In today’s highly competitive marketplace, finding and retaining the right people for the position can make all the difference in the success of your company. However, many fields are finding that it’s hard to do both of these tasks as the number of highly qualified candidates is dwindling. This is why many major corporations, including household names like Microsoft and JP Morgan Chase, are turning to austistic talent to help boost their business model. Recognizing that traditional hiring processes are heavily weighted against neurodiverse workers, these progressive companies are starting to use autism talent management agencies to help them recruit and keep the best autistic talent.
Talent Acquisition and Talent Management
As you look for the best autistic talent agency Vancouver has to offer, you’ll notice that they will offer two separate services: talent acquisition and talent management. While they sound identical, they refer to two very different portions of the hiring process. Talent acquisition is the process by which they will go about finding and training austistic workers for the workplace, while talent management is the onboarding support that the agency will provide to your business to make the employment a long term success. It’s clear that you’ll need to utilize both of these services if you’re going to tap in the unique talents of autistic workers.
Talent Acquisition Strategies For Autism
One of the main challenges facing any hiring manager who is looking to develop neurodiversity in their workplace is that the traditional model of application and face to face interview is heavily biased towards neurotypical individuals. This is because it relies on a range of skills, such as generalizing, abstract thought processes and reading subtle social cues, that autistic job seekers find extremely challenging. To overcome these obstacles, agencies that offer autism talent acquisitions services will often use some these strategies:
- Meet and greet – rather than have autistic job seekers apply for specific roles, autistic talent management agencies will often start their process with a meet and greet where they are able to get to know the individual, their strengths and weaknesses as well as their career preferences. These will help to make a better, long last match.
- Online training – a benefit of the pandemic is that a lot of job training can now be completed independently online which suits many autistic workers. This allows them to work at their own speed and receive immediate personalized feedback on their performance.
- Holistic support – finally, autism talent agencies recognize that there is more to a worker than just the job itself. There are a whole set of skills surrounding it, including getting ready in the morning and navigating the commute. Part of the talent acquisition stage is to provide training and support for all aspects of their employees lives.
Talent Management Strategies For Autism
Once the high quality autistic talent has been recruited and trained for the workplace, it’s then a question of working with both the individual and the hiring organization to make the employment a long term success. Some of the common talent management strategies for autistic workers include:
- Pre-hire staff training – a great place to start with any austistic talent management program is to work with the existing neurotypical staff to explore autism and hopefully bust some common misconceptions about the disorder. Not only does this raise awareness of autism in general, but it allows staff to discuss some of the challenges that they may face with their new colleagues and give them some new skills to help everyone to succeed.
- Environmental accommodations – another talent management strategy for autistic workers to make accommodations to the workplace environment. These can be physical changes, such as reduced noise levels or changing the light fixtures, or structural changes, such as providing detailed agendas for meetings or a checklist for routine tasks.
- A dedicated support team – finally, having a dedicated team around the autistic worker is one of the biggest predictors of long term success. This goes beyond just their immediate supervisor and line managers to having someone available to debrief tricky situations and who they can turn to ask for personal and professional help. While this team can be made up of employees from the hiring organization, it can also include individuals from the talent management agency.
As you start your journey to a more diverse and inclusive hiring model, using autism talent agencies will be a great tool to find your first hires and to help you make the necessary changes to your hiring and business models to help you tap into the unique talents of autistic workers.