Struggling with colleague

[Krayvon2]

A colleague I manage has ADHD. I've always been more than happy to accommodate and I've asked them several times what adaptations need to be made to brief in tasks etc

They've never been forthcoming with specific recommendations and it's always been vague so I've done my best and given them double the amount of time with tasks, ensured briefs are crystal clear with deadlines and regularly checked in and offered to help.

For a recent task I gave them double the amount of time I would give myself, sent them a brief and made sure they weren't given too many other tasks that week so they could concentrate on this one. I've always made clear that if they have difficulties for whatever reason, they need to let me know.

They left the task to the last minute and didn't do half of it so I had to step in and do a lot myself at the eleventh hour in order to avoid missing a client deadline. They didn't communicate difficulties at any point until I checked in. I'm at a loss as to what they were actually doing in the week I gave them to do the task.

When I pulled them up on it and asked what had happened, they mention the limitations of their condition straight away and explain how they have trouble with things like prioritising and focusing. Yet they didn't reach out once to explain this or ask me to brief in a different way to make it easier for them.

Have I been unreasonable here? I'm not pretending I have the answers but I have tried all I can think of to accommodate yet its not working and they're not really giving me much guidance on what they need yet it's always the reason why they can't do the work I set.

Meanwhile I'm taking on lots of extra work so as not to overload them yet they struggle with completing one single task. No idea what to do.

No, you are not being unreasonable. Do you have someone like HR or and Disabilities person who you can refer this back to?

@MonicaFree yes I think referring to HR will be the next step. I've already suggested they speak to HR and they haven't but I'm going to make sure they do.

No, they're pulling a fast one
I have adhd. If the condition means you can do the job with reasonable adjustments then you find a job you're capable of.
Fwiw I have never missed a deadline

Thank you @007DoubleOSeven I have suspected this at times but haven't dared to say anything in case I'm being ignorant of the condition but I literally gave them one job, step by step instructions and ample time to do it with support if needed so I'm struggling to work out what they did with that time

I have ADHD and I work better when given loads of work. If I I given slack I find it harder to whizz through the work because I feel like I dont need to. When I have loads to do I'm unbelievable at cracking on, prioritising and making it all happen within the deadlines. Are you giving too much slack maybe? And not checking in early enough, say midway through rather than the 11th hour.

Adhd is not an excuse they need to do their job

Yes @Lennybenny I'm at end of my tether and struggling with workload at this point

Do you not think the colleague should take some responsibility for any of this though?

@Hydie yes possibly could check in earlier and give them more but when the workload has been more in the past they have implied they will have difficulties with that and multiple deadlines have got missed so eased things off but still not working. The lack of guidance from them is what's making it harder. They don't seem to have anything definitive about how they'd like to work

I have ADHD. I would value you trying to be supportive however the support you have provided sadly wouldn't help me. If you have me double the length of time, that would most give me double the time to 1. Forget to do it. 2. Procastinate over doing it. 3. Feeling overwhelmed about doing it 4. Pretending I didn't need to do it.
I know I struggle with these things, however again I sadly wouldn't come forward and ask for support - again because I wouldn't even think about it. The chemical imbalance in my brain stops me from doing these things and although I try to implement strategies, I cannot learn them.

There are things I would find helpful though, which might mean more work for you - however in the long run would be gains for both. So instead of the one big task, if you broke it down to stages withtime scales for each stage would be helpful. Regular check in and progress meetings would also be helpful.

It's taken me almost 20 years to understand myself better so your colleague may not be there yet. And you might feel that you are being supportive, which you sound like you are - but without fully knowing the condition and what actually is supportive, your support might be far from that.

@Buckme agree with all of this. I dont think the extra time is a positive. Maybe just a bit of extra time, but not double the time. And some check points along the way. Draining as it might be. I personally don't need any check ins and I'm good at communicating, but too much time wouldn't work in my favour.

Of course. But everyone with ADHD deals differently. I'm a great communicator and not scared to say if I've got too much work, some people go into ADHD paralysis instead.

ive got adhd and autism.

This is the kind of situation I get myself in. I get so stressed out about the task at hand that I’ll literally do anything else to avoid facing it.

example, my driving license expired last week. On the last possible day to do it I sat thinking about it for an hour and then decided to deep clean all the bathrooms. I still havnt done it.

Ask them what they do to manage their condition. You're going to lot of effort to help but ultimately its up to them, they need to take responsibility even if that means they turn around and say, no sorry I can't do this efficiently at this point in time.
There is lots of help and management techniques out there and freely available, are they making use of it?

@Buckme @Hydie the extra time is also due to nature of our work as there's lots of checks and collaboration needed along the way. They have worked well under some tighter time scales in the past but left it to eleventh hour and it left myself and other team members panicking and not given enough prep time to do our parts of the task - so hard to find balance

@007DoubleOSeven no I don't see them being proactive with ways to improve or give me more guidance. It's only brought up when something goes wrong

There are things I would find helpful though, which might mean more work for you - however in the long run would be gains for both. So instead of the one big task, if you broke it down to stages withtime scales for each stage would be helpful. Regular check in and progress meetings would also be helpful.
Would that not be a considerable more amount of work for op though, and for everything single piece of work that would be given to the colleague?

Extra time for me would just result in an enormous amount of procrastination.
i think you need to have a clear conversation with them about what measures would actually assist them to do the job, because they do need to do it.

Can you move their part of the deadline up? Allowing time for you to review after. My experience, but I know everyone is different, is that my ADHD colleague needs shorter deadlines as they will always leave it until then last minute. So for a deadline that's really the end of the month I ask for it by the second week. Gives me plenty of time to review it afterwards so win win.

The more time I have, the more time I waste, I find I have to either be really interested in something or be under pressure in order to get it done.

What is their working environment like?

It might not be something that would affect anybody else, but if the area is full of posters, files, signs, extraneous and badly positioned office furniture/visual noise, there's a lot of auditory distraction, flickering fluorescent lighting and they are being sent or copied into 80+ emails with accompanying notifications all day, they could have become overwhelmed by the sheer amount of 'stuff' shouting at them.

They may also find it difficult to have everything in large blocks of text in 11pt font, compared to having a large (it needs to be large) whiteboard where they can brain dump, plan, mark things off and generally get some of the noise in their head out where it can be looked at from a distance.

Would they be able to plan things with markers and A3 pads, for example? Can they use 14pt font and have twin monitors so there isn't so much losing their place and train of thought between Alt-Tab switching? Do they actually have the OK to have 'movement breaks' (ie, get up and walk around, do something else that isn't stuck at their desk staring at a screen?).

When somebody is overwhelmed, they might not even realise what can help because they've shut down focusing on I Can't Do This. And the fear, the paralysis is where they don't tell you they're struggling.

I agree that you need to speak to HR and explain that you’re tried to make accommodations, but you need clearer guidance on what measures would really support them to do their job. Explain that the accommodations you’ve tried simply aren’t working, as you’ve ending up taking on much of their workload.

Push it onto HR and make them discuss and define appropriate accommodations with your colleague. Accommodations are supposed to enable them to do their job, not result in another person doing it for them. You’re not trained in this field, you don’t intuitively “know” what will work best for your colleague. They/someone needs to tell you!

I don't see them being proactive with ways to improve or give me more guidance. It's only brought up when something goes wrong

Definitely escalate to HR; to me this sounds a little suspicious, but if any action needs to be taken it has to be done properly and they're the ones to advise you

Exactly, @NeverDropYourMooncup and the colleague needs to communicate this to HR/the OP so that appropriate accommodations can be made. The OP may not even have the authority to approve the types of accommodations, such as movement breaks that you’re suggesting.