Supporting Employees in the workplace

We have a dyslexic member of staff who is struggling to complete our mandatory online training -can you recommend anything to help?

Dyslexia impacts individuals differently, but many benefit from reasonable adjustments to help them complete training and assessments.

The starting point would be to have a conversation with the employee to try and understand the specific difficulties they are having with the training so you can discuss some possible solutions.

You could use the following questions as a guide to understand what might work best for the employee, and what is feasible for you as the employer (ie a reasonable adjustment) The employee may need more than one adjustment to enable them to access the training.

• Could the employee complete the training in its current online format if they were given more time to do so?

• Dyslexic individuals often benefit from 25% extra time. Up to 50% extra time could also be considered.

• Could they complete the online training if someone read the questions (and any multiple-choice answers) to them?

• Dyslexic individuals may benefit from a human reader, or from using a scanning pen to help with unknown words.

• Could they use screen reading software so that they could listen to the questions in a headset?

• Some individuals prefer to use specialist software to hear the questions read to them, rather than using a human reader.

• Could someone read the questions and the employee give verbal answers which are either written for them, or an audio recording made of their answers.

• A scribe or an audio recording of their answers would help if the individual finds it difficult to answer the questions online.

• Does the employee need the training to be provided in an alternative format – such as paper-based (ie is it the online format that is difficult for them?)

• If none of the above solutions will work for the employee, you should explore how they believe they can demonstrate their knowledge and skills to successfully complete the training.

It is important to remember that reasonable adjustments will be different for everyone. Any adjustment made must be to make the assessment accessible – it would not normally be considered reasonable to change the standard of the training, or for an employee to be exempt from certain parts of mandatory training.