Team member, careless or dyslexic - how to manage?

[Rumors1]

I am having a tricky time managing a member of my team. He moved to my team a while ago. He is more experienced than me and he started with the company before me but I moved up the ranks quicker and am now his line manager. He hasnt taken this very well.

There have been a few issues with him such as not respecting my authority and not following processes, which I have addressed. He is quite difficult to manage and has big reactions.
Another issues has arisen recently in relation to the quality of his work, he is regularly making mistakes and sending inappropriate/informal emails in an environment where formality is expected.

Again this has been addressed, with my line manager involved this time.
Due to these issues I have been managing his caseload more closely.

I had previously noticed lots of spelling mistakes in his emails but put it down to him being rushed. However on closer inspection of his work, all the formal documents he drafts are also replete with spelling mistakes (he has a professional qualification).

Without going into the specifics, I present his work and yesterday was pulled up on a misspelt name in a formal document. Think instead of spelling a surname as "Preston" he spelt it as "Pretson".

He switches letters in words, particularly names eg Pual, or leaves a letter out such as "Karn"
He regularly adds in additional letters such as "motaion" instead of "motion".

Lots of these mistakes have to be coming up on spellcheck but he must be ignoring them.
I always double check my work before I send it on as I often make mistakes from typing so quickly. I can use "put" instead of "out" of "lost" instead of "lots" which wont show up on spell check so always run through it for this reason.

I genuinely dont know if its carelessness or dyslexia. Is there any way of knowing the difference? He has a professional qualification that required lots of reading and writing essays if that is relevant.
I dont want to embarrass him but its at the point where I cant trust any of his work.

I guess you need to discuss with him.

Either he needs to use spellchecker and/or get someone else to review and correct because of poor typing and checking and poor attention to detail.
Or he needs to use spellchecker and/or get someone else to review and correct due to dyslexia.

The only way to know for sure if he is dyslexic would be for him to be assessed by a professional. Have you asked him if thinks there is any underlying reason for his spelling difficulties?

His age is relevant here - the older he is, the less likely dyslexia (or related neurodivergent conditions) would have been picked up when he was in education; and the more difficult it is to get an assessment as an adult without paying privately (as the over-stretched NHS tend to take the view that if you've made it to adulthood, you are coping and don't need assessment, which is bollocks, but the way it is).

Whether he is dyslexic or not, you can still provide the support and tools you'd provide to a dyslexic colleague - he needs to be using spell-check properly, for example, so perhaps you could ask him to show you how he is currently using it, and coach him to use it correctly and talk about strategies for things the spellchecker won't pick up, such as names - using a read-aloud function before sending can help pick up some of these, or it might be just that he needs to double and triple-check all names before sending.

Thanks I think its just his reaction I am dreading. He reacts very badly and takes it really personally. I feel like its one issue after the next and the last issues I addressed were only 2 weeks ago, he is still very sore over that.

Thanks @Sethera , he is late 40's only a couple of years older than me.
I had never checked his work this closely before and I was shocked at the level of mistakes, there isnt a single documents that doesnt have a number of spelling mistakes in it.
Unfortunately he has had 2 managers in this department before me and they let all of these issues slide. I am now the one having to deal with them :(

Let it be one issue after another if they are all relevant issues.
It builds the case for eventually removing him.

Don’t pander to tantrums ‘soreness’

In the age of autocorrect, ChatGPT, Google Notebook and tons of LLM AIs, there is zero excuse for professional work to be full of mistakes. Even if he is genuinely diagnosed dyslexic or neurodivergent, you are still fully within range to fire him for poor performance because he refuses to use the correct tools required for completing a task.

He sounds like an arrogant middle aged man who went through life with a huge chip on his shoulder due to the fact he was "clever" but struggled with spelling and writing. He was probably bullied as a child or labeled stupid by teachers and decided to get an academic degree as revenge for all that. There are actually loads of men like this, who write with appalling spelling errors and typos but act like they don't give a shit and are too "above" it all because they are no longer in school and can't be told what to do. Many are undiagnosed ASD or ADHD as well and have issues working in professional or social groups.

Can you sweep him sideways to another manager? Everyone else appears to have.

Take advice from your line manager or HR if you have already recorded his bad reactions to things previously.
If you haven't then start logging.

Can you sweep him sideways to another manager? Everyone else appears to have.

Please don't do this. I still remember the thud of my heart crashing when a new team member arrived with a HR file that, no exaggeration, was 4 inches thick and stuffed with years' worth of performance plans from various roles. Actually dealing with the problem rather than moving the person on was painful for all concerned, not least the unfortunate colleague.

While a spell check should weed out extra or missing letters in words, they don’t always help people with dyslexia - where words sound the same like pear or pair. Someone with dyslexia wouldn’t be able to tell, which one was right for the context. Likewise, they meant to write snacks, but in fact wrote snakes.

I received emails regularly from someone with dyslexia; he told me he used a spell checker and read his work over before sending it; but if I couldn’t understand it, to read it aloud and then I’d probably understand it! However, while it was his work, it was in a field where acceptance of special educational needs was a necessity, so nobody was ever going to say anything. Spelling was the least important aspect of the job.

As I understand it, many older adults are deeply ashamed of having dyslexia, because they were made to feel stupid at school, when there was practically no understanding of it.

As a professional myself, I can see OP’s POV though - the firm can’t have reports, full of mistakes going out either.

His dyslexic..... But imagine making a post about his disabilities rather than actually confronting the man and actually asking him? the person talking about firing him is an idiot as that would be classed as unfair dismissal due to his learning disabilities and considering that you haven't spoken to the guy about his grammatical errors spellings etc the ball would be in his court if it came to being fired....

But OP doesn’t know whether he is dyslexic or not, of how to approach him to have that kind of conversation. That’s pretty much the whole point of the thread.

Also to note you mentioned he has been apart of the company longer than you and has had 2 managers prior to yourself and they let it slide? Out of having 3 managers (You being the late commer) why would they let it slide? Must be a valid reason for them to pass them off but you the new commer have an issue? Have you spoken to them(managers) or again the guy in question or are you jumping to conclusions?

@Sethera not exactly my line of work we are not allowed to use spell check... Neither tools to help with spellings if we misspelled something we get an email stating we spelt something wrong, and are told to correct it . especially with medication..... Spell checker isn't going to be spelling medication names correctly...

Presumably because of his 'big reactions'.

I have managed someone with dyslexia who was absolutely meticulous and thorough, and took steps to ensure work was correct. So he may be dyslexic, but the fact that he has uncorrected misspelling and sends inappropriate emails is a separate issue

Even if he is dyslexic, he still needs to check his work and make corrections. The fix is the same even if he's just a bad speller. Take your time, review work, use the tools provided.

Are you working closely with you HR team on what the best next steps are?

If this ever comes back to you with - what steps did you take...
You need to evidence everything you've done. Go through the steps, document them via email and make sure you are able to show this when asked. If it then doesn't work you have a case for HR intervention.

If he feels 'sore' that's too bad, can't do a job with his feelings.

But you can add proper nouns /any word to the spellchecker dictionary... I worked in NHS and was regularly including drug names in reports.

This too!

I've taught folk with dyslexia, as any group they vary massively over how thorough or not they are...