Maybe the ADHD employee is not the problem. Maybe the office is. 

Open-plan offices were designed to encourage collaboration, communication and flexibility. For many employees with ADHD, they can also create an almost perfect environment for distraction. A conversation two desks away. Someone walking past. A phone ringing. A colleague asking a “quick question”. A notification appearing on screen. Movement in peripheral vision. The coffee machine. Another conversation. Another interruption. And then we ask the employee to focus.

A 2026 scoping review examined what we currently know about employees with ADHD working in open-plan offices. One of the most striking findings was not simply what the research showed, but how little robust research there was. That is interesting in itself.

Open-plan workplaces have become common across many industries, yet surprisingly little attention has been paid to how these environments affect people whose attention may be particularly vulnerable to external stimulation. The available evidence, together with lived experience and professional observations, suggests that open-plan environments may reduce productivity, creativity and wellbeing for some employees with ADHD.

But there is a bigger issue here. We still tend to think of executive-function difficulties as something located entirely inside the individual. If somebody is distracted, we teach concentration techniques. If they struggle with interruptions, we suggest noise-cancelling headphones. If they become overwhelmed, we encourage better self-management.

Sometimes these strategies are useful. But they can also obscure a basic truth: human functioning is always an interaction between a person and an environment. The same employee who struggles to complete a report in a noisy open office may work extremely effectively in a quiet room where interruptions are limited. Their brain has not changed. The environment has.

That distinction matters when we talk about neurodiversity inclusion. A workplace is not truly inclusive if the underlying message is: “We will keep the environment exactly the same, but we will help you tolerate it better.” Sometimes inclusion means changing the environment too.

That might involve access to quiet rooms, flexible seating, periods of uninterrupted work, remote-working options, clearer communication systems or simply recognising that not everyone performs best in a setting filled with constant movement, conversation and sensory input.

The aim is not to remove every distraction from the modern workplace. That would be unrealistic. But perhaps we should stop treating every difficulty with concentration as evidence that the employee needs to try harder. Sometimes the most effective executive-function strategy is not another productivity technique. Sometimes it is a different room.

Research reference

Sanders & Le Rossignol (2026), Work. DOI: 10.1177/10519815261449927

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42132039/