I had a lovely new girl start on Monday. She had great phone manner, really polite and a fantastic voice.
One of my experienced staff came to see me about half an hour into her training and told me the new girl was in tears in the bathroom.
I asked what had happened and she told me that she wanted the script to be on the screen not on paper. The experienced staff member told her that she had to have a paper script. Thats when she started crying.
I called the new girl into my office. Got her some water and tissues. She was sobbing.
"Tell me, what is it that is making you so upset? I'm sure we can sort out whatever it is", I said.
"No, you cant", she said. "I've worked in lots of call centres but I get fired from the ones that use paper scripts because I cant read off paper. I can read ok on the screen but not off paper."
She then went on to describe how the words run together and move.
I said "Please stop worrying. You could not have landed in a better workplace. Are you dyslexic?"
Her head went down. She nodded.
"I'm sure I can help."
I retyped her script in Open Dyslexic font and printed it on blue paper. As soon as she saw the new script, she said it was so much easier. I bought a stand to angle the script at the right height and made sure there was no glare on the page.
AFter just a few days, she is now working without a script and speaking with such fantastic confidence that she is selling at a great rate.
I get sad when I think about all the places she has worked that could have easily helped with her dyslexia instead of just firing her. It's not that hard.
OpenDyslexic font is available free of charge thank you so much to the amazing creater Abelardo Gonzalez.
http://opendyslexic.org/
Why dont you try it in your workplace on posters, induction forms etc and see if you find people might feel more comfortable. You never know who may be dyslexic and struggling because they are often extremely good at hiding their problem with reading.
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