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A dyslexic Marks and Spencer employee has been awarded more than £50,000 after losing her job following management concerns about mistakes in her emails.
What is the M&S Dyslexia Case?
Rita Jandu, who worked with M&S for more than two decades, has dyslexia. She often struggled to read and to write lengthy messages via email and preferred to communicate via bullet points in her correspondence, but when M&S were making redundancies due to Covid-19 business contraction in 2020, these ‘mistakes’ were framed as ‘rushing’ by higher management – and in turn, led to her dismissal.
The company’s notes on Ms. Jandu’s redundancy commented: “Rita’s performance is good, but there have been question marks over her consistency and accuracy… Rita was ranked accordingly, and made more inconsistent errors than others on the team.” In 2019, she was described as one of the high performers on her team, but it was highlighted that communications often appeared ‘rushed’ and that she ‘had not thought through before she hit send’.
According to Metro.com, a previous manager of Ms. Jandu’s used to proofread her emails, and when requested to, used to colour-code things within an email to make them easier to read, but the practice stopped when that colleague left the business.
At the tribunal, Ms. Jandu spoke at length about her dyslexia, her dyslexia journey and the impact that having dyslexia has had on the way that she chooses to communicate. “If I knew that [more detail was required] then I would do that, but I didn’t – me writing a paragraph is the hardest thing to do as my words are all muddled up. That’s why I did bullet points – all my emails are very, very similar – for me, it is not rushed. It might be for somebody who can write a lot, but I have taken my time to do it.”
Speaking at the tribunal last week, Judge Holly Stout ruled in Ms. Jandu’s favour, and linked M&S’ behaviours with inherent prejudice as well as their failing to make the reasonable adjustments that should have been their responsibility by law. “In this case, [her manager] allowed her perception that Ms. Jandu was prone to rushing and inaccuracies to count against her. These were things caused by her disability. The adjustment proposed by Ms. Jandu is that [M&S] should have discounted any disability-related effects when assessing against the redundancy selection criteria. We agree that this would have counted as a reasonable adjustment.”
Ms. Jandu has now successfully sued the retail giant for disability discrimination and unfair dismissal, with £53,855 awarded to her as means of compensation.
Just how important are email mistakes?
A lot of dyslexic people tend to lean towards bullet points with emails and instant messages, as it makes things easier to decode and process – a new line for a new subject or item; less text on the page to make things confusing or anxiety-inducing. It’s a much less embellished form of communication, and has the benefit of keeping the facts and the actionables accessible without creating unnecessary word bulk.
And at the end of the day, it’s only natural that somebody with dyslexia might make spelling or grammar mistakes in written correspondence. Even when equipped with all the reasonable adjustments and assistive tech support necessary to thrive in a role, some will slip through the cracks. The biggest question being asked by many in the dyslexia community is how much do spelling mistakes have an impact on the day-to-day business of Ms. Jandu’s job role, and why spelling and grammar in correspondence was being used as a metric within redundancy conversations at all – it unfairly disadvantages employees who do have dyslexia or indeed, other kinds of neurodivergent mind, as well as those with visual impairments and some physical disabilities.
Just this year we’ve seen Matt Hancock MP comment that ditching a CV because of typos is exclusionary and out of date, and ‘dyslexic thinking’ being added to LinkedIn and becoming very desirable skill across industries thanks to the efforts of Made By Dyslexia – so why are some companies still framing dyslexia as something that simply doesn’t have a place in their business practice?
Attitudes Towards Spelling and Grammar
We still equate good ‘language hygiene’- strong spelling, grammar and expression- with being a good worker. Even in jobs where you’ll never have to send an email, we still often rank CVs and cover letters on their language skills at application. Strong spelling and grammar skills mean that a worker is dedicated, taking the time to construct and proof, and that they’re a smart cookie all-round, so of course we’d employ them over somebody who’s made a few letter confusions- right?
Thinking like this is exclusionary and shows zero appreciation for the idea that people with dyslexia are capable, confident, and have incredible skills. Even in writing jobs, where spelling and grammar are paramount, there are thousands upon thousands of successful dyslexic writers who just need a little spellcheck support to create some storytelling magic. By ranking raw language hygiene in communications over actual job role competency we’re unfairly disadvantaging everybody who learns and thinks differently, and although legal protections are in place, the thinking system has to change.
Dyslexia, Discrimination and Law
The M&S dyslexia case isn’t the first high-profile dyslexia discrimination case we’ve seen in the UK in recent years. One of the most talked-about was Starbucks vs. Meseret Kumulchew in 2015-6, which saw a dyslexic colleague accused of falsifying documents and company-defined fraud after mistakenly entering the wrong numbers into food and beverage temperature charts. The employment tribunal found that Starbucks had failed to make reasonable adjustments for Ms. Kumulchew’s dyslexia, and discriminated against her on the grounds of her neurodivergence.
Glasgow-based architect Simon Ash was fined £1,000 by the Architects Registration Board in 2020 after its professional conduct case investigation found that he ‘produced inadequate drawings and failed to communicate properly with- or provide proper contacts to- his clients on two domestic extension projects’. A counter-case by Ash alleged that the ARB had failed in its duty to support him as a colleague with dyslexia under the Equality Act as they hadn’t made the necessary reasonable adjustments for him.
Another case in 2022 saw a judge with dyslexia win a discrimination claim against the Ministry of Justice because of their failure to provide voice-recognition software to help her carry out her job. The tribunal ruled that the MoJ had breached its legal duty by failing to provide Judge Zorina Nadine Clarkson Palomares- an immigration and social security specialist judge- with the necessary reasonable adjustments and associated training, and that they had discriminated against her by the definition held in law.
It’s unlikely (but sadly, by no means impossible) that any these allegations came as a result of a conscious effort to remove a dyslexic colleague from the team on the grounds of their dyslexia – they’re more likely to have come from the idea that decision-makers simply have such a poor understanding of dyslexia, their legal duty to support it, and what dyslexia can actually impact in terms of a colleague’s day-to-day. So many people are still in the dark about dyslexia and awareness in the general public, although better than it was ten years ago, is still relatively low – as is awareness of the legal responsibility towards reasonable adjustments in the workplace for dyslexic colleagues.
These cases set a precedent in how we address dyslexia in the workplace, and amazing to see people with dyslexia getting justice for the discrimination they’ve suffered, and their profile raised for a better tomorrow – but it’s disheartening to see huge business still allow these things to happen in the first place in 2022.
Why Training Matters
These are costly mistakes. In terms of the finance involved, a lot of the settlements relevant to these cases exceed tens of thousands of pounds- and that has to to come from employer funds, even if it’s heartening for us on the outside to know that the legal system isn’t failing people with dyslexia here. They’re vast sums of money, and they by far exceed the amounts that any employer would have to spend on the appropriate staff training to help decision-makers recognise, understand and support dyslexia in their working practice.
They’re also costly in terms of reputation. Businesses have often found bad publicity hard to shake off at the best of times, but since the rise of the internet and social media, negative opinions in the press can go viral at the touch of a button, and it can be difficult for businesses to recoup public trust. This can impact sales, share prices, and in extreme cases, can lead to profit loss and team contractions – it goes deeper than simply having a few less-than-complimentary comments on a LinkedIn article.
At Succeed With Dyslexia, we believe that training is one of the cornerstones of modern business practice and that it’s through training that we have the ability to create better working futures for everybody. If everybody knows what they need to know about dyslexia, we can avoid making neurodivergent employees feel like they’re lesser than their neurotypical peers, causing unnecessary stress, freezing them out of opportunities and support frameworks- and in the bad times, when we have to deal with business contraction and redundancies, it’s through training that we have the power to make sure that everybody is being assessed and selected fairly.
On the flip side, being able to support employees with dyslexia means that employees will feel safe, secure, and able to tackle whatever the work day throws at them – and if you make sure they’re represented fairly in terms of career progression, they’ll become amazing high-level ambassadors for your business. The right training also means that by reputation, you’re going to attract a lot of incredible dyslexic minds to your organisation – and everybody benefits from neurodiverse teams. That’s one of the reasons why businesses like Ernst & Young, GCHQ and the whole FinTech sector are showing such incredible growth at the moment, even in times of economic downturn – they understand the incredible nature of neurodivergent thinking in their recruitment.
Let’s create some positive change for working people everywhere 💼 💡
