Dyslexia in the Workplace: Advice for HR and Managers

Advice on dyslexia in the workplace seems to be a topic that hasn't got much focus in the last few years within HR teams and managers. Yet around 780 million people worldwide are dyslexic, roughly 6 million of them adults in the UK. So whatever the size of your team, it almost certainly includes dyslexic employees.

Yet as many as 80% never disclose it at work, and only around 1 in 5 employers train their managers or HR on it. The result? Most dyslexic staff are quietly getting by without support, and a lot of talent goes unseen. Here are three things that help.

---

Understand dyslexia at work. Dyslexia is not just spelling and reading. In adults it is far more about working memory, processing speed, time management and task initiation.

Someone can be brilliant with ideas and strategy, yet find it harder to hold verbal instructions or produce polished writing under pressure.

A quick tip: lead with the big picture. If you take one practical thing from this blog, make it this. Dyslexic thinkers tend to work best from the overview down, not the detail up.

Drop someone straight into a list of steps and their working memory has to hold a lot of disconnected pieces at once. Give the big picture first, what you are trying to achieve and why, and the details have somewhere to land.

A one-line summary at the top of an email, a quick overview before a task, context before content in a meeting. It costs almost nothing and helps everyone.

Understand what "reasonable" really means. Under the UK Equality Act 2010, dyslexia counts as a disability, and employers must make reasonable adjustments so a dyslexic employee is not put at a substantial disadvantage.

The word that worries people is "reasonable," but it is far less daunting than it sounds. For dyslexia, adjustments are usually small and low-cost: written follow-ups after verbal instructions, helping breakdown deadlines and follow up meetings for extra context. Reasonable rarely means expensive. It means removing the friction that stops a capable person doing their best work.

---

---

Dyslexia in Adults

Dyslexia in Adults was created to help people stop struggling in silence and finally get the understanding and support I could never find myself. If you are ready to take the next step.

Here are a few ways to start:

Grab the free resource. Our free Dyslexia at Work Handbook gives HR teams and managers clear, practical steps, plus an 80:20 rule for high-impact support and a dyslexia-friendly daily planner to share with your team.

Workplace Training. And if you would like to bring this to life directly, we deliver workplace neurodiversity training trusted by organisations including BCG, Microsoft and the UK Department for Trade. Book a call to find out more.