ADHD in the Workplace: Closing Gaps That Fuel Burnout

Burnout is a global workforce challenge, costing employers billions yearly through absenteeism, presenteeism, turnover, and diminished engagement, leaving leaders looking for solutions that go deeper than generalized wellness perks. One powerful and often overlooked burnout driver is attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a neurodevelopmental condition that shapes how people focus, plan, experience, and manage stress.

A recent meta-analysis estimates that about 3% of adults globally live with ADHD, making it a fairly common disability. 

Yet ADHD is also a non-apparent disability—meaning it isn’t necessarily visible or easy to spot—and most workplaces are built around neurotypical patterns of focus and organization. As a result, many employees don’t disclose their diagnosis, leaving their needs unseen and critical support out of reach. 

When ADHD goes unrecognized or unsupported, work-related challenges can compound: deadlines slip, stress builds, and priorities blur. To cope, many employees with ADHD will “mask,” consciously hiding or counterbalancing symptoms to meet expectations, such as staying late and overpreparing—behaviors that can accelerate burnout.

Left unaddressed, those dynamics translate into about 22 lost workdays per employee each year, an outcome employers can prevent with earlier recognition and tailored support.

What ADHD is and why diagnoses are rising

ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition that affects how people direct attention, regulate impulses, and organize their days. This can show up in difficulties like staying on time, following through on tasks, managing distractions, remembering to-dos, or communicating effectively. 

Everyone loses focus or fidgets occasionally, but for people with ADHD these patterns are more frequent and persistent. They appear across settings—from meetings to the dinner table—and can look different from one person to the next.

Globally, ADHD is both widespread and increasingly recognized. A 2021 meta-analysis  estimated that 2.58% of adults have persistent ADHD and 6.76% have symptomatic ADHD—roughly 140 million and 366 million people worldwide.

Many people confuse higher numbers of diagnoses with higher prevalence. A systematic review of 40 studies across 17 countries found no significant rise in true prevalence. That finding indicates that the global uptick in diagnoses comes instead from greater awareness, sharper screening, and better adult-ADHD education. In other words, the world isn’t suddenly more neurodiverse; we’re finally learning to spot what’s long been there.

With this growing awareness comes a greater need for understanding and support in the workplace, where unmanaged ADHD can quietly drive stress and, over time, contribute to burnout.

ADHD in the workplace: understanding the gaps that amplify burnout

For employees with ADHD, accessing care often comes with significant barriers both within the healthcare system and inside the workplace:

• Limited access to specialists: Shortages of trained clinicians can mean long waits for evaluation and treatment. In the US alone, more than 125 million people live in areas with a shortage of mental-health professionals, and adult ADHD evaluations often take months to secure. 
• Fragmented and expensive care: ADHD treatment can require multi-modal care, including evaluation, therapy, medication management, and coaching, but these services are seldom covered under one plan. Employees are left to patch together multiple providers and navigate complex billing, which can discourage follow-through.
• Knowledge gaps inside organizations: Many managers and HR teams aren’t trained to recognize ADHD-related burnout or to guide employees toward appropriate resources. Without clear internal pathways, employees either go without help or rely on EAPs that aren’t designed for long-term ADHD care.
• Unclear accommodations: Nearly 2 out of 3 neurodivergent employees worry that disclosing their diagnosis will negatively impact their careers, and more than half view existing neurodiversity programs as more focused on optics than impact. Even the basics are unclear: 68% don’t know what accommodations they’re entitled to, and more than half don’t know where to start.
• Stigma: In one survey, 93% of managers reported concerns about an employee who disclosed, including doubts about handling complex assignments (56%) or even doing the job at all (45%)

Together, these gaps create a feedback loop of delayed care, persistent symptoms, and chronic presenteeism, leading to measurable productivity loss and higher turnover risk. For employers, closing these access gaps is one of the most direct ways to reduce ADHD-related burnout across the workforce.

The cost of inaction

When ADHD goes unrecognized and unsupported at work, the toll shows up in hard numbers and in workplace culture. One US analysis estimated an annual economic burden of about $43 billion in combined productivity and healthcare costs in a single year. Lost focus, missed deadlines, and higher medical utilization all contribute to avoidable expenses.

The wrong inclusion efforts also carry negative ROI. A 2024 Birkbeck University (London) survey of 1,400 neurodivergent employees (including employees with ADHD diagnoses), employers, and neurotypical colleagues uncovered an odd inversion of progress: more neurodiversity policies, yet lower well-being. The share of employers with a formal neurodiversity policy rose from 23% to 31% in one year, yet neurodivergent well-being and career satisfaction fell across the board, proving that box-ticking does not create real inclusion.

In many cases, these policies amounted to symbolic gestures—like brief awareness trainings or employee resource groups (ERGs) without structural support or decision-making power—rather than meaningful investments in education, manager training, or benefit design. When efforts stay surface-level, they signal awareness without improving daily experience for employees with ADHD or other neurodivergent conditions.

Left unchecked, inaction and ineffective policies lead to hard costs in the form of reduced productivity and increased health care spending while also quietly eroding energy, trust, and creativity—costs no balance sheet can fully capture, but every employer eventually feels. For employees, this can mean constant guilt, anxiety, or exhaustion from masking symptoms and striving to keep up.

Practical ways to reduce burnout risk for employees with ADHD

Preventing ADHD-related burnout comes from well-designed support that meets a range of needs. Effective solutions combine clinical care, workplace flexibility, and ongoing skills building.

• Provide access to faster, integrated care. ADHD treatment is often multimodal, and employees shouldn’t have to coordinate these services or wait months to begin. Employers can significantly reduce stress and delays by offering benefits that provide a full spectrum of support and coordinate timely care.
• Ensure workplace design supports focus. Straightforward changes, like flexible scheduling, clear written agendas, structured check-ins, and quiet spaces can cut down on the distractions and time management hurdles that drive burnout. These adjustments help everyone, not just employees with ADHD.
• Educate managers and address stigma. Managers who normalize neurodiversity and respond to early signs of overload create psychological safety. When employees have confidence that asking for accommodations won’t jeopardize their careers, they’re far more likely to seek help before stress becomes burnout.

Together, these steps address the systemic pressure inside and outside the healthcare system that can push employees toward exhaustion.

How Modern Health helps reduce ADHD-related burnout 

Modern Health is built to solve the access and fragmentation barriers that can delay care and increase burnout by making personalized, multi-modal support fast, seamless, and family-inclusive.

Modern Health delivers adaptive, whole-person support that meets employees and their families across every stage of care-from early skill-building to therapy and coordinated specialty referrals.

• Therapy that targets stress and focus: Clinicians use evidence-based approaches like CBT and ACT tailored to needs common to employees with ADHD, such as attention regulation, anxiety, and perfectionism, addressing the symptoms that most often drive or accompany burnout.
• Coaching that sticks: Specialized coaching helps employees with ADHD create durable task-management systems and strengthen communication habits, lowering daily friction and helping people recover when burnout is already underway.
• Digital resources for everyday reinforcement: Employees tap into self-paced programs and resources on-demand to reinforce executive-function and stress-management skills between live sessions.
• Provider-led Circles that build community: Facilitated group sessions normalize lived experience, reduce stigma, and provide shared strategies, so employees don’t have to shoulder challenges alone.
• Care coordination when specialty support is needed: When neuropsychological assessments or prescribing clinicians are appropriate, Modern Health identifies resources, reducing significant administrative burden.
• Family support that widens the safety net: Therapy, coaching, and Circles are also available for dependents and caregivers, reducing home-to-work stress that can intensify burnout.

By bringing these services together in one adaptive model, Modern Health makes ADHD care faster to start, easier to sustain, and responsive as needs change, helping employees prevent burnout or recover when it occurs.

See how Modern Health can help your workforce stay focused, supported, and resilient.