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.

Give them half the time, not double the time. Tasks worth a long deadline fail prioritisation.

It comes down to a few things.

Look into how to manage those with ADHD. It may help in other areas.

Their adhd may be badly managed - talk openly. They may need to be more productive

@InattentiveADHD

I can think of a lot of things that are disabling in the way that ADHD isn't. My father had his leg amputated in his mid-30s after a workplace accident. He couldn't drive, he couldn't take me to school (or easily come to concerts, parents' evenings etc because of the stairs), we almost never went on holiday. He was also seriously depressed. Poor executive function is irritating and compromising. But not a disability, unless you want to stretch the word so far that it makes it meaningless for anyone who really has a disability. Besides, ADHD has a range of very successful medication options. If I take Ritalin or vyvanse my executive function is pretty good. (I currently choose not to because I don't like the side effects. Again, if someone had given my father back the use of his whole body, a dry mouth, slightly fast heart rate etc would have been trivial to him.)

Lots of conditions are disabling in different ways. Doesn't mean that ADHD isn't also disability. Some conditions are more disabling than others of course. It's not a race to the bottom, and it doesn't mean that because it's more disabling to have one condition, conditions that are less disabling don't count!

The availability of medication also doesn't mean a condition isn't disabling.

If ADHD wasn't a disability, I don't think it would be considered a disorder at all. Everyone forgets their keys sometimes, or struggles to get themselves organised or is late occasionally. To be diagnosed with ADHD you have to have symptoms that occur frequently and negatively impact functioning in at least two areas of your life eg social and work. This in effect automatically meets the definition of a disability. If the condition isn't disabling you, you probably don't have ADHD, you won't meet the diagnostic criteria.

Just because ADHD isn't as disabling as having an amputation that doesn't mean it isn't a disability. Poor executive function can have a huge impact on someone's life. The stats re unemployment and depression/ anxiety for those with ADHD are really sad and quite shocking.
I am diagnosed. So far meds haven't helped. I cannot function at work in the way my colleagues function. No matter how hard I try. For years I had no idea why I just didn't seem to "get" life like everyone else I knew did. Why were really simple straightforward things paralysing. I'm not stupid, I have a masters degree. But I regularly made mistakes filling in simple forms. And diary management is pretty much impossible. Why?
If people trivialise it and argue that it's not a disability, then the person with ADHD will have no choice to to try and fit in and function like everyone else can. At what cost? I regularly work way over my hours, things take me far longer than they take my colleagues and I know I'm not as productive as they are. But I also know o al working way way harder than them just to stand still.
So no, I not had my leg amputated, I'm not blind, I haven't had a stroke and lost the use of one side of my body. And if you look ar me I look fine. But I'm not. I have a disability. It's just one that's invisible and misunderstood and displays itself through symptoms that you usually relate to someone who is lazy and disorganised and a big weird.
FFS.

I am probably older than some of you, and I was diagnosed 35 years ago. So I've had ADHD for long enough (have also in this time seen many different psychiatrists, both in the US, Germany and here, and tried most of the available medications.) So I'm not exactly ADHD naive. Not sure where the FFS comes from.

For most of the time that I have had ADHD it has not been regarded as a disability. And I have never considered it one, partly because I've been able to get a PhD and have a successful career. I have poor executive function, of course. I have difficulty meeting deadlines. But like many people with ADHD I bristle at the idea that I'm disabled. (I am considered by the way to have severe ADHD; if I didn't, I wouldn't have been prescribed the medications for large parts of my adult life by the NHS.) The idea that ADHD is a disability seems to have arisen in the last five years (so too for dyslexia).

Some posters in this thread might consider themselves disabled, but this is far from universal. It is also the case that I have performed poorly at jobs for reasons that have nothing to do with my ADHD. To get back to the original poster, it sounds to me as if the ADHD colleagues was not making the best effort to communicate or manage their symptoms. It's not a cover-all explanation for poor performance at work.

@hopsalong the FFS comes from the frustration of someone trying to impose their own views of what is a disability on others.

Definition of disability (from Wikipedia);

"Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physical"

ADHD like all of the ND / SpLds are on a spectrum, to mild to very severe. You say your ADHD is severe but you are functioning well despite that and without medication. I am not. Of course you are entitled to not see your ADHD as a disability if it's not making it harder for you to do certain activities, or function in everyday life. If it is, then you could rightfully say you have a disability, but also you could choose not to. You can define yourself however you choose.

I'm frustrated at the way you minimised the impact of poor executive function in your previous post, placing the blame for not being better and the responsibility to just get better at stuff on the individual.

"Well I've got severe ADHD and I'm doing fine so why aren't you?" Is not helpful at all.