Many organisations are now familiar with the advantages they can gain from diversity in their workforce and most consider diversity in social backgrounds, gender, culture, and other individual qualities of their employees. Benefits from neurodiversity are similar but more direct. Because neurodivergent people are wired differently from “neurotypical” people, they may bring new perspectives to a company’s efforts to create or recognise value.
The case for neurodiverse hiring is especially compelling given the skills shortages that increasingly afflict technology and other industries. The biggest deficits are expected to be in strategically important and rapidly expanding areas such as IT security, data analytics and IT services implementation, whose tasks are a good match with the abilities of some neurodivergent people.
A growing number of companies, including SAP, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, and Microsoft, have reformed their HR processes to access neurodiverse talent. They have reported seeing productivity gains, quality improvement, boosts in innovative capabilities, and increased employee engagement as a result.
To create a neurodiverse workforce, there are three key things that your organisation can do today to attract and retain highly skilled workers on the autism spectrum: Start by having an awareness of your current organisation and its needs; adapt your hiring practices that could be unintentionally eliminating people on the autism spectrum; and review how you communicate both within and out with your organisation.
auticon, an International IT Consultancy and Advisory business, exclusively employing autistic consultants, can help you plan and implement these changes, enabling you to tap into the traits and talents of neurodivergent people which are beneficial to business: the ability to look at a problem differently, see trends in large amounts of data, apply problem-solving methodologies, and persist and follow through on repetitive tasks. These abilities lend themselves to high performance in technology roles.
auticon Scotland have obtained funding from the Scottish Government as part of their ‘Increasing the Understanding of Autism’ campaign and are using this funding to launch their Autism Advisory Service in Scotland. This service can work with you and your organisation and make recommendations as to how you can attract, recruit and retain your own neurodiverse talent. The bonus is that while auticon have this Scottish Government funding, they are able to offer this service with no charge.
To find out more, please contact auticon directly: emma.walker@auticon.co.uk