What can employers do to help the 7m people in the UK living with Dyslexia? Well as it’s the start of #DyslexiaAwarenessWeek today, let’s take a quick look at this question.
It’s really important to understand that dyslexia effects people in different ways, so there is no one size fits all approach and what’s needed for one of us, maybe of no value to another, but there are some basics I think we can think about.
Firstly listening to your colleagues is key and create a safe environment for people to disclose their neurodiversity and speak about how it impacts them and what would make things easier.
This one is a big one for me personally, but I think employers need to change the culture around recruitment, I would always benefit from knowing the details of a recruitment process in advance, being given time to read the bulk of the interview questions in advance, so I can structure my thoughts and be given a chance to really show what I’m capable of. The vast majority of job I’ve got in my career are from people that know me, have worked with me and know what I’m capable of adding to their business, but my success rate in interviews with is atrocious and I would always walk out of interviews and spend the next 3 hours thinking of all the things I should have or could have said.
Drop the stigma around spelling and grammar, it’s not a sign of intelligence or that someone lacks attention to detail. No one proof reads their emails and written comms more than me, yet they always go out scattered with errors. We don’t expect a goal keeper to score goals, a joiner to lay bricks or biologists to build space rockets… Understand your employees strengths and play to them, don’t demotivate them by asking them to get better at things they simply cannot do.
