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Full article: People with dyslexia have skills that we need, says GCHQ (The Guardian)

Apprentices on GCHQ’s scheme are four times more likely to have dyslexia than those on other organisations’ programmes, the agency has said, the result of a drive to recruit those whose brains process information differently.

GCHQ says those with dyslexia have valuable skills spotting patterns that others miss – a key area the spy agency wants to encourage as it pivots away from dead letter drops and bugging towards high-tech cybersecurity and data analysis.

According to Kate Griggs, the chief executive of Made by Dyslexia, GCHQ is a good example of how employers can take advantage of the distinctive ways people with dyslexia process information, an understanding she said was “hit and miss” across industries.

“The main reason that we have a problem is that a lot of things we measure in education and in employment use standardised tests which have been the same for decades. Dyslexic people don’t have standardised minds; we process information differently, which is hugely valuable once we get into the workforce,” she said.

A report produced by the charity with the consultancy EY suggested that some of the thinking skills people with dyslexia tend to be especially strong in include complex problem-solving, empathy, communication and critical thinking. These are becoming increasingly valued in workplaces as AI and machine-learning mean that more routine tasks are automated, the authors said.

Has your impairment given you employability skills others may not have? Do you think other employers should actively seek out neurodiverse employees?

Jean Eveleigh

My current role as a Disability Co-ordinator at a local bus company was built around my disability needs and offered to me because I have lived experience as a disabled person and a network of people with various disabilities I can call upon to answer specific questions that aided me to build an entire teaching program around the needs of elder and disabled passengers to aid our drivers to have a better understanding of the challenges our passengers face while traveling on the bus network.

I have been informed that employing me was one of the primary factors that allowed the company to expand overseas as the county we tendered into was wanting to improve disability awareness and the fact that I was already in position and we already had the disability training established enabled us to win the tender, I then spent weeks liaising with the training manager in that country teaching them how to deliver the training course and what answers they should be looking for from the drivers and how to approach disability and elder organisations to ask them to work with the company to teach the drivers.

They still contact me from time to time for updates most recently around covid and how to better assist out deaf passengers due to the need to wear facemasks which impede communication.