Assessment in Business

Our specialist assessments tell you about the nature and extent of your employee’s dyslexia.

What is the concern?
What is the impact on job performance?
What can be done about it?

We offer straightforward answers to direct questions.

A competent manager suddenly fails to deliver.
A bright management trainee continually fails professional examinations.
A worker cannot meet performance targets despite support.
A newly promoted supervisor can’t cope with the paperwork.
The “best” person for the job turns it down.

The list of possible situations is very long. You suspect that your employee has a learning difficulty and don’t know what to do.

We can help.

Employers should know that referring an employee for assessment is counted as making a “reasonable adjustment” in the workplace.

What is the concern?

Employers and employees are asked to complete questionnaires so that the areas of concern from both sides are clear. Candidates for assessment are also asked to complete a basic personal history form.

In this way, the psychologist knows how to focus the report so that concerns are directly addressed for both the employee and the organisation.

HDL psychologists use standardised tests to closely examine the individual’s thinking skills profile. The pattern of relative strengths and weaknesses will reveal what the underlying difficulty is.

Typically, we find that working (“short term”) memory skills and speed of information processing are the underlying relative weaknesses. This can lead to problems in basic literacy and numeracy, organisation and prioritising skills, attention to detail, communication skills, interpersonal behaviour, anxiety and self-esteem.

Additional diagnostic tests and observations about workplace difficulties from the employee and their line managers help to build a comprehensive picture for analysis.

Remember, we offer straightforward answers to direct questions.

People who come for assessment almost always report that they find the experience challenging, but enjoyable. HDL psychologists are excellent at building rapport and helping individuals overcome any fear they may have about the process. Our view is that by helping the individual to the fullest extent, we are also helping the organisation as much as we can.

What is the impact on job performance?

In many cases, employees will have been put forward for assessment because they are experiencing a difficulty in some aspect of their job performance.

In other cases, employers are likely to be keen to find out if an employee’s dyslexia will have a negative impact on future job performance. They may be due to go on an intensive training programme, for example.

HDL psychologists are uniquely experienced in business and dyslexia. We understand about job descriptions, person specifications and occupational competences. We also understand how the commercial world and the public sector operate.

We use the results of the assessment to make recommendations that map directly on to the causes of concern. Using the individual’s thinking skills profile and our knowledge of how people work, we suggest several ways forward to help both the individual and the organisation.What can be done about it?

Often, the knowledge that an employee is dyslexic may be enough. Line managers are likely to require some awareness training. They may have to be prepared to be flexible in allowing dyslexic staff members to work “differently”.

Sometimes, specialist “assistive” technology can be useful. Specialist training in information-handling techniques is often recommended.

We may also suggest that the individual receives support to develop their self-esteem or to learn ways to deal with stress in a more positive way.

We know you want to move forward. Our advice and highly structured, jargon-free written reports enable both the individual and the organisation to do so with the knowledge that they have taken the very best advice possible - from the experienced experts at HDL.