A must-read for leaders to improve culture, retention, and management skills.
With approximately six percent of the adult population being folks with ADHD, and based on everything I’ve learned about improving their lives at work and beyond from over seventy episodes of my podcast, ADHD Wise Squirrels, I’ve come to a major realization on how every company can improve culture, communication, and retention.
I believe the best workplaces are built around an important truth: many strategies that help employees with ADHD also help neurotypical employees. That is not a niche idea, it’s a design principle. Universal design in the workplace is meant to support a wide range of people and can improve productivity, safety, collaboration, and communication for all employees, not just the Wise Squirrels among your team.
All humans struggle with attention
A lot of conventional workplace practices assume a kind of ideal worker who always has steady focus, perfect memory, strong self-organization, and unlimited tolerance for interruptions. In reality, all humans struggle with attention, working memory, task switching, and unclear expectations. ADHD simply makes those pressures more visible. The result is that practices like long unstructured meetings, vague assignments, email-heavy communication, rigid schedules, and noisy open offices often create friction for everyone, not just for people with ADHD.
That’s why I think ADHD accommodations should not be treated as special exceptions. They should be treated as better management.
Basic features of a healthy workplace
Clear written instructions help people know exactly what success looks like. Written SOPs help reduce ambiguity and make onboarding easier. Flexible timing can shift attention away from presenteeism and back toward outcomes. Quiet spaces, closed doors, and headphones protect concentration. Frequent, specific feedback improves alignment and morale. These are not “extra” supports; they are basic features of a healthy workplace, and universal design guidance explicitly notes that clearer communication, better tools, and more usable work processes can benefit all employees.
There is also a practical business argument. ADHD accommodations support focus, time management, organization, morale, productivity, and retention, while universal design approaches aim to optimize performance across the entire workforce. In other words, when leaders design for the edges, they often improve the center too.
So my theory is simple: if a workplace becomes more ADHD-friendly, it becomes more human-friendly. Better communication, less cognitive overload, fewer interruptions, and more intentional management don’t just help neurodiverse people. They help teams function with less confusion and more trust.
It’s not that ADHD employees need special treatment. It is that many common workplace norms are inefficient, exclusionary, and unnecessarily hard on the people expected to work within them. Designing for ADHD is really designing for clarity, communication, accessibility, and better work for everyone.
Designing for ADHD is really designing for clarity, communication, and accessibility.
Clear instructions, fewer interruptions, and better feedback are not perks. They are management fundamentals. Designing for ADHD does not lower the bar; it removes avoidable barriers.
The most inclusive workplaces are often the most operationally effective ones. ADHD-friendly management is not a special category of leadership; it is simply better leadership. I’m sure your neurotypical team members and all stakeholders will agree.