“What stopped me ever liking the job was because I was not there because I wanted to be there: I was there because I couldn’t choose the job I wanted” (Martin)
“Get anything that paid money, whether it was cleaning or anything. Just do it and get a job” (Gill)
“Jealousy. I could do the job what technicians were doing, 9 out of 10 times I was doing their job but I didn’t have the paperwork to say I could do it” (Adrian)
“ It is sometimes hard to get them [employers] to understand why you can’t do it. That is quite a problem” (Susan)
Often dyslexia is unrecognised in the workplace.
Emma recently did a presentation for one of her papers at the University of Waikato on dyslexia in the workplace. She talked about the social and emotional impact of dyslexia on employees as well as what can be done to assist people with dyslexia. While there is now considerable support at school for dyslexics, there is still, on the whole, a low level of awareness of the issues amongst employers and not much support in the workplace if dyslexia is even recognised.
There is good news. Assessment and recognition of literacy issues help. Being told there is a reason why reading and writing are so difficult can bring relief. Support with organisational tasks at work and learning strategy awareness will also help. And the really good news is that the kind of attention to reading and writing strategies that we do on a long term workplace literacy course will also help. We have had good results from a number of dyslexics enrolled on our workplace literacy courses.
If you have an employee who you think may be dyslexic, please get in touch.
You may also be interested in these dyslexia resources.
Quotes at top of post sourced from:
Morgan, E, and Klein, C, (2000)
Bell, S, (2010)