Friday, December 9, 2016

Hiring Autism Only, or, Meet Auticon

Finding a job as an autistic adult is difficult.  If we manage to get hired at all, it's often at jobs under our skill levels, or ones that will simply ignore or tolerate our differences.  The first situation has a name: underemployment.  And sadly it's a general phenomenon for the younger generations.  The second is more of a societal issue.  Autism is diagnosed by the DSM-V, and thus to most peoples' minds is a mental illness.  A problem.  Something to be troubleshot, ignored, or treated.


That isn't ideal.  Autism, while challenging, also comes with a number of benefits that can be used in business to make everyone's life better.  That's been the idea behind Specialisterne, and it's the idea behind Auticon, a small company in London, England.  I've mentioned Specialisterne before, but I had the impression that they hire people with various kinds of diagnoses, not just autism.  Auticon literally only hires people with autism.

I was, on finding out about this hiring policy, curious as to how high the hiring policy went in the company.  Was the whole company made of autistic people?  How do they handle the predictable miscommunications between autistic people and neurotypical people?  It wouldn't be completely impossible to have an entire company of only autistic people.  But very difficult, I think.  The company offers tech services.  Autistic people have been shown to do very well with tech work, over the years, which is why it's the base work for various companies that employ autistic people.  So the solutions wouldn't be the problem, so much as how those solutions are presented, and how the contractor behaves while at the client company.  Some people are just very touchy about the way things should be, and I'm including neurotypical people in that statement too.  Too many deviations from the social norms, and patience frays, tempers rise, and the solutions and hard work done by the autistic person might as well be wasted.

So I examined the website.  I can't say for sure, but from the bios, the Team page may be mainly or entirely comprised of non-autistic people.  So the founder, CEOs, hiring manager, head of operations, and job coach, likely do not fall on the spectrum.  Instead, they curate and support a staff of 80+ autistic tech consultants, who are dispatched out to client companies to solve specific problems.  Each consultant also comes with a job coach/support staff back at Auticon, who helps smooth the process and clears up any misunderstandings that may occur.  The website says their principle is: "As little support as possible but as much as needed."

By the recognition and awards they brandish on their website, it seems they're succeeding at their business plan.  The site is also unapologetically positive about autism.  There's a small section of the site that talks about the diagnosis, but mainly in the "this is how these people can benefit your company" vein.  Which makes sense, given that they are, in the end, a business.

So far, in the United States, I've only heard of broader hiring programs, rather than specific companies.  Microsoft, for instance, has a hiring program going for autistic people.  Specialisterne has a US division, but I'm not sure about a brick-and-mortar building.  And there are certain US-government contractors that exchange a priority for hiring autistic and other diagnosed workers for precedence in bids on government work.  I'd like to see a US version of Auticon, preferably in Michigan where it can employ my friends.

More than that, though, I'd like to see an entire company truly run by autistic people.  The possibility is there.  Rather than pour my energy into understanding computers, I learned early on that I had to understand people.  I'm still working on it, obviously, but my brain is a credible piece of machinery for dealing with people, societal rules, and situations in general.  I've had to become immensely flexible.  I could probably serve as a job coach at Auticon, maybe higher in the business with some work.  I dunno if I have the business sense to be a CEO, but I'll bet there's someone with autism out there who loves business, studied it with the same intensity I studied people, and could do a fine job.

In short, an all-autistic company would be possible.  Very very VERY difficult, but possible.  I'd love to see it. 

No comments:

Post a Comment