Dyslexia and emails

Oedo

Hi folks,
Someone I work with has dyslexia and his written communication tends to be horrendous. This is not an issue for when you know that he has dyslexia, however the problem is when it comes to clients/customers.

They obviously wouldn't know he's dyslexic and would just assume that his grammar and spelling are terrible or that he's just being lazy when it comes to writing mails.

Has anyone else dealt with a similar issue?

I've said it to him before and I now proof read a lot of his mails which we're both fine with (the volume isn't very high) and that's fine, but it's not ideal.

I was thinking a friendly email signature could be good but it might be making a big fuss out of nothing. Maybe many people don't really notice or care too much about it, I just know that if I spot a spelling mistake I make a judgement against the sender's professionalism, whether deserved or not.

Thoughts?

me_irl

Depending on the email system you could ensure that the spell checker / proofing tools picks up anything.

Firstly, your colleague could use something like Speech to text software (Nuance Dragon, or the built in one to Google Drive), but you may need a quiet office environment to be able to talk in to the PC!

Another method is to have the text read aloud before sending the email to make sure it "sounds" right! (like Natural Reader or Texthelp Read&Write).

Oedo

Thanks for the reply and the useful links. The office environment wouldn't really be suitable for any text reading programmes unfortunately, plus I think he's embarrassed about it - I only know he's dyslexic because he told me after I eventually brought up the issue of his poor writing.

Also he does use spellchecker a lot and while the words would be spelt correctly they're often just simply the wrong words. Some of his mails that I've read in the past have made very little sense even if every word used has been spelled correctly.

me_irl

Oedo wrote: »

Also he does use spellchecker a lot and while the words would be spelt correctly they're often just simply the wrong words. Some of his mails that I've read in the past have made very little sense even if every word used has been spelled correctly.

That's the thing with dyslexia, you may see a word very similar to what you think it is and completely get the wrong one!

I just wanted to suggest the speech-to-text ones just in case. But the other way around, he could plug in his earphones (if allowed!) and listen back to what he's typed to make sure it's right. Usually the likes of natural reader or (much better in my opinion) Texthelp will let him pick it up.

I'd also go a step further and ensure that management know of this. It's a lot more common than people believe, and with the knowledge of it there may be help for him available.

pedroeibar1

Are you his boss? If not, it is none of your business. If it is a serious concern to you/your team you refer it to your line manager saying that the quality of email sent by X is unclear, could lead to problems and reflects badly on the company.

If you are his boss why did you hire that person in the first place if dyslexia was to be a problem for you?

The simple fact of the matter is that managers have to take ownership of problems. Sympathy and making allowances for dyslexia and foundation level Maths are nice and cuddly, but reality has to be faced. SMEs cannot afford this type of nanny-ism.
The number of students annually requiring “special” considerations for the LC is growing exponentially. Typically these are nonsense, and more to the point often are business-adverse symptoms - "situational stress" therefore requiring to be alone while taking the exam, special needs, must have questions explained. only done on a computer, blah blah. The list goes on….. Get a psychological report, pay your money and little Johnny/Mary will get the letter and a request to come back for another “analysis”. Bang that off to the Dept of Ed and get the sanction. The simple fact of the matter is that people producing those LC results while having (often) great worth, have a limited space in frontline business. Sadly it is not popular to say so (and as a result I expect to get jumped on by many).

Axwell

Oedo wrote: »

Hi folks,
Someone I work with has dyslexia ..

Thoughts?

Based on what you wrote above it would seem you are a colleague, not the person that hired him. On that basis it is not your concern and you are not responsible to deal with it. As was said previously it should be brought to the attention of your line manager in an appropriate manner that communications sent out by X are unclear or don't make sense at times. Once management and HR are aware of it they can deal with it appropriately and there are plenty of helpful steps that can be taken in any of the tasks he has difficulties in doing.

It's possible though that this his first time trying to deal with it in the workplace and so this probably makes him more embarrassed and he may not know ways to approach or deal with it. Some examples are on the sess.ie website which might help them and also educate you and others who work with him on the sort of difficulties he might have. But really this is an issue for management to look after and help him where necessary so he can work efficiently without feeling embarrassed and the company knows any communications going out or internally do not reflect badly on him or the company.

Oedo

We're actually business partners. It's been a point of contention but as I said I've been proofing a lot of his outgoing emails and he's been asking me to have a read over things since I brought it up properly with him.

Nonetheless he'd still send the odd email here and there which I'd notice and notice some spelling/grammar issues.

I was thinking one idea could be to have a friendly notice as an email signature, something to the effect of;

"If you notice some spelling errors in this mail please excuse my dyslexia"

but it seems a bit nanny-esque.

pedroeibar1

Being your business partner puts the issue in a different light. It also depends on the type of business you are in. For example, I do not want to be in a plane navigated by a pilot with foundation level maths or dyspraxia, whereas working on the creativity side of an advertising campaign none of that would be an issue and dyslexia could be an advantage.

Many customers probably know he has dyslexia, it is not uncommon. I wonder are you being too hard and making him (and yourself) feel uncomfortable, therefore worsening the problem (or creating one where a problem really does not exist)? Dyslexics are much better at the big picture, problem-solving and generally are more creative. Play to each other’s strengths. As for spelling errors, if bans were handed out here for incorrect use of “they’re, their, there” or "it's" & "its", this would be a very quiet forum.

Forget the footer idea, (IMO it is nasty and demeaning), just agree that on key written communications you discuss them before they go out and for creative issues / problem solving in the business you will give more weight to his views. I would not see that as a trade-off, I'd view it as maximizing assets.

Mrs OBumble

It's a disability, so an employer (and I suspect a business partner too) is required to make reasonable accommodation.

Some employers would regard it as reasonable that every external email must be reviewed by someone who has editorial skills and authority. Some would see this as massive overhead which they cannot afford. It depends on the job, and what is reasonable. There is no definition of reasonable, other than what a reasonable person would think.

And as pedroeibar1 says, public safety issues need to be taken into account.