Dyslexia at work: what managers need to know

What is it?

Dyslexia is a common learning difference that mainly affects reading, spelling and writing, and often working memory and the speed of processing written information. It has nothing to do with intelligence. The British Dyslexia Association estimates that around 10 per cent of the population is dyslexic, with about 4 per cent significantly affected. That is likely to be ten people in an organisation of 100.

Many dyslexic adults were never formally assessed and have spent years developing their own ways of coping, often without telling anyone.

What might it mean at work?

Dyslexia shows up wherever reading and writing are on the critical path: long documents, dense emails, form-filling, note-taking in meetings, proofreading, remembering verbal instructions, and anything that has to be read quickly under pressure. A dyslexic colleague may be a brilliant thinker and a slow reader, produce excellent ideas and untidy emails, and find written tests or timed assessments far harder than the job itself.

Possible strengths

• Big-picture thinking and seeing connections others miss
• Strong verbal communication and storytelling
• Visual and spatial reasoning
• Creative problem-solving
• Resilience and resourcefulness, often from years of working around barriers

Possible difficulties

• Reading long or dense text quickly and accurately
• Spelling, proofreading and written accuracy under time pressure
• Taking notes while listening
• Remembering sequences of verbal instructions
• Filling in forms and working with reference numbers or codes
• Fatigue from the effort of reading-heavy days

What can help?

• Keep written communication short and clear, with headings, bullet points and the action up front.
• Share information in more than one format: a call as well as an email, a diagram as well as a paragraph.
• Allow time, and avoid springing long documents on people to read in the meeting.
• Use the technology that is already there: text-to-speech, dictation, spell-checking and readable fonts are built into most devices.
• Judge the work, not the spelling, unless spelling is genuinely the job.
• Ask what format works best, then use it.

What should you never assume?

• That someone is careless because their writing contains errors.
• That someone is dyslexic because they misspell things, or is not because they are articulate.
• That a dyslexic colleague cannot do a reading-heavy role. With the right set-up, they usually can.
• That someone wants their dyslexia mentioned to colleagues.

What can managers do?

Most of what helps dyslexic people is just clearer communication, and clearer communication helps everyone. Put the action at the top of the email. Send the paper in advance. Offer a conversation instead of a document. Stop treating spelling as a proxy for competence.

If an employee tells you they are dyslexic, ask what has helped in the past and what would help now. Dyslexia can be a disability under the Equality Act 2010, so reasonable adjustments may be a legal duty as well as good practice. Government support through Access to Work can fund assistive software, equipment and training where it is needed. You do not need to be an expert. You need to ask, and then act.