Subscribe to Our Newsletter
It's a fact of life in the modern workplace that education doesn't really stop when you've finished your A-Levels, degree or vocational training. As technology moves on at what feels like the speed of light and we're becoming ever-more aware of the changing needs of a modern, safe and inclusive society, it's increasingly likely that people in a number of professions will need to undertake further training as part of their job or role.
And this is a good thing, in most cases - furthering your skills and keeping up to date with your field is likely to have a number of benefits when it comes to your day-to-day working and climb the career ladder a little faster too if you're looking to move across into a different role.
But sometimes, the idea of workplace training can feel a little daunting to people who have literacy differences or dyslexia. Training often has a reading and writing element which can leave people who struggle with their literacy to worry about their ability to keep up, especially if it's done in a public arena with industry peers like a classroom or seminar. Workplace training can also put neurodiverse people in an uncomfortable position with their employers and training managers if they haven't disclosed that they have literacy differences or dyslexia, or even other neurodivergent conditions like ADD/ADHD or Autism. And this is problematic - not only do people who learn and think differently benefit from the same training and development opportunities as everybody else in the workplace, sometimes they're essential for keeping workers safe, up-to-date and able to able to take part. So what do we do?
External Training
There are a number of ways to make sure that employees with dyslexia and literacy differences aren't feeling put on the spot by the idea of workplace training. As a training specialist, manager or HR professional, you could...
📚 If training needs are more general, you could ask employees to suggest their own training, and open up the floor to course suggestions that they've found themselves and are more comfortable with
📚 Look for online training if employees have indicated that they are comfortable with screen use, as this can avoid them feeling on the spot amongst their peers if they can undertake their development from their own cubicle or home office. This also opens up training to home workers and people with limited mobility, too.
📚 Look for training courses that can be completed in an employees own time. This can help people who struggle with their reading and writing skills and may read and write slower than their peers, and allow them to work to the best of their ability without feeling rushed or like they have to 'keep up' with their peers.
📚 When external training providers are involved, always make the offer to liaise with the training provider on the employee's behalf regarding their needs- these could be text-to-speech devices, larger print materials, or even audio files. In most places, these accessibility measures are actually required legally to be provided on request from education and training agencies, so make sure that you're asking for accommodations when they're needed.
📚 Interrogate why training is taking place. Although workplace training is a positive thing and can help people streamline their responsibilities, sometimes there are roles that won't benefit from it. Talk to the employee about if they feel like training will actually benefit them in any way, and if not, offer to let them decline - it could just be an exercise that makes them feel uncomfortable and stressed, and have little real practical benefit for them in the job that they do every day.
Internal Training
Many of the responses to external training still apply when you're running an in-house course or programme, but there are a few more things that you can do when you have a greater degree of control over how the training is administered. You could...
📚 Send out an all-company email where you encourage people to discuss their needs (in complete confidence) when it comes to educational materials. Although some people still won't be comfortable disclosing whether they have dyslexia or literacy differences, some will, and it's a great way of getting some idea as to the lie of the land when it comes to what you might need to make accommodations for.
📚 Make sure that you're taking feedback on when is the best time for people to undertake training. Although this may just seem like a sensible measure all round, it can actually be quite important to people who are neurodiverse and have conditions where concentration can wax and wane due to medication, overstimulation, and their circadian rhythm.
📚 Make sure all written materials are presented accessibly: this means as well as keeping them in a dyslexia-friendly font, make sure that information where possible is bullet pointed and not lost in long, complex paragraphs. And try to steer clear of the black-text-on-brilliant-white-paper format, as this can be a problematic reading setup for some people with dyslexia.
📚 Have conversations about assistive technology, and whether it could help with the training you're administering - could your company benefit from having a couple of text-to-speech devices on hand for training purposes?
📚 Record everything your course administrator says (with their permission, of course). People with literacy differences sometimes also have issues with hearing and sound analysis patterns (Audio Processing Disorder) as well as dealing with words on the page, and find it difficult to pull information out of long passages of speech. The ability to go back and re-watch or re-listen to materials can make all the difference, and help people feel more secure if they know that there's something they can go back to.
📚 If you've got the time and the scope, creating training as an online resource accessible on demand can be a great way of administering courses and programmes that otherwise could alienate people who aren't confident learning in front of others.
📚 Rather than setting aside a certain block of hours in an employee's schedule, simply allow a certain amount of hours a week that can be completed when the employee has the bandwidth to do so. It's all about adaptability, and some people won't work well when they have other tasks with pressing deadlines hanging over them, so try to be as flexible as possible.
