Neurodiversity in the Workplace

Interests, Issues, and Opportunities

Susanne M. Bruyère, Adrienne Colella, Susanne M. Bruyère, Adrienne Colella

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000604290
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicologia
• Subtopic: Storia e teoria della psicologia

Neurodiversity in the Workplace presents a timely and needed perspective on the role and responsibility of employers and those working to increase the effectiveness of workplace practices to examine the many ways we preclude large segments of the population from employment; minimizing opportunities for building a truly inclusive work environment.

This collection provides an opportunity to look at how discrimination can occur across the employment process and what can be done to minimize the exclusionary practices that prevent neurodiverse individuals from getting into the workplace, advancing, thriving, and contributing as each of us desires to do. With expertise from leading professionals, this book provides a holistic look at the application of leadership theories in a neurodiverse context and how the workplace can be adapted to accommodate for neurodiverse employees. This book also explores effective recruitment strategies by looking into applicant screening as well as interviewing and selection, adapting internal organizational resources to a neurodiverse workforce, and legal and regulatory environment considerations for autism hiring programs. Each chapter provides an overview of existing knowledge on effective workplace inclusion practices across the employment process, specific implications of research to date for a more neurodiversity-inclusive workplace, and what future research is needed to further inform these practices.

This volume is intended to increase awareness about the challenges and opportunities in making the workplace more neurodiversity-inclusive, making it instrumental for I/O and other psychologists. This book is also crucial for management and business consultants; employers; diversity, equity, and inclusion specialists; human resource professionals; and others interested in neurodiversity inclusion more broadly.

1 NEURODIVERSITY IN THE WORKPLACE

An Overview of Interests, Issues and Opportunities

Susanne M. Bruyère and Adrienne Colella

DOI: 10.4324/9781003023616-1

Introduction

This volume is focused on neurodiversity in the workplace because the topic presents a timely and needed perspective on the role and responsibility of employers and those working to increase the effectiveness of workplace practices, such as I/O psychologists, to more fully examine the many ways in which we preclude large segments of the population from employment and thereby minimize opportunities for building a truly inclusive work environment. It has been over 30 years since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and yet working-age people with disabilities are less than half as likely to be employed in the United States as their nondisabled peers, 38% compared to 80% for those without disabilities (Erickson et al., 2021). The employment rate comparisons for those with autism provide an even starker employment gap, with young adults with autism having far lower rates of employment than other youth with disabilities (Roux et al., 2015). And for those who have been able to secure employment, many of these autistic young adults are in low-wage and part-time jobs (Roux et al., 2015), offering little opportunities for longer-term career growth and earning. In fact, even those with college educations and relevant training may have difficulty getting into the workplace, or when they do, they are underemployed; 46% of the autistic adults who are employed are over-educated or exceed the skill level needed for the roles they are in (Baldwin et al., 2014). Similar disparities are evidenced in other countries as well. In the United Kingdom, for example, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) reports that disabled people with autism are among those disabled people with the lowest employment rate, with just 22% of Autistic adults in any kind of employment (Office of National Statistics, 2021).

Individuals with autism certainly are not the only population in the United States (and globally, of course) who experience significant inequities in access to meaningful and remunerative employment. But the growing number of people diagnosed merits its focus in this volume, as does the response of select industry sectors in recognizing this group as a largely untapped and desired talent pool and the proactive response to see this as an opportunity. Approximately 1 in 44 children has been identified with autism, according to the Center for Disease Control (Maenner et al., 2021). This is up from 1 in 166 in 2005, or over a 300% growth in 15 years. So one of the compelling reasons to focus on this population is the increasing prevalence rate. The other is the stunning response from industry over the past 6 to 10 years to explore how to take the unique characteristics of a segment of this population, such as attention to detail, ability to focus and ability to see patterns in data, and capitalize on it to mutual advantage for both companies and the individual.

Yet hiring, including and promoting a neurodiverse workforce can present challenges that have not been addressed to any extent in the I/O literature. The purpose of this volume is to present what research has been done and to move the field forward into doing research and practice that promote a neurodiverse workforce. In this chapter, we discuss how the increased prevalence of this population, attention to the unique characteristics of Autistic people and the war for talent has led to a nexus of forces that have resulted in a potential revolution in appreciation of how difference can be an asset that should be valued and nurtured. We will talk about the evolution of affirmative hiring programs for people with disabilities in the context of the war on talent, provide some background information on neurodiversity with a focus on autism and provide an overview of the chapters that follow. The topics for this volume were selected because they provide an opportunity to look at how discrimination can occur across the employment process and what can be done to minimize the exclusionary practices that needlessly prevent Autistic individuals from getting into the workplace, advancing there and ultimately being able to thrive and contribute as each of us desires to do. The authors have been invited to contribute to this volume because of their unique expertise in addressing the topic, both from an organizational research perspective and from a diversity and inclusion perspective, particularly with a focus on neurodiversity. It is our hope that in the iterative story across these chapters about how to build a more neurodiversity-inclusive workplace, we will also learn lessons to take forward about how workplaces can be more welcoming to many other underrepresented groups.

The War for Talent and One Sector's Response

The term “war for talent” was coined by a group from McKinsey and Company in 1998 in a related publication by the same name (Chambers et al., 1998). The past two or three decades have shown a tremendous growth in the tech and tech-intensive corporate sectors, often far-outpacing the availability of qualified workers to fill the many new jobs created in response to the need. Almost a decade ago, McKinsey reported estimates suggesting that by 2020, employers in the world’s richest nations will produce 18 million fewer college-educated workers than needed (Nielsen, 2012). More recently, Gartner (2019) reported that “today’s organizations face a very dynamic talent landscape where it’s increasingly hard to find and keep critical skills. Demand for talent is converging on the critical skills needed to meet business priorities, especially digitalization” (p. 3). Gartner Talent-Neuron™ data reported that “49% of all job postings by S&P 100 companies in 2018 were for just 39 roles – all of which require in-demand skills such as data analysis, advanced coding and solution selling” (Gartner, 2019, p. 3). By 2030, it is estimated that the demand for skilled workers will outstrip supply, resulting in a global talent shortage of more than 85.2 million people (Korn, 2018).

One response to the need for talent has been an exploration by some companies to tap the talent of individuals with autism (Parmar, 2017; Szczerba, 2016). Employers in technology and tech-intensive sectors began to design and execute affirmative hiring programs for Autistic job candidates (Hedley et al., 2016; Hurley-Hanson & Giannantonio, 2017). An increasing number of companies are now following the early adopters, seeking to take advantage of what they see as a possible way to address needed talent for certain positions in which the distinct characteristics of Autistic individuals could be leveraged. This much more inclusive perspective takes the benefits of the perceived advantage of a diverse work team in creativity and productivity to a whole new level of what it means to be an inclusive workplace.

This trend has caught on in other large multinational software services and cybersecurity companies, as well as more recently in the finance and accounting sectors. SAP began its Autism at Work program in 2013 with an aspirational objective of having 1% of its workforce represented by employees with autism (Bort, 2013; Pisano & Austin, 2016). In Australia, DXC Technology, formerly Hewlett Packard Enterprise, initially building off of an approach used by Specialisterne, established The Dandelion Program in 2015 (Austin & Sonne, 2014) and added a contractual service offering for the company’s government and later private-sector clients, drawing on the talents of people with autism. Microsoft’s Autism Hiring Program began in 2015 and states that it is designed to identify and remove the barriers that would prevent those with autistic spectrum disorders from finding meaningful employment in the company, saying that “we built the Microsoft Neurodiversity Hiring Program on the belief that traditional recruiting does not allow individuals who are Neurodiverse to demonstrate their strengths and qualifications” (Microsoft, 2021). IBM has a long history of supporting people with disabilities and in 2015 initiated a neurodivergent recruitment program that by 2020 was in eight countries with plans to continue growing and expanding (IBM, 2020). With input from neurodivergent IBM employees, the company redesigned its hiring process to include more neurodivergent-friendly strategies with the intent of moving these approaches into the future mainstream of IBM hiring practices (IBM, 2020).

JPMorgan Chase launched Autism at Work in July 2015 as a four-person pilot. Since then, it has grown to include over 125 people in seven countries. People are hired into a variety of roles (reportedly now 40-plus roles in ten lines of business) in technology functions such as software engineering, app development, quality assurance, technology operations, and business analysis, with one employee reported to be a personal banker (JPMorgan Chase, 2019). In 2017, EY launched its second Center of Excellence (CoE) targeting Autistic employees in Dallas, where the team focuses on cybersecurity, robotic process automation, and complex analytics. The company also has been keeping comparative performance metrics on its CoE employees and reports that they perform a wide range of highly advanced tasks with remarkable quality and efficiency, with low error rates (EY, 2018), and continues to expand its programs to other parts of the United States (EY, 2021).

Despite the impact of the pandemic, the tech-sector economy continues to be strong, and companies are still looking for talent, suggesting that seeing what we can learn from these affirmative hiring programs for neurodiverse talent is timely, particularly given the drive to now learn more about improving employment equitably more broadly.

What Are Autism and Neurodiversity

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex developmental condition that involves persistent challenges in social interaction, speech and nonverbal communication and restricted/repetitive behaviors. The effects of ASD and the severity of symptoms are different in each person (American Psychiatric Association, 2019). Autism differs greatly from person to person. Individuals with ASD demonstrate a wide range of abilities and characteristics, and it is important to understand that people with the same diagnosis may present themselves quite differently. While many people with autism have normal intelligence or above, others have mild or significant intellectual delays. In addition, people with ASD are at greater risk for some medical conditions such as sleep problems, seizures and mental illnesses (American Psychiatric Association, 2019).

Neurodiversity is the diversity of ways in which human brains think, learn, relate to others and interpret the world (Honeybourne, 2020). The term “neurodiversity” is credited to Judy Singer, who, in her book Neurodiversity: The Birth of an Idea, talks about how autism has risen from a medicalized diagnosis to become a social movement (2016). “Neurodiversity is a concept where neurological differences are to be recognized and respected as any other human variation. These differences can include those labeled with Dyspraxia, Dyslexia, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Dyscalculia, Autistic Spectrum, Tourette’s Syndrome and others” (National Symposium on Neurodiversity at Syracuse University, 2011; Sumner & Brown, 2015).

The current interest in affirmative hiring of neurodiverse individuals, starting with a focus on Autistic individuals, is helping, however, to change the thinking about neurodiversity from something that has been labeled a “disorder” toward an appreciation of these differences as a natural part of human diversity and as having potential assets to be valued. In this volume, you will see a wide variety of language used describing the population of focus, based on the literature that our authors are drawing from, their own disciplinary backgrounds and familiarity with the changing thinking around how we talk about autism and Autistic people. Among autism advocates, the word “condition” is preferred to “disorder,” which connotes something that is wrong. Some leaders in the autism self-advocacy movement prefer the terms “neurominority” or “neurodivergent,” and you will see these and other terminology differences reflected in select chapters in this volume. The terminology is continually shifting and under discussion, reflecting a conceptual evolution as different societies and stakeholders progress their understanding of the meaning of variances in cognition and the implications for employment and the workplaces of the future (Doyle & McDowell, 2021).

In addition, some individuals with autism see their characteristics as a valued part of their identity, which they embrace. The following explanation from the Autistic Self Advocacy Society (ASAN) provides a fuller explanation of the conversation around language regarding autism and Autistic individuals:

In the autism community, many self-advocates and their allies prefer terminology such as “Autistic,” “Autistic person,” or “Autistic individual” because we understand autism as an inherent part of an individual’s identity – the same way one refers to “Muslims,” “African-Americans,” “Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer,” “Chinese,” “gifted,” “athletic,” or “Jewish.” On the other hand, many parents of Autistic people and professionals who work with Autistic people prefer terminology such as “person with autism,” “people with autism,” or “individual with ASD” because they do not consider autism to be part of an individual’s identity and do not want their children to be identified or referred to as “Autistic.” They want “person-first language,” that puts “person” before any identifier such as “autism,” in order to emphasize the humanity of their children.

(ASAN, 2021)

In this volume, we want to acknowledge the growing preference of the autism advocacy community while staying true to the terminology in the literature that chapter authors are drawing from and respecting authors’ language preferences and understanding of these current dialogues about identity-first versus person-first language that is occurring. Consistent with identity-first language, we capitalize the word “Autistic” when referring to an individual and use lowercase references to autism as a condition or diagnosis.

An Overview of This Neurodiversity SIOP Frontiers Research Volume

With this background about the interest in neurodiversity hiring and autism in particular, we proceed with an overview of the material in this volume, providing a brief overview of each chapter, highlighting why the chapter has been included in this volume and what it offers to the overall picture of understanding the initiatives, the challenges and the solutions being explored currently by companies, and that I/O psychologists can contribute to, in working to increase employment and workplace inclusion of neurodiverse individuals, especially those who are Autistic.

To begin, Chapter 2 explores how organizations can bolster their workplace inclusion in ways that consider the natural variation in human neurocognitive functioning to provide altered workplace environments that leverage the strengths of all employees. In a chapter entitled “Shaping Organizational Climates to Develop and Leverage Workforce Neurodiversity,” by Sabrina Volpone, Derek Avery and Julie Wayne, the authors ask why “instead of placing the unnecessary burden on neurodivergent individuals, what if workplaces altered their environments so that all employees – including those who are neurodivergent – could easily apply their strengths at work?” Throughout the chapter, the authors discuss how neurotypical norms have dominated human resource management practices for so long that there is a crucial need to critically analyze these norms and establish new norms if we are going to be able to support neurodivergent applicants and employees. The response offered by these authors is to closely examine all facets of the employment process in light of the role of climate in considering neurodiversity in the workplace. This is accomplished by an initial discussion of the role of psychological climates and their role in supporting neurodiversity in organizations. Specifically, the authors identify diversity, inclusion and ethical climates as crucial to focus on as organizations make changes in their workplaces to be more supportive of neurodiversity. They next review the literature surrounding organizational efforts thus far to discuss what practices have been successful as companies have implemented neurodiversity programs. This discussion is tightly tied to specific ways to bolster diversity, inclusion and ethical climates across each of the eight primary functions of human resource management (HRM) (i.e., selection, compensation/benefits, employee relations, occupational health/safety, training/development, talent management, job design, and retention).

Following the steps in the employment process, Chapter 3, “Recruitment Strategies: Generating a Neurodiverse Workforce,” by Cristina Giannantonio and Amy Hurley-Hanson, examines the role that recruitment strategies might play in generating a neurodiverse workforce for the benefit of organizations, neurodivergent individuals and members of Generation A, the half million Autistic individuals who are expected to enter the workforce in the current decade. While there has been extensive research conducted on recruitment activities from the organization’s perspective more broadly, far less empirical work has been conducted to date that is research examining the efficacy of recruitment strategies for promoting an effective pipeline development of candidates for a more neurodiverse workforce. In this chapter, research on recruitment strategies i...