Dyslexia at Work: 4 Big Myths We Want to Bust | Succeed With Dyslexia

Have you been in a conversation about supporting neurodivergent minds at work?

Creating and supporting neurodiverse teams has been a focus for a lot of businesses in the past two years: more people are talking about having dyslexia at work than ever before.

 It’s amazing to see that the corporate world is waking up to the power of neurodivergent potential. So many more people with dyslexia are getting into work and finding roles that they love— but sadly, there are still some myths and social stigmas that occur around neurodivergent minds in the workplace that can be harmful to public perceptions of neurodivergent people. They can impact hiring chances, make working less comfortable and more arduous, and most crucially, cut workers off from the support they’re entitled to and the support they need.  

Here are some of our least favourite serial offenders from the world of dyslexia and neurodiversity at work:   

Dyslexia at Work: 4 Myths We’d

Love to Bust in 2023

• Dyslexic employees are a bad hire. Although many businesses are creating specific hiring pathways for neurodivergent professionals, some still actively seek to avoid workers who have disclosed their ND status. These businesses might fear that dyslexic, ADHD or Autistic professionals won’t be able to get as much work done as their neurotypical counterparts, not only fostering an incredibly ableist hiring process, but also missing out on tons of neurodivergent professional potential.  
• Neurodivergent employees aren’t as good at their job. How wrong could one opinion be? Many neurodivergent workers find that their neurodivergent thinking makes them incredibly good at their job: from thinking outside the box to incredible focus and creativity, many people credit their neurodiversity as part of their success. And where professionals do feel that they need some extra help with their projects (or even just something to make life easier), there’s a whole landscape of support solutions to try. 

• Resourcing dyslexia support is expensive— and a hassle. Many countries offer financial support through local authorities, grants or national funding programmes when it comes to supporting neurodivergent workers (especially those with reading needs) in their day-to-day. In many places, linking them up with that support could be a legal requirement, so it pays to invest time in finding out which pathways to follow and what’s available to you.  
• Managing neurodiverse teams is difficult. Managing a team with neurotypical and neurodivergent employees on may feel daunting at first, but it doesn’t have to be. What matters is fairness and understanding, and making sure that opportunities and targets align with individual strengths, rather than one single checklist for the whole team. Are you expecting dyslexic employees to align with perfect spelling and grammar in their emails every day, or penalising them for coming at things from another angle? Your management might have to change its approach slightly, but it could benefit every member of the team, as well as the neurodivergent ones.  

Why Training Matters 

Businesses don’t get a gold-star neurodiversity or dyslexia standard all by themselves. They might have put in the work, switched things up, created some incredible neurodiversity-friendly pathways— but at the heart of it was likely somebody who specialises in neurodiversity and inclusion helping them create the right kind of change. 

Education is what busts the stigma… but business owners aren’t expected to know it all first time. 

That’s something that a number of people forget when it comes to supporting neurodivergent workers: it’s a new (or new-ish) landscape for almost everybody in business, and it doesn’t have to be something that you muddle through alone. With competing information sources, and the pressure to get it right, it can feel like a bit of a jungle out there: that’s why Neurodiversity Training matters so much. 

Neurodiversity Training broadly refers to professional, guided education through the idea of neurodiversity at work and help in creating the support systems to help both businesses and workers. It’s key in creating neurodiversity policies and strategies that work for everybody. Things can get confusing sometimes, especially if you’re going it alone, or the information that your business needs specifically just doesn’t seem to be out there— and it doesn’t have to be only your responsibility to find out how to make the change.  

Neurodiversity training can help with… 

• Creating neurodiversity-positive change at work 
• Putting accessibility first  
• Creating progression systems that work for neurodivergent employees   
• Navigating the legal landscape and funding 
• Securing accommodations   
• Keeping the hiring process neurodiversity-friendly  
• Achieving workplace inclusion for neurodiverse teams 
• Managing neurodivergent professionals and teams  
• Supporting neurodivergent employee wellbeing and mental health 

Some training programmes offer CPD-accreditation too, so that everybody from business owners and leadership professionals to people just starting out can begin to cultivate a better professional understanding of neurodiversity-positive change.  

To find out more about neurodiversity at work and supporting diverse teams, subscribe to Succeed With Dyslexia Digest on LinkedIn. Our Digest is where we explore the world of work in a little more detail and take a closer look at dyslexia from the heights of the C-Suite to HR, hiring and those first steps onto the career ladder— and best of all, it pops straight into your inbox.