Dyslexia - doing minutes at meetings

Bookowl

 Hi
 Does  anyone know if I take a job that involves administration duties and the duties include minutes at meetings. Would it be a reasonable adjustment that I do not do minutes for meetings and instead take on another colleagues work and then they can do minutes? My concern is that they ask for experience at application stage of minutes. I have previously done minutes at meetings, but it was action based...joe bloggs to.email/phone X. In other roles it’s a lot more detail and accurate record of what was discussed and this is where I struggle. Due to working memory issues impacting  on processing what was said for long enough to write it down.

elsien

It will depend on the requirements of the business. Reasonable adjustments have to be reasonable for the employer so if (for example) you are the only admin person there may not be anyone else who could do that part of the role. 

You could consider asking about other options such as recording the meeting and typing them up later but there isn’t going to be a one size fits all answer. 

juraj.kecso

Hi,

You really need to speak to the employer and let them know that you have dyslexia. If your condition is considered a disability under Equality Act, your employer has a duty to consider making reasonable adjustments to the role or your duties to ensure you are not put in detriment. If dyslexia affects your ability to write, including taking minutes of meetings, then adjustments need to be consider. Ideally, they should be asking you to attend OH assessment to get a better picture of what you can or cannot do and what should be considered to help you.

 What is reasonable depends on many factors including the size of the business, structure, team size etc. If, for example, you cannot take notes of meetings and there is no other admin, then it may not be reasonable to employ someone for just that specific task.

Mrs_Soup

You could ask to be allowed to record them. I am old school with minutes and would hate doing it like that but I have a number of non-dyslexic colleagues who prefer to work that way and have been allowed.  It just needs a dictaphone which is not overly expensive- think 20 quid not 200.

TBagpuss

It's likely to depend on a whole range of factors - for instance, if the job is mostly other things with occasional situations where minutes-taking is needed, then it is much more likely that an accommodation meaning you don't need to take minutes is reasonable than if it's a regular or major part of the job.

It would also depend on the way the rest of the job works - switching with someone else might work if the two of you work closely together and do the same job, but often, you doing bits of their job to free them up to take minutes may be very inefficient.

It's also worth trying to think of whether there are things you could change to enable you to do it - for instance : recording meetings to enable you to check your notes and fill in gaps, looking at having a laptop if typing would work better than taking handwritten notes, speech to text software so you are checking and summarising rather than making noes from scratch.. etc (I don't know what, if any, tools might help you, but if you can make specific proposals / requests for specific accommodations you know will work then it's more likely that an employer will be able to agree them)

but it may be, especially if doing minutes is a significant part of the job, that there isn't an accommodation which would be reasonable - since it's a skill that they have explicitly said is needed I think you need to raise it before you are offered / accept the role.

Bookowl

Thanks for all the replies. It does depend on what the role involves. 

Marcon

Get yourself a copy of this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1906221642/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i0

There's a whole host of sensible stuff in there, not least good advice on drafting minutes before you actually go to the meeting (using the agenda as the basis for your draft). Obviously you need to check that your draft accurately reflects what is actually said at the meeting!

Loulou2017

I'm dyslexia too and l can really sympathise with your situation. I use a dictaphone or a recorder and then play it to voice to text in Microsoft word.