear the commentator. And I’m just there going, I’m just so confused by this whole thing.

Nikki Johnson:
It sounds like it’s a kid’s play area, not a sensory room.

Jane McFadden:
And then I just think, why do I leave my kids at home when I can put them in here? That’s weird, isn’t it? Anyway, Nikki, thank you so much. This has been so informative, so well done. And I think it’s also been really general in that most people could apply it. It’s like specific, but also general and I think really applicable. So thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.

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