Why Good Employees Keep Getting It Wrong: Understanding Fragmented Processing

In many workplaces, managers are left wondering why certain employees seem incapable of following a process despite having it explained clearly. The assumption is often incompetence, carelessness, or poor attitude. But what if the problem lies elsewhere?

If your business is struggling with high staff turnover, persistent mistakes, poor retention of training, or tension between managers and staff, the real issue may be fragmented processing, a hidden (and often misunderstood) barrier to performance.

Not all processing difficulties are obvious. Some are easy to miss because they do not present as a lack of comprehension, or even as slow, delayed responses, or literal responses. Instead, they show up as inconsistency, conflict, or confusion. One of the most overlooked is fragmented processing.

Processing issues are common in autism. The most common types are slow and delayed processing. These are relatively easy to spot because the individual tends to process only as far as the literal meaning in real time. These individuals struggle with nuance and hidden meanings. They do best when the information is purely factual.

Fragmented processing is comparatively rare in autism, but harder to pick up on. Fragmented processing is a subconscious strategy the brain uses to cope with slow processing speed . The brain processes part of what is being said, but not all of it. By the time it has finished processing the first bit of information, the next bit has already passed. Consequently, people retain fragments of conversations or instructions. Bits of information go in, are processed deeply, and then everything else is missed. In more severe cases, parts are processed for literal meaning and the rest is lost. This can manifest in processing only parts of sentences. Note that some autistic individuals with slow or delayed processing will pick up on key words and phrases and make an educated guess regarding the literal meaning. This works quite well for information purposes when the topic is familiar. This is why some autistic people like to stick to talking about special interests.

But, as is often the case, what is found in autism is also found in the general population to a certain extent.

What is Fragmented Processing?

There are three types of apparent fragmented processing. Both can lead to the same outward symptoms, but the causes are different. There are three distinct patterns that are often confused with one another. The last two are common in ADHD.

1. Subconscious Fragmented Processing (Less Common)

This occurs when the person is unaware they are not processing everything. It is a subconscious coping mechanism for slow processing. They process part of what is said, but lose the rest because their brain is still working on the earlier part. This type is not interest-based and is particularly difficult to detect. The person often processes emotional or personal content well, but may miss the contextual information around it. There is no sense of confusion from the individual, they believe they understood everything.

Unlike typical slow processing, where someone is processing only for literal meaning and can be aware they are not keeping up, fragmented processing gives the illusion of understanding. The person may respond, nod, or even contribute meaningfully, based on the part they did process. But much of what was said has been missed entirely.

In some ways, it is more difficult to identify than processing for literal understanding. With literal understanding, you can usually spot the lack of depth. With fragmented processing, the sections that are processed are often processed deeply, which can create the false impression that the person has understood the whole.

2. Failure to maintain focus (More Common)

This can be mistaken for fragmented processing. In this case, the person’s thoughts drift, perhaps due to distraction, emotional triggers, or a lack of interest. They are aware they have missed part of the conversation. This is very common. The solution is usually to re-engage their attention, then check understanding. You can do this by asking them to summarise what they heard or talk through what they need to do.

3. Association of thoughts (Common in ADHD)

Association of thoughts is often misunderstood as the person failing to pay attention. But like fragmented processing, this is subconscious and therefore extremely difficult to control. Essentially, the brain goes off on tangents triggered by a concept or word, then this is associated to something else. This can lead to the person having a thought that they must express before it is lost resulting in the person interrupting the speaker.

The person may also go on a tangent triggered by something when they are speaking, leading to a discourse that is extremely difficult to follow.

This can be extremely frustrating for someone trying to have a conversation with the person - and often for the person themselves as they struggle to control their thoughts and make themselves understood.

This kind of thing happens often when we do workplace assessments. Then we let the person go off on the tangent because this is often useful additional information and then bring the person back to the original point. It can take a while, but it does enable us to create a much more complete picture than just asking direct questions.

When instructing someone, it can be extremely frustrating, but if you persist and work with how this person’s brain is working, it can lead to a greater depth of understanding on the part of the person.

There is a silver lining to this way of thinking: people who are not good at inhibiting associations tend to be good at creative problem solving.

What Does Fragmented Processing Look Like in Practice?

In a workplace context, fragmented processing can create persistent issues such as:

• Employees misunderstand parts of a process and make mistakes, despite appearing attentive or engaged
• Managers grow frustrated (“I told you this”)
• Employees feel attacked or micromanaged, leading to anxiety (“No you didn’t”)
• Managers misattribute errors to incompetence or lack of effort

These misunderstandings can escalate into wider problems:

• Poor team dynamics

• Decreased performance

• Higher sickness rates or absenteeism

• Increased staff turnover

The biggest cost to businesses is not just performance but retention. People who are misunderstood leave, or worse: they stay and suffer.

How to Spot Fragmented Processing

This is not something you can always observe in real time. But there are patterns:

• Instructions seem to be followed inconsistently
• The person remembers some elements of a conversation but not others -They repeatedly make the same mistakes despite appearing to be trained

Managers can identify that there are processing issues of one sort or another by checking understanding:

• Ask the employee to talk through a process in their own words
• Break information into chunks and see what is retained
• Observe whether mistakes align with specific points in the process

This is not about catching someone out or entrapping employees, rather identifying where the processing stops.

What Can You Do About Fragmented Processing?

If you are managing someone with framented processing or other kinds of processing issues, the goal is to adapt the way information is delivered.

• Chunk information and check retention at each stage
• Ask open-ended questions to assess depth of understanding
• Offer written follow-ups or process maps
• Encourage employees to note down steps or repeat them back
• Allow time to go over the material

A sign of delayed processing is that people will come with questions, the next day, a few days, or a week or two later. Even though you asked if they had questions as the time.

Managers need to shift mindset: instead of thinking “I already told them” ask “Was that information received in the way they can best process it?”. This takes time, but it pays off.

Most management training does not cover this. Businesses focus on performance, not processing. But there is a clear link between cognitive processing, employee wellbeing, and business outcomes.

If employees are anxious, making errors, or seem disengaged, the issue might not be motivation but how they are receiving information.

When managers understand this, they stop blaming and start supporting. That is when things begin to change.

Does This Sounds Familiar?