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Rethinking ‘Smart’: What Learning Disability Week Teaches Us About Workplace Value
We talk a lot about hiring for diversity. But we rarely talk about training for it.
Lately, businesses have done a great job of opening their front doors to a wider mix of people. We see genuinely inclusive job ads, panels discussing neurodiversity, and hiring processes designed to look beyond old biases. It’s a brilliant, long-overdue shift.
But a quiet, incredibly frustrating pattern usually starts the exact moment a new employee signs their contract.
On Monday morning, a talented new team member arrives, excited and full of potential. By Monday afternoon, they are handed a flat, 50-page text-heavy compliance PDF, or thrown into a rigid, fast-paced onboarding track built for a 1950s “one-size-fits-all” brain.
This June marks Learning Disability Week, and the charity Mencap has chosen a beautifully direct theme this year: “Do you see me?”
It’s a question that stretches far beyond social care – it knocks directly on the doors of our offices and workplaces. When we bring diverse thinkers into our teams only to force them through a rigid, old-school training process, we aren’t actually seeing them. We are just asking them to mask who they are to fit a mould that already exists.
The Way We Define ‘Smart’ is Broken
To build a workplace where people can actually thrive, we have to look closely at how modern offices quietly define intelligence. If you look at a standard corporate training session, “capability” is almost always measured by two deeply flawed metrics: how fast you process things, and how well you memorise text on the spot.
We praise the employee who can skim a massive slide deck in thirty seconds and immediately regurgitate the facts. We build online modules with stressful countdown timers, host high-pressure live workshops, and treat fast talking as the ultimate sign of leadership potential.
But speed is not the same thing as intellect.
When someone has a learning disability or a trait like dyslexia or ADHD, their brain processes, organises, and holds onto information differently. It doesn’t mean they can’t handle big-picture strategy, innovation, or creative problem-solving. In fact, these professionals are often spectacular at spotting patterns, thinking outside the box, and solving complex problems that leave linear thinkers completely stuck.
Instead of tapping into that talent, traditional training systems just create exhausting, artificial hurdles. If a new starter has to spend 90% of their mental energy simply fighting a badly formatted page or trying to follow a chaotic, fast-paced lecture, they only have 10% left to actually learn the job.
When we force every single brain to learn the exact same way, we aren’t measuring talent at all. We are simply measuring someone’s ability to blend into a system that was never designed for them in the first place.
Beyond the Open Door: Where Onboarding Falls Short
Getting diverse candidates through the front door is only half the battle. If the training that follows is built on the assumption that every brain works exactly the same way, we are inadvertently setting people up to fail.
When you look at how standard corporate onboarding actually plays out, it usually misses the mark in three distinct ways:
The "Tick-the-Box" Digital Trap:
Too often, companies rely on generic, off-the-shelf online compliance modules to tick the diversity box. They might look sleek and modern, but they rarely drive real change. Relying on an automated slide deck completely ignores the actual day-to-day culture of an organisation and the real needs of the person sitting in front of the screen.
The Unwritten Social Code:
Traditional onboarding is notoriously messy. It relies heavily on ambiguous instructions, chaotic environments, and unwritten office rules. Without clear, structured milestones or flexible ways to communicate, the first few weeks can feel incredibly isolating and overwhelming for anyone who processes information differently.
The Untrained Manager Bottleneck:
It’s easy for a company to pass down a beautifully written inclusion policy from HR. But problems happen when line managers on the ground aren’t given the practical tools or the confidence to actually use it. When a new employee needs a simple adjustment to their learning, an untrained manager will often default to the rigid, old-school training track simply because “that’s the way we’ve always done it.”
From Awareness to Action: Practical Ways to Build Better Training
Making your training accessible isn’t about doing anyone a favour or ticking a legal compliance box under the UK Equality Act. It’s simply about giving talented people a fair shot.
If we want to move past tokenism and actually value how different brains work, we need to change how we deliver information. Here are four practical places to start:
1. Ditch the Jargon and Keep it Simple
Standard workplace training is often buried under mountains of text and abstract corporate language. A better approach is to adopt “Easy Read” principles:
- Write like a human: Break information down into short, clear sentences that tackle one main idea at a time. Leave the corporate buzzwords and confusing idioms behind.
- Use visual anchors: Pair your text with clear, relevant images or simple icons that illustrate your point.
- Fix the layout: Use clean, readable fonts like Arial, Calibri, or OpenDyslexic at a minimum size of 14pt. Give the text plenty of breathing room with generous line spacing, and avoid giant blocks of ALL CAPS or italics, which can visually distort words and make them incredibly frustrating to read.
2. Give People Options Beyond Reading
Forcing someone to learn solely by reading a massive manual or sitting through a long lecture builds an immediate wall. Instead, offer different ways to absorb the same information:
- Mix in audio and video: Ensure digital modules include high-quality text-to-speech options. Swap out a dense text manual for a short, captioned video summary showing a process in action.
- Let them try it out: Replace theory with practical application. Instead of making a new employee read a massive guide to your internal software, let them test it in a safe “sandbox” environment alongside a colleague.
3. Break Up the Time and the Pacing
How you deliver training is just as important as the content itself. Cramming everything into a massive, single session rarely works.
- Bite-sized blocks: Break long training paths into short, independent modules. Try delivering information in focused 20-to-30-minute windows, followed immediately by a quick practical task to lock the concept in.
- Ditch the formal quizzes: You don’t need a high-pressure written test to check if someone understands their training. Let people record an audio answer, use voice-to-text software, or simply chat through a verbal check-in with a team member.
4. Lean on Human Connection
No training software on earth can replace real human support and empathy.
- Set up a buddy system: Pair your new employee with an experienced, patient colleague who isn’t their boss. This gives them a safe, low-pressure space to ask “silly” questions, double-check instructions, or learn those unwritten office rules without feeling judged.
- Bring in specialist support: Don’t hesitate to partner with external experts or government schemes. A professional workplace coach can work directly with a new starter to help them digest company materials, find their feet, and build confident daily routines.
Do You See Me?
This Learning Disability Week, as we reflect on that central question – “Do you see me?” – businesses need to take a hard look at how they actually operate day to day. True inclusion doesn’t stop the moment a contract is signed.
If your onboarding and training systems aren’t adjusted for people with learning disabilities, you aren’t actually seeing your newest talent. You’re making them invisible. By moving away from the idea that everyone has to learn the exact same way, we can finally build workplaces where every kind of mind has the space to do great work.
For more insights from Dr Sue Wilkinson, click the link below.
Dr Sue Wilkinson – Neurodiversity Expert
