To ask dyslexic team member to put a note on her email signature???

[FusionChefGeoff]

For the record I am NOT going to do this but I’m interested in other people’s views on this and decided to brave the AIBU format.

Ive been working with a fab new trainee for about a year now. It’s my own micro business and I’m training her from scratch, so to speak. She’s quite severely dyslexic, is very open about it with me and others we work with and we regularly have discussions around what I can do to make everything easier for her. Including redirecting some work that would normally sit with her job role because it’s unfair to expect her to ever get to the standard we would need. (To do with data management where we need precision and speed - and she just can’t see mistakes / typos)

Generally, attention to detail is important in our overall work and she and I have developed lots of strategies to support her which generally involves quite a lot of other people’s time checking with her.

However, there are still lots of mistakes in her emails to clients and I can’t justify having to sign off every email she sends it’s just not feasible. It’s also not nice for her feeling like she’s working in a straight jacket the whole time. Things that spell checks obviously aren’t picking up like apostrophes where they’re not needed or using the wrong homophones.

Ive worked with other people in the past who have an unobtrusive line ‘Forgive any spelling errors which my dyslexia may have caused” or something similar which I think ‘let’s them off the hook’ as it stops people judging them purely based on spelling.

If you’re dyslexic do you / would you use this approach? Or do you keep your dyslexia to yourself as it’s no one else’s business?

Genuinely looking for thoughts.

As I said I am NOT going to suggest this to her.

I would love any tips or ideas how to help her improve the accuracy and quality of emails - although generally she’s very good at using tools and software to help so maybe I just need to explore what she’s doing for emails and if she has anything else she can use more regularly.

Oh and I’ve just noticed the time so annoyingly I’ll be coming back to this in the morning now!! Sorry!

Does she use the grammar checker as well as the spell checker? That will generally pick up both those issues.

I was also going to suggest a spelling and grammar app eg Grammarly. These are designed for people with dyslexia.

Son uses programme that reads emails back to him.

Tbh lots of us are using ai to write emails.

There is specific software available to assist those with dyslexia, have you offered this?

She can also use voice software (eg dragon or ms dictate) to help and when my staff have done this they have a signature note to say ‘please be aware I use voice software which may create the occasional error’. That way you’re not outing her disability.
Or use copilot for checking, this is helpful.

Is there not some sort of software to help? AI?

You need to obtain better software for her, the dyslexia software I use can pick up on all these things, or she could use software to dictate emails. I would not put my disability in my emails and I would refuse if my employer told me too.

If you had half a clue then surely you’d have looked into software to handle this type of issue!

They don’t. I work with a severely dyslexic senior manager. Senior enough to make people understand that most spelling, grammar readers are pretty poor, especially ones that need to be compliant with local authority, government, large corporate systems.

have you completed a work based needs assessment? It sounds like exploring the specific software options that are available to see which ones she feel would support her best would be the next step

ChatGPT would sort this in a trice.

Honestly, I think it says more about the person receiving the email if they judge the person based on spelling or grammar mistakes. Surely the whole point of communication is to convey a message so the recipient understands what is said. If your staff member can do this then why does a spelling error matter. Language evolves, we don’t all write like Shakespeare now do we? Having said that I do use CoPilot to help with my dyslexia, and read aloud functions to help me hear what I have written. I wouldn’t sign up to have a statement on my email about it though.

I work in the NHS and several of my colleagues have that email footer.

I think it’s a great idea as long as she is happy to do it.

Thanks everyone - I feel much more confident now to explore what tech she’s currently using (she’s freelance / self employed so it’s not something we provide for her) and work out why it’s not working for these occasions.

I’ll offer to provide something extra if she thinks it’s needed though.

AI exists, OP. As a PP said.

Can you set up template answers for at least the most common emails?

I'm dyslexic and no one I work with knows. I absolutely would not have "I'm dyslexic" on my email signature, it's something that I find highly embarrassing. I work in a professional position and I am well respected at work, it would likely hold me back if I labelled myself in such a way. The person you manage needs to use AI such a co-pilot to assist with writing professional sounding emails at pace, she can also use a screen reader to help proof read what she has written before she hits send. Use the technology available to support her. There's no need to embarrass this person making her share this very personal information on ever single piece of correspondence she sends out.

As a dyslexic person I just copy and paste my e-mail into co-pilot (any AI would do) and ask it to just fix the spelling and grammar- works a treat.

I worked with a peer slt manager and they used to have it written casually on their email footer.
It worked, nobody was an arse internal or external

Self employed - hope that’s legit OP….

There’s programmes you can use to make templates/pre written words, paragraphs or what ever you want and then you decide a shortcut you want to use- for example you can have Kreg for kind regards, you get the drift

Might be helpful if she sends similar words/sentences a lot

How are you training her if she’s self employed?

Try getting her to put it through Grammarly. It will pick up the homophones and grammar issues as well as spelling. I know newspaper editors who slam everything through the pro version as a second set of eyes.

On a side note, if she is a trainee and you are training her from scratch, why is she freelance & self employed? It doesn't sound as though she meets the criteria for being self employed, especially if you have so much control over what she's doing, the training she needs etc. Have you spoken to HMRC about this as you could end up with some large tax bills at your end.