Written by: Isabella Berger
Edited by: Grace Sargent
In the context of giving business advice, Kim Kardashian once infamously said, “Get your f------ ass up and work. It seems like nobody wants to work these days.” Although this quote might seem out of place in an article about autism, I believe it’s relevant because it highlights a popular position held by the general public: that there are certain groups of people who just don’t want to work, who can’t work, and who are thus a burden to society. Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are one such group of people. Cynthia Kim, a blogger who was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, once articulated this idea succinctly, “If you have poor EF [executive function], people might mistake you for being disorganized, lazy, incompetent, sloppy, or just plain not very bright” (Kim, 2014). Contrary to this inaccurate perception, people with autism do strive for employment, and, just like neurotypical people, they possess qualities that valorize them as employees
Neurodivergent people are assets to employers, which is a stance most companies don’t hold due to prejudice and poor assessment of neurodivergent strengths. Many people on the spectrum have poor executive function, a term which refers to mental processes such as working memory, self control, and time management. Social deficits are also common, such as difficulties reading social cues or lack of emotional reciprocity (Chasson & Jarosiewicz, 2014). Due to these characteristics, individuals with autism are too easily written off as being “bad workers”, but this is a superficial assessment.
Research has indicated that neurodivergent employees generally have fewer absences and lower levels of tardiness than neurotypical people (Griffiths et al., 2020). People with ASD are often above-average in skills that are invaluable employers as well. As an example, studies have shown that people with autism have enhanced pattern recognition and generation, skills that are essential to fields such as data analytics or radiology (Crespi, 2021). Autism is also associated with better spatial reasoning and mathematical thought, which are two aptitudes that Einstein was known to have possessed.
When companies have opened their doors to neurodiversity, the data has shown that neurodiverse people don’t just meet the bare minimum of workplace expectations, they excel. In 2015, JPMorgan Chase created an Autism at Work program which specifically hires people with ASD. They found that, on average, hires from this program were 90 - 140% more productive than employees who had been with the company for the past five to ten years (Furr, 2023). Hewlett Packard Enterprise, a multimillion information technology company, also tested an initiative promoting neurodiversity in the workplace, and found that their neurodiverse teams were 30% more productive than others (Pisano, 2021).
With all this being said, it’s important to avoid pigeonholing people with ASD into the box of the “autistic savant”. Just as the rest of the population has diversity in their capabilities, so do people with autism, and no two people will have the same capabilities. Some people with autism are high-functioning, while others are not. All too often, hiring managers exclude neurodiverse people as desirable candidates on the basis of their perceived shortcomings. For this reason, it’s beneficial to highlight their strengths while keeping in mind that there is no prototypical employee with autism.
Not only is employing people with ASD beneficial from a business perspective, but also from an individual and societal perspective. Employment allows people with disabilities to support themselves financially, and provides normality and socialization in their lives. Research has also demonstrated that adults with autism who gained vocational independence experienced improvements in everyday functioning (Smith et al., 2021). More generally, higher levels of employment decrease lost productivity for the population, and lessen reliance on government funding.
It stands to reason that businesses should be eager to employ people with autism, but the reality is that most people with autism don’t have a job. Although most adults on the spectrum are high functioning, an estimated 60% are unemployed, yet this isn’t for a lack of trying (Frank et al., 2018). Even for neurodivergent adults who have completed postsecondary education, 50-75% still remain unemployed (Jacob et al., 2015). These high unemployment rates are costly; in 2019 alone, the U.S. government spent 175 billion dollars supporting adults with ASD (Taylor et al., 2019). This expense only serves to bolster the harmful idea that individuals with autism are a financial burden.
There’s a simple way to reduce these costs: by employing people with autism.
Yet the advantages of employing individuals with autism and the rates at which they are actually employed contradict one another, so the question is, why don’t employers want to hire people with autism? The answer: prejudice, misconceptions, and a lack of understanding.
Too often, neurodivergent people don’t make it through the hiring process because employers are so blinded by certain traits, such as atypical communication styles or language deficiencies, that they overlook the strengths of prospective neurodiverse employees. Hiring managers may also worry about accommodations, and prematurely decide that this would disadvantage the company. At the end of the day, these are superficial barriers that originate from employers, not neurodiverse people, so the remedy to neurodivergent unemployment must stem from the employers themselves.
One such remedy is autism awareness training, which has been shown to improve outcomes in the workplace for people with autism (Petty et al., 2022). Training can help employers better understand the condition and learn how to create a support system for their neurodivergent employees. A support system often includes accommodations, which are essential to increase employment opportunities for people with autism. These accommodations may range from low stimulus workplaces to flexible work hours. Not just the accommodations themselves, but educating employers on the necessities of these accommodations and normalizing them in the workplace is also critical. Similar to how pregnant women are allotted maternity leave and people with diabetes are given breaks for glucose checks, neurodivergent people might be allowed to wear noise canceling headphones, or be given special written instructions. Lastly, employers need to set up neurodivergent people for success by putting them into positions that suit their unique skills and disposition. Just as it doesn’t make sense to expect a graphic designer to write programs in Javascript, neurodivergent people shouldn’t be expected to complete work that doesn’t align with their capabilities.
These are not inconvenient recommendations for employers to follow, but they become so preoccupied by the label of autism that they forget the person underneath the label. They forget that there is natural variation among people that will result in differing strengths, weaknesses, and eccentricities. For people without disabilities, weaknesses are not seen as a constraint of their strengths. For people with autism, if they have noise sensitivity or avoid eye contact, then their disposition is taken as a limitation on their ability to succeed in positions that aren’t even dependent upon noise or eye contact. Their eccentricities are automatically designated as something to be tolerated, whereas the neurotypical worker with the quirky personality is accepted or even beloved, and their performance capacity isn’t questioned.
Employers are afraid of the unknown, and right now, people with autism are considered the unknown because they haven’t been given the chance to cement their place in the workforce. If companies seek neurodivergence, then people with autism can prove they have what it takes to succeed, and normalize the hiring of employees like themselves. It’s up to employers to take a leap of faith by hiring outside of their comfort zone, but the data shows that they’ll be rewarded well for doing so.
Paul Isaacs, an autism advocate, once said, ““Do not fear people with autism, embrace them. Do not spite people with autism, unite them. Do not deny people with autism, accept them, for then their abilities will shine.” So let’s all follow Isaacs’ advice, because it isn’t autism that’s preventing people with ASD from succeeding.
References:
Chasson, G., Jarosiewicz, S.R. (2014). Social Competence Impairments in Autism Spectrum Disorders. In: Patel, V., Preedy, V., Martin, C. (eds) Comprehensive Guide to Autism. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4788-7_60
Frank, F., Jablotschkin, M., Arthen, T., Riedel, A., Fangmeier, T., Hölzel, L. P., & Tebartz van Elst, L. (2018). Education and employment status of adults with autism spectrum disorders in Germany - a cross-sectional-survey. BMC psychiatry, 18(1), 75. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-018-1645-7
Furr, P. (2023). Council post: Why it’s important to embrace neurodiversity in the workplace (and how to do it effectively). Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2023/03/07/why-its-important-to-embrace-neurodiversity-in-the-workplace-and-how-to-do-it-effectively/?sh=4c9a3ceb4669
Griffiths, A. J., Hanson, A. H., Giannantonio, C. M., Mathur, S. K., Hyde, K., & Linstead, E. (2020). Developing Employment Environments Where Individuals with ASD Thrive: Using Machine Learning to Explore Employer Policies and Practices. Brain sciences, 10(9), 632. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10090632
Jacob, A., Scott, M., Falkmer, M., & Falkmer, T. (2015). The Costs and Benefits of Employing an Adult with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review. PloS one, 10(10), e0139896. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0139896
Kim, C. (2014). Executive Function Primer (Part 1). Musings of an Aspie. https://musingsofanaspie.com/2014/01/07/executive-function-primer-part-1/
Petty, S., Tunstall, L., Richardson, H., & Eccles, N. (2023). Workplace Adjustments for Autistic Employees: What is 'Reasonable'?. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 53(1), 236–244. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-05413-x
Pisano, G. (2021). Neurodiversity is a competitive advantage. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2017/05/neurodiversity-as-a-competitive-advantage#:~:text=Over%20the%20past%20two%20years,more%20productive%20than%20the%20others
Smith DaWalt, L., Hickey, E., Hudock, R., Esler, A., & Mailick, M. (2021). Impact of Working Together for adults with autism spectrum disorder: a multifamily group intervention. Journal of neurodevelopmental disorders, 13(1), 44. https://doi.org/10.1186/s11689-021-09395-w
Taylor, J. L., Smith DaWalt, L., Marvin, A. R., Law, J. K., & Lipkin, P. (2019). Sex differences in employment and supports for adults with autism spectrum disorder. Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 23(7), 1711–1719. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361319827417
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