How to resolve AdBlock issue? Understanding employees’ mental health challenges to elevate company performance
By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>
ONE of the big issues for employers today is how to deal with employees that have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), mental health issues, autism and neurodiversity.
An estimated one-in-five Australians is neurodivergent. This includes conditions such as ADHD – a neurodevelopmental condition characterised by persistent patterns of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity – and autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Factors such as stigma, late diagnosis and limited awareness continue to affect career outcomes for this group.
Workplace barriers affect thousands of neurodivergent Australians. Data shows seven in 10 employers discriminate against candidates with a long-term illness, disability, mental illness or those aged over 55.
The Australian HR Institute (AHRI) found one-third of employers exclude workers with mental illness, up 14% from 2024.
ADHD costs affected employees
A Senate inquiry into assessment and support services for people with ADHD found more than half of the adults with ADHD did not receive workplace adjustments, while three in five believed they had lost a job due to ADHD.
Sarah Richardson, the CEO of Tasmania-based psychiatry service Clear Minds, said her business was educating employers about this condition. 
She sad employers “weren’t really educated enough to know” what it was like to live with different illnesses and how they could support and guide their employees.
“It’s not a disease that you can physically see,” Ms Richardson told Talking Business.
“So when you look at people and how they’re interacting with colleagues and with work, you just think they’re being maybe lazy or they don’t have their finger on the pulse.
“But you’re not actually understanding what’s going on for that employee behind the scenes,” she said.
“That’s why we’re trying to promote the education around this and actually helping employers understand these conditions and how they can work more cohesively with their employees.”
Educating business leaders
Ms Richardson said Clear Minds had worked closely with a wide range of businesses facing these challenges.
“We have done some education with high executive leaders and at the conclusion of those sessions, they actually felt quite empowered by the information and I think we opened their eyes to really give them the ability to understand, to recognise those employees as well,” she said.
Ms Richardson said there was some resistance at the beginning but as her team “broke down that stigma attached around mental health, ADHD and neurodivergence” it delivered positive results.
She said the sessions can be tailored for the needs of the particular business. A session could be conducted in suitable time blocks – ranging from 15 minutes to one hour.
It can include work by video link or sometimes face to face. That’s despite her business working out of Tasmania.
Ms Richardson said sessions had to be capped “at about an hour” because generally managers are busy.
She said clients with those conditions were also being educated alongside employers and colleagues.
“What we try to do through our ADHD-specific brand is educate the clients who are being diagnosed with this because sometimes they come through, they’re diagnosed with ADHD or ASD and they think it’s all going to be fixed and that’s not how it actually works,” Ms Richardson said.
“There still needs to be a level of education around what this means for you, what you’re possibly going to feel like – and how it might have to change how you feel about life – and what you need to do differently within life.”
Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness
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