Rita Jandu felt she was “singled out” by Marks & Spencer due to her dyslexia.
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Rita Jandu, who is dyslexic, lost her job for issues including concerns about errors in her emails.
She claimed disability discrimination and unfair dismissal against UK retailer Marks & Spencer.
An employment tribunal awarded Jandu £53,855 after managers ignored the impact of dyslexia on her work.
A dyslexic worker was unfairly dismissed for making errors in her emails, an employment tribunal has ruled.
Rita Jandu was awarded £53,855 (almost $65,000) last week after she successfully claimed disability discrimination and unfair dismissal against her former employer, the UK retailer Marks & Spencer.
Jandu told the tribunal that she struggled to read and write long emails and preferred to communicate in bullet points. Her employer was aware of her longstanding diagnosis of dyslexia, but failed to offer adequate support, according to Jandu.
She was laid off in July 2020 by Marks & Spencer in redundancies linked to pandemic-related financial pressures.
Staff were rated on various criteria to determine who should lose their jobs. According to the company’s notes, Jandu’s ranking was “totally marginal” and would have kept her job had she scored just one more point.
Jandu said she felt “singled out” and suspected “unconscious bias” concerning her dyslexia had affected her employer’s assessment of her work.
She was selected for redundancy due to concerns over inaccuracies and spelling errors in her emails. Her assessment read: “Rita’s performance is good but there have been question marks over her consistency and accuracy.”
At a meeting in September 2020, a manager told Jandu: “Sometimes communications appear rushed and not thought through.”
Jandu attributed this to her dyslexia. She said: “Writing emails is the worst part of my day, it takes me ages to write an email.” She also noted that her previous line manager “proofread every single email” she sent, but never raised any concerns about her “tone.”
Jandu had worked for Marks & Spencer for 22 years and had been in the role of clothing and home planner since 2013.
After being selected for redundancy, Jandu’s manager suggested she apply for other roles, but Jandu told the court she felt unable to do so since she was “so upset about losing the job that she loved.”
Ultimately, the tribunal ruled that managers had ignored the impact of Jandu’s dyslexia on her work.
The ruling stated that her manager “allowed her perception that [Jandu] was prone to ‘rushing’ and ‘inaccuracies’ to count against her. These were things caused by her disability.”
A spokesperson for Marks & Spencer told Insider: “We are disappointed by the tribunal’s decision. We ensure that all line managers conducting assessments for redundancy exercises complete mandatory training so that scoring is fair and objective. We pride ourselves on being an inclusive place of work for all colleagues, regardless of ability.”
In a statement, Jandu said: “I am delighted that I had the strength to go all the way, and I hope this gives other people out there the courage not to accept being treated the way I was.”
Zillur Rahman, her solicitor, said: “The employment judge has found what we stated all along in this case, which is that the managers were not experts in dyslexia and not enough was done by them to make enquiries into her disability, including making reasonable adjustments and obtaining specialist advice from Occupational Health, which we told them to do. Disabilities are often overlooked and it is simply not good enough for an employer the size of M&S to behave in this manner.”