Roger Ellison – Quality Improvement Manager

“I don’t allow my health problems to get in the way of work. If there’s something I want to do, I focus on how to get there”

As a teenager, Roger Ellison of Hartlepool received all the help he needed to cope with arthritis. He had an operation on his knees to improve his walking and was prescribed painkillers to ease the arthritic pain that gradually spread through his body. However, it took almost three decades for his hidden disability to be finally diagnosed.

Like many people, Roger, 36, lived and worked with what he thought was some kind of information processing problem, all the time not knowing that he had dyslexia.

Positive role model

Now as a senior manager in a training organisation, Roger has become a positive role model for the young people who attend training programmes at the company. He is also proof that living with both a physical and a hidden disability is not a barrier to employment or career progression.

Employer’s story

“Culture overrides policy” says Bob Henderson, General Manager at Milltech Training. The company specialises in preparing apprentices for employment in the car industry and in business administration. As in most companies, policies and procedures promote equal opportunities for all staff, irrespective of what disabilities or health problems they may have. But valuing staff for their abilities goes beyond policy according to Bob. He says: “Our attitude towards staff is driven by what we believe is the right thing to do rather than by what is written down in some policy.”

At Milltech, the inclusive practice is not just about ensuring all staff or potential staff have equal opportunities. It’s also about doing what makes good business sense. “Irrespective of their disabilities, we recruit staff because of the occupational expertise they bring to the company and finding staff with the right expertise isn’t easy. So once we’ve recruited them, we tend to cherish our staff because we want to keep them.”

Good example

Roger is a good example of the kind of employee Milltech likes to recruit and retain. “He is unique in his ability to absorb information,” says Bob. “He really knows his stuff and he has a reputation for being the company oracle. If you need to know anything, Roger is the person to ask. He’s good at his job and is also very good at implementing policies.”

Roger’s dyslexia does not have a negative impact on his job. In fact, the opposite is true. Bob says: “It actually brings something to the business because when Roger tells a sixteen year old with dyslexia, that he has it too, it has a huge impact on that young person.”

Employee's story

Throughout his career, Roger has always maintained a clear sense of direction and that he says, has helped him overcome any barriers that could have arisen as a result of his disabilities. Although he developed his own coping strategies to deal with the difficulties he had with words, such as taking his time to read and digest information, once his dyslexia was diagnosed, Roger welcomed the support he received from Milltech.

When Roger was first recruited, he was employed as an ‘Additional Learning Support’ tutor and it was his job to support the learning of trainees who had difficulties with literacy and numeracy. The ‘added value’ that Roger brought to the role, was his personal experience of living with dyslexia and his ability to empathise with trainees who faced the same problems as he had done for many years.

Supportive environment

Being promoted to a management role was a positive move for Roger but presented more challenges, because report writing is a key part of his job as the Quality Improvement Manager. He says: “I still struggle with writing and worry about what people will think when they see something I’ve written. But I receive allocated support from one of our administrators who checks over documents that I write. She helps me to correct words and sentences.”

Staff are aware that he has dyslexia but Roger feels that their non-judgemental attitude and the supportive environment at the company help him deal with any embarrassment that could arise from having dyslexia. As for his arthritis, it’s a condition that he has learnt to live with. He no longer takes medication to manage the pain in his joints but has found pain control techniques such as meditation very effective.

As a manager who lives with his own disabilities and manages staff who also have health problems and disabilities, Roger is unequivocal about how employers can best respond to disability issues in the workplace. “They need to look at what a person is capable of doing” he says. “Look at what drives them. What direction are they heading in? Someone may have a disability but so what? If they can do the job, in the end that’s what really matters.”

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