Employers: How to Manage Dyslexia in the Work Place

Dyslexia is a hidden disability that affects 10 per cent of the population. It predominately causes reading and writing difficulties but memory, mathematics, organisation and sequencing skills can also be affected.

If un-addressed, dyslexia can result in underachievement. However, it does not affect intelligence and need not be a barrier to success.

There are many brilliant dyslexic professionals following a wide range of careers. But for those struggling, it is important for an employer to be aware of the ways they can help.

The UK  Equality Act 2010 covers dyslexia so all workplaces need to comply with it if a staff member is dyslexic. This act repeals and replaces the original UK Disability Discrimination Act 1995.

1 Know the signs
Indications of dyslexia in the workplace will reflect the nature of the work and will vary depending on the individual’s difficulties and their severity.

Key indicators might include performance that is not reflective of potential, written documentation that is unexpectedly poor or seems careless, confused memos or messages, deadlines regularly not being met or taking longer to learn new skills.

Have you noticed whether the individual appears forgetful, seems disorganised, has low self-esteem or suffers unduly from stress or anxiety? These are behaviours that may be attributed to dyslexia.

2 Seek confirmation
Many adults do not know that the difficulties they have are the result of dyslexia. If confirmation is required, referral to an occupational psychologist or an expert trained in screening and assessment for dyslexia should be considered.

3 Provide support
Effective support can often be simple and inexpensive. This may include;

• holding regular one-to-one sessions to reinforce aims and objectives;
  
  
• help with prioritising and organising workloads by using calendars with deadlines clearly marked, diaries or electronic reminders; 
• allowing regular breaks; 
• setting realistic objectives and negotiating deadlines; and, if required, 
• professional training and coaching.

4 Use technology
Many products can be incorporated into an office environment,

• spellcheckers are commonplace, 
• encourage the use of a dictaphone for note-taking, or 
• change the set-up of the person’s PC to make it more usable (Consider doing this from both an ergonomic and in terms of operational, as in software default layouts – font size and colour, and the use of a preferred background colour to clarify reading). 
• Consider investing in Assistive technology such as EasyReader, and /or
• voice-activated software such as Dragon NaturallySpeaking, and /or 
• planning software such as Inspiration may also be helpful.

5 Look at your practices
Develop dyslexia-friendly practices across the business for recruitment, assessment, training and health and safety.

Consider how accessible your communications are and provide alternative formats such as large print or audio.

Plan training sessions and inductions that accommodate extra time or support to ensure retention of information.

For instance, give the individual training materials in advance or present communications in a more dyslexia-friendly layout. This may include:

• bullet points;
• font size of no less than 11pt;
• sans-serif typefaces such as Arial;
• left-justified margin;
• cream or off-white background;
• increased spacing between lines;
• important points in bold (not italics).

6 Consider individual needs
Do not assume or generalise. Dyslexia is complex and the number, type and severity of difficulties will vary.

This will also be influenced by the individual’s ability to manage their own dyslexia. Discussions about support strategies should consider fully what the person feels they need. Listen to them. Do not impose on them.

7 Seek specialist help
You are not expected to be a dyslexia expert and, given its complexity, it may be wise to discuss specific strategies and adjustments with a specialist.

If dyslexia is suspected and formal identification is required, contact an occupational psychologist or specialist service provider.

Avoid New Age alternative therapy 'solutions' and only consider support and assistance from medically or educationally qualified consultants and institutions.

In the UK, the Citizens Advice Bureaus should be able to point you in the right direction.

8 Increase awareness
Encourage better understanding among all staff by including accurate information about dyslexia in internal communications.

Key Points

• Dyslexia need not be a barrier to success, and is recognised under the UK Equality Act 2010.
• Dyslexia is common – an organisation with 50-100 employees could have up to 10 workers who are dyslexic.
• Adjustments can help to maximise potential.
• Do not generalise – treat each case individually.

Change Management - What is it and why it matters?

Complexity of Change

 According to Wiki, ‘Change management is a structured approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and organisations from a current state to a desired future state.

It is an organisational process aimed at helping employees to accept and embrace changes in their current business environment.’

Such definition of Change Management is often called Organisation Change Management to differentiate from the software change management that refers to software configuration management or project change control that refers to managing the project scope, timeline, and budget.

When we talk about the Organisation Change Management we need to understand who needs to change and who are all the stakeholders that will be affected.

Any change in the organisation involves to various degrees following stakeholders:

• Customers – they experience change in customer service at all touch points, unless change is completely internal (hard to imagine such changes these days!)
• Executive team – they need to formulate the strategy and embrace the change first so they can ‘walk the talk’ and inspire the organisation to internalise the change
• Line management (within an organisation and within partner organisations) – they need to interpret the strategy, define the ‘how to’ plan, and then embrace the change so that they can become effective mentors and coaches and continue to inspire ‘by example’
• Line workers (within an organisation and within partner organisations) – they make the change happen or not; when they are inspired and identify with the change the organisation achieves true transformation

Given the wide reach of change on all levels of stakeholders internally and externally to the organisation, the program that has to be put in place needs to define correctly the scope of the change being introduced and the areas being impacted.

Read more of this article: Business Process Management (BPM) - Change Management - What is it and why it matters?

Impress your boss with green thinking

Bringing fresh ideas to a new job will not only impress your new boss, but also make sure that you're watching the carbon footprint of the business.

There are plenty of ways you can introduce energy efficiency into a workplace, it just depends on what kind of business it is.

There are many similar steps between a domestic property and a workplace, including looking at renewable energy possibilities.

When you've got a location that's open predominantly during the day, it's almost a perfect match between use of solar energy and on tap electricity. Picking up from midday, when everyone's working away, then letting it dying away in the evening.

It is also suggested new schemes like voltage optimisation, heat recovery and heat pump technologies, which means the building uses less power.

Bringing new and fresh ideas to a business could cement your role as a valuable employee and someone managers could turn to for similar advice in the future.

If nothing else you could become a more interesting and 'greener' person.

Employees not sociable at work; Gen Y needs to change this

Employees not sociable at work; Gen Y needs to change

A new study by Plantronics focusing on the communication habits in the workplace show that social networking, either on Facebook or Twitter or on business networking sites like LinkedIn, are the least constructive activities for business productivity.

Email unsurprisingly has shot through through the roof in the last five years, increasing by over 70% according to the poll, which surveyed 1,800 knowledge workers in medium-sized and large businesses. Even though video and audio conferencing is on the rise, email remains at the top spot with mobile devices being able to take our written conversations anywhere we go.

However half of the 90% of those surveyed in the enterprise environment stated that they spend nearly a quarter of their working hours off site, making the need for mobile devices connected up to their corporate communications networks all the more important. But with over-the-air bandwidth being sluggish at the best of times mobile email access is the only viable option.

Texting is limiting, social media is public and too ‘personal’ and instant messaging though can be useful, is often not incorporated into the enterprise world.

The way we communicate entirely depends on the profession that we enter into. Those working in policing and intelligence will most likely prefer text-based communications as it enables quick, effective referencing to on-demand data.

Journalists will usually prefer phone conversations or face-to-face over any text based communications because it enables vocal inflections to be detected; stutters, stammers and physiological impairments, because frankly we like to catch people out. Press and public relations, publicists and corporate spokespeople will of course in light of the aforementioned prefer email and text-based communications.

The study goes on to further purport the theory that though there are more ways to communicate than before, most prefer the traditional methods even though they often cause confusion. Email works only so well on the basis that the two or more people in contact are on a level playing field emotionally, professionally and in terms of level of knowledge, language and skill being used.

Using buzzwords and acronyms out of context or in an illegible way requires the recipient to spend more time emailing back and asking for clarification, which causes an imbalance in the working relationship; the person losing self-confidence while the other gains higher ground by exerting even more unnecessary communication to make up for their previous misgiving. A phone conversation will lessen this a great deal.

Contented, fullfilled employees is the key to success…for organizations

We spend a lot of our waking time at work, so it’s not surprising that work has an influence on our well-being: Numerous studies have linked general attitudes towards work to mood outside of work and health outcomes such as coronary heart disease. However, psychological scientist James K. Harter of Gallup, Inc. and his colleagues found that employee perceptions of work conditions may also have a big impact on the bottom line of employing organizations.

In this study, the researchers examined data from more than 2,000 business units (e.g., retail stores, factories, sales offices) of ten companies. The data consisted of employee satisfaction surveys, employee retention rates, customer loyalty, and financial performance of the organizations. Analyses of the data were conducted to identify relationships between employee job satisfaction and outcome measures of the organizations.

The results indicate that employee work perceptions predict important organizational outcomes — if employees have positive perceptions of their jobs, their organizations benefit via higher employee retention, increased customer loyalty, and improved financial outcomes. Interestingly, the analysis suggests that employee perceptions affect outcomes more than outcomes affect employee perceptions of their jobs.

“One implication is that changes in management practices that improve employee perceptions of specific work situation variables will increase business-unit outcomes, including financial outcomes,” the authors note. Additionally, Harter and colleagues offer that one way managers can help boost job satisfaction and help their organization may be to “clarify expectations for employees by helping employees see the ultimate outcomes the organization is working to achieve and how they play a role in achieving those outcomes.”

For further reading on workplace discontent, please read:

LeBlanc, M. M. & Barling, J. (2004). Workplace aggression. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13(1), 9-12. doi:10.1111/j.0963-7214.2004.01301003.x

Riley, H. R. & Gelfand, M. (2010). Status and the evaluation of workplace deviance. Psychological Science, 13(1), 49-54. doi: 10.1177/0956797609356509

Spector, P. E. (2002). Employee control and occupational stress. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11(4), 133-136. doi:10.1111/1467-8721.00185

Random Promotion is preferable to flawed selection criteria

We're accustomed to living in a meritocracy, an American word that means to promote on merit. Anyway, it has made us believe that any notion of getting ahead based on anything other than skill and hard work, seems cruel, bizarre and Kafkaesque.

Let's consider that for a while. What if random job promotion turned out to be a better alternative to the Peter Principle, which posits that employees will continue to be promoted to the point of incompetence, and beyond it in many cases?

The Simulation
A group of mischievious Italian researchers ran a simulation of a 160-person company with a six-level pyramid structure. Each employee was assigned a degree of competence and the researchers ran two simulations comparing different ways for competence to carry over to a new position when an employee was promoted.

Common Sense
The simulations pitted the "Common Sense Hypothesis" where an employee is as good at their new job as at their old one against the "Peter Hypothesis" in which they have a random chance of succeeding in their new role.

In each of these cases, the researchers tested three promotion strategies:

• promoting the most competent employees,
• promoting the least competent employees and
• promoting at random

Finally, with increased corporate efficiency as the measure of success, the researchers reached their counterintuitive conclusion.

Conclusion
Promoting at random or alternating the promotion of the best and the worst employees works much better according to our calculations," said Andrea Rapisarda, the co-author of the study and a physicist at the University of Catania, in Catania, Italy. Inc. asked a handful of CEOs and management experts whether this sort of system could work in a real company

Do I like this job?
The main defense for what they're puting forward is this; if you remove one of the extrinsic motivators, e.g. promotion or other direct rewards, people will be left just with the intrinsic motivators, 'Do I like this job?'

If I know that my chance of promotion is totally random and has nothing to do with how well I do, then how I do on the job is going to be more based on how much I enjoy doing it and doing it well, i.e. motivation, social interaction and collaboration

Problems
The problem, if there is a problem, is that promoting at random may create a loss of morale in some ambitious people and a subsequent loss of effort, if they don't think their effort is going to be rewarded. These are people are more likely to be the type of person that seeks immediate gratification.

Benefits for Creativity
On the other hand, there is an argument that says; if you try to reward people too much for being creative you might actually make them less creative. They need to extend themselves and take risks but they won't take risks if they feel that everything they do is being watched and evaluated. Creativity is partly about having fun, being spontaneous, being part of something and job enjoyment is a big part of that too.

Summary
We have all been in companies where selection and promotion criteria is flawed or biased towards a preferred 'character type', levels of sycophancy and worse, discrimination against 'minorities.' These organisations and the people in it would benefit greatly from random selection when it come to promotion.

After all team building and collaboroation is about making the best of everyone in your team. These are talented, creative and inovative people. Brim full of under developed potential. That's why you picked them in the first place, isn't it.

Innovation in Candidate Selection Methods - Crossing the Road

The numbers of people applying for jobs these days has grown to enormous proportions.

On average, 200 people apply for every vacancy, depending on the level of experience and qualifications required.

Clearly the non-skilled and semi-skilled marketplace is much more competitive.

HR departments are over busy trying to sift and filter applications and review candidates' applications, using a wide variety of strategies, approaches and homemade tools. Innovation in this area has grown enormously and led to some imaginary and dubious selection methods being adopted, one of which is posted here.

This innovative method is called: Watching how candidates cross the street.

Location, location, location
Now the first problem with this approach is, location. It can be difficult to arrange for an interviewee to cross the street within view of the HR interviewer. Perhaps they need to cross the road to enter your building, if not try to arrange for the interview to be held at a local Starbucks, cafe or restaurant. As long as it is near a busy road. Any reasonably busy city street will do.

Close Observation
The next skill is to be able to watch carefully and take notes. There is little need to undertake secret videotaping, but you can if it is particularly interesting to you.

The innovative thinking on this approach is that these few seconds of interactivity involving a sprinkle of stress / problem solving /danger, will tell you more about their workplace capabilities than an hour of tough questioning.

Consider the five standard types of crosswalkers and how it is claimed, they would perform in the workplace:

The Matador(ess).
A fearless player, the Matador(ess) flaunts their vulnerability. They think nothing of daring the cars and taxis with their elegant dance and slalom through traffic. Pedestrian crossings are just paint on the road to a Matador(ess). Red lights are mere street decorations.

The Matador(ess) cares not if the oncoming traffic shows no sign of swerving or stopping and will risk the possibility of a glancing blow.

Best Roles: These people are best suited to be entrepreneurs, super sales makers /closers, high risk financial mavericks, etc.

Caution! They are also likely to be reckless, head-strong, egotistical and difficult to control. They will need strong leadership and strategic management.

The Wader.
Bold but more attentive than fearless, the Wader is determined and eager to cross, demonstrating ample initiative but a little more common sense and less risk.

Waders may also be on the phone and texting while they are on the move but they will desist when venturing into traffic. They will consider that getting struck by any part of a vehicle, however minor, is a bad thing.

They will eagerly follow a Matador(ess) and let them run interference, slowing traffic and creating a diversion, taking advantage of any safe opening created. While the Matador(ess) is testing their luck and confronting taxi drivers, the Wader will skip to the other side first, with little effort and time to spare.

Best Roles: Excellent CEOs, vice presidents, software designers, project leaders and design heads.

Caution! They can be attentive team players, sensitive to the feelings and emotion of others but can also be non-confrontational, evasive, manipulative, somewhat Machiavellian in approach etc. and will need an intelligent leader that can see the multi-plays in motion and use the excellent team attributes on offer.

The TextWalker.
Having mastered typing, talking and walking at once, the TextWalker tends to forget that crossing a busy road is 'real' life and tapping keys on a little plastic box, is 'virtual reality'. The division between the real world and Second Life is difficult for them to sustain.

TextWalkers may appear to be assertive on the surface, a bit like the Waders or even a pseudo Matador(ess), but they have one critical distinction—progress in their case, is not so much to do with crossing the road but in moving forward with the multiple tasks and ideas that they started in the early hours of the morning.

So progress, e.g. crossing the road to get to an interview or to achieve a specific task, can be more illusionary or conceptual.

The Textwalker will meander, drift, and even pause for thought and re-assimilation midway. They may even retreat momentarily before moving forward again.

They lack the single-mindedness, concentration or presence of mind to stay on task. Especially if that task is mundane or unchallenging.

Best Roles: They are creative thinkers, conceptual designers and programmers. They exhibit creative flashes of raw talent.

Caution!: They are ill-suited and in this form, not yet ready for management or higher-levels of responsibilities and are difficult to integrate as team players. They can lack structure and good communication strategies.

They will require a good paternal leader that can capture their enthusiasm and creativeness and channel them effectively. Someone who has the time and energy and can coach and mentor them in a structured and methodical way.

The Light Jumper.
The Light Jumper is an opportunist. They start out determined to comply and follow the letter of the law, but they are impatient. So, when the crossing light turns from Green to flashing yellow, they can’t help but jump.

The placid, rational Dr. Jekyll becomes Mr. Hyde and once they have embarked on their course, nothing is going to deter them. A Light Jumper is not above shouting and glaring at motorists who narrowly miss them, even though the traffic have the right of way.

Best Roles: Strong civil rights lawyers, human rights campaigners and charismatic managers with badly hidden tattoos.

Caution! These people are looking for a 'cause' or a 'calling' and are excellent drivers in charities and non-profit organisations. They need managers with high scruples and integrity because once they are disillusioned they will become very 'anti' and strongly negative.

The Kerb Huggers.
No matter how empty the road is, Kerb Huggers would never dream of stepping off the pavement and onto the crossing before they have the 'authority' to do so. They will not move a second earlier than the law, or the “Walk” sign, allows.

Ironically, Kerb Huggers rarely make it across the road before the light turns red and, by delaying their walk across the road, they are often victims of anyone who enjoys jumping red lights. Kerb huggers sometimes find themselves having to run or jump the remaining yard or two.

Best Roles: Compliant tax accountants, statisticians, quality management, regulatory or rules-based occupations. Excellent at scheduling, writing agendas and attending meetings, especially when the purpose is to schedule new meetings, if it's on the agenda.

Caution! This group of people are possibly unexciting but easily managed. If you have a suitable rule book that covers all circumstances, just give them that and ask them to check in occasionally. They are not creative or imaginative risk takers and should not be expected to do anything other than follow instructions.

Anecdote
At the risk of re-enforcing misconceptions of stereotypes, I have seen people standing at a pedestrian stop sign at 02.00 am in the middle of the night, waiting for the lights to change to green, when there is no traffic and no threat of traffic for several hours. They will not cross the road until the light changes to green, under any circumstances.

Unfortunately, in my experience, this occurs most often in England, Germany and Sweden but don't take my word for it, set your alarm clock for the middle of the night and go see for yourself.

Let me leave you with another thought; How do you cross the street, and what does that say about your personality and outlook on life?

Unemployed? Should you retrain in a new skill to get work?

We will make the bold assumption that your current skills are not bleeding edge but are relevant to this century and current business practices.

It's a good and valid question in the current circumstances and it makes very good sense from your side, so let's consider it from the employers point of view.

You will find that companies are in 'Me take, me no-give' mode and definitely not in a 'Happy to Wait n see /training' mode.

This means they are currently looking for skilled people with good experience, that can hit the ground running. Someone that can add something to the company right freakin' now. This means companies will only employ people to do what they already know and they will be expected to do it well, right out of the 'HR box''.

Companies are very unsure about taking on people who have just learned a new skill and are looking for experience. The company will see this as you simply gaining experience at the company's expense and shy away from it. The one's that are interested will pay you no-money for this and that's not a serious option for you, unless you have a secondary income.

So, in summary, learning a new skill in this position, will delay your return to work (with steady loss of earnings and self esteem), reduce your earning capacity in the next job (if you can find a company willing to take you) and you will quickly start to lose the benefit and impact that your current 'up to the minute' skills have on potential employers.

I mean by this, that the delay caused through lack of practical 'on the job' use will create a significant doubt in the minds of potential employers, which is not good. If there is a choice between 2 people, the one with the 'most current' skills and shortest 'gap' will win, all else being equal.

So, get your job hunting trousers on, tighten your brown belt of expandable self esteem, stride confidently out and tell everyone you meet that you do what you do do, well!

Why is your boss more like a baboon?

Research shows that whether human or baboon, your social or professional rank—your place on the torment or be tormented scale—influences your level of stress and your health, for better or for worse.

Robert Sapolsky is a Stanford University neurobiologist who's spent 30 years studying stress and illness in baboons to better understand the effects of stress in humans.

Sapolsky studies baboons because they experience the same kind of social and psychological stress that humans experience. Everything that stresses us—traffic, work, bad relationships—is socially constructed. The same is true for baboons.

We all live with stress—so much, in fact, that we accept chronic stress in our lives as a given, an inescapable force to which we're powerless. We feel we have no control over our stress, and indeed, our stress controls us—our behaviour, our emotions, our health. Some people go so far as to wear stress as a badge of honour. Their stress level, they believe, testifies to their importance, their valour and their work ethic.

By accepting chronic stress as a fact of life, we fail to realise that our resigned attitude toward this biological response will kill us. Chronic stress is an epidemic in American and European society, one that takes a devastating—even deadly—toll on our minds and bodies.

Chronic stress impairs our memory and brain function:

We can't think straight when we're stressed out. It debilitates our immune system and makes us more susceptible to illness. It elevates our blood pressure, causes our arteries to harden and leads to belly fat—all of which increase our risk of heart attack.

It can lead to ulcers, and it hinders our reproductive functions and then there are the headaches and backaches, the insomnia and impotence that stress causes.

Sapolsky notes that we seem to have lost our innate ability to shut off our stress response. We're stressed out all the time. Everything from deadlines to awkward social situations causes our bodies to produce elevated levels of stress hormones that never seem to abate. Even after we've met the deadline, we allow new stressful tasks or situations to enter our lives and replace it.

Our rank at work and in society also impacts our stress level, perhaps not surprisingly. Sapolsky's research suggests that the amount of stress we experience is directly related to our social status.

What was observed in the baboons:

By taking blood samples from them and screening them for stress hormones, Sapolsky found high levels of stress in submissive baboons and low levels of stress in dominant baboons. The reason the dominant baboons had low levels of stress was because they had a lot of leisure time.

The reason the low-ranked baboons had high levels of stress was because the dominant baboons spent their leisure time tormenting them.

Does that sound familiar? I'm sure you've observed similar behaviour —and its consequences—where you work. Ever feel like your boss's primary role is to make your life miserable? Perhaps he has too much time on his hands.

UK Civil Servants
Sapolsky's findings on stress and rank corroborated an earlier study of British civil servants. The British study, which examined the health of British civil service workers, found that low-level civil servants had higher stress levels and were more prone to illness than high-ranking civil servants despite the fact that they all had access to the same healthcare.

Extrapolating from this research we can conclude that lower-level IT workers experience more stress and illness than IT executives, while IT executives are more stressed and sickly than the chief executives. What goes around comes around!

Employees Breaking the Chain of Command - Need to be Heard

Employees sometimes feel the need to go over their boss’s head and take their problem higher up the chain of command. Understanding why this happens can help leaders address underlying organisational problems.

The three main reasons that employees go around their boss are very clear.

You're not listening to me!
The greatest number of cases involve unresponsiveness; supervisor or managerial inaction. When an employee questions or expresses dissent to a manager, it was either dismissed, ignored or re-buffed with an unfulfilled promise.

You have no idea what you're doing!
The second driving force was a manager’s apparent incompetence or low performance. Employees regularly report concerns about how their boss is performing; mismanaged tasks, scheduling vacations, managing workflow processes, conducting performance evaluations, etc.

You're only out for yourself!
The third option is unfortunately about questionable behaviour carried out by the manager. This can include employee harassment, (both physical and emotional/psychological) unethical behaviour, and regular or blatant abuses of organisational policies and practices.

Suffering abuse from, finding fault with, or having reduced respect for their managers and supervisors is fundamentally the reason most employees decided to circumvent them.

Why are you bringing me this?
If you are approached by an employee who has skipped around the normal chain of command, it is your duty to give it some close thought. Employees who break the chain of command do so reluctantly and with some fore-thought. Many times they feel the need to emphasise their point and the unethical nature of the complaint.

Perhaps they have exaggerated the severity or urgency of the topic, but this is done to justify going around their manager. You need to be aware of this, because if you also dismiss this approach as being trivial or concocted, then you are in danger of commiting a greater sin against the individual, his colleagues, with whom he will share his experience, the organisation and yourself.

You will be seen to be endorsing a poor manager who is operating at a low level, abusing employees and implementing bad practices. You risk being condemned by the employees as being of a similar vain.

Conclusion
Employees will only circumvent their manager and reach out to someone higher in the organisation after a great deal of soul searching and when they feel they have good cause. They are being dismissed, ignored, and /or abused. Are you listening?