Senate Select Committee on Autism submission
15th July 2020 To whom it may concern,
We are delighted to have the opportunity to contribute to the Select Committee on Autism and to shape the future of services, support and life outcomes for autistic people in Australia. Seeking input from a wide range of individuals, families, researchers, experts is a wise and welcome step.
Xceptional is an award-winning tech platform that harnesses the strengths of autistic
people, securing them meaningful careers in areas such as business, technology,
engineering, administration, compliance, project management and accounting. Xceptional’s unique skills assessment tools help organisations to identify skills during the recruitment process they might otherwise miss, matching them to the skills required to do the job being advertised. Skills such as high levels of concentration, creative problem solving, persistence, accuracy, and an excellent memory. We have worked with more than 150 amazing individuals on the spectrum in 2019 and 2020. More than 50% of our management team are on the spectrum, or have an autistic sibling or child.
Autistic employment is such a crucial area for this inquiry. Given that autistic people, like the rest of the population, spend more of their life as working age as against school age, we would argue that employment should be one of the most important areas addressed. Figures from ABS, Disability, Ageing and Carers, Australia: Summary of Findings, 2018 show 74.9% of Australian autistic working age adults are either not in the labour force or unemployed. Far more research has been focused on children and education; this posits employment as a significant research opportunity.
For this submission we will focus on the following critical points related to Autistic
Employment
- Retention conditions and barriers to employment
- NDIS & Employment Services
- Leadership conditions and media portrayal
- Changes in technology companies
- A systemic transformation is needed Retention conditions and barriers to employment Much of the existing body of research on employment of autistic people focuses on the barriers they face. We know, even before applying, many autistic people are dissuaded from entering the workforce due to lack of career advice and transition support. The traditional recruitment process is especially tough and does not allow autistic people to perform well. For example Townsley et al (2014), Employment and young people with autistic spectrum disordersfound “CVs and application forms rely heavily on social and communication skills”.
The majority of autistic people experience challenges with job interviews as they require individuals to “think on my feet,”“processing questions,” or “being able to speak at all.”
More can be done to understand the specific challenges of the recruitment process such as
aptitude assessments, test performance under stressful conditions and job interview
adaptations such as work sample tasks which focus on demonstrating skills rather than ability to describe and promote one’s skills.
Furthermore, we are finding that there is insufficient focus on retention, and only limited understanding of success factors for long-term employment. Anecdotal data collected from Xceptional’s job coaching and support programs show autistic employees report challenges related to lack of employer understanding and autism awareness training, flexibility at work, social and communication issues and sensory overload. When this is coupled with the autistic community generally being very poor advocates for themselves and not having the support structures in place to assist with job coaching and professional growth it results in underemployment. The Autism and Employment Report, Amaze 2019 found 45% of autistic adults have skills higher than required in their current job. In contrast, underemployment for the general population is 8.1%.
Autism and Employment Report, Amaze 2019
NDIS & Employment Services
The vast majority of the autistic individuals who come to Xceptional for recruitment services are not registered with NDIS and therefore do not have an NDIS plan. The reasons for this low take up rate for working age autistic adults needs to be addressed. Do they not have a plan because NDIS was established after their childhood years? Is the process a barrier? Is
the communication around employment and NDIS getting to the right people? Are these individuals being diagnosed in adulthood and don’t have access to supports due to lack of knowledge about services? Do they not fit the current criteria for support plans? Does this mean that they are too “high functioning” to need NDIS support but still impacted by autism to the extent that they are unemployed?
If individuals do have an NDIS plan, employment services like job coaching are rarely included and therefore they can’t use funds to engage support for professional purposes.
Additionally, the annual cost of small businesses like Xceptional to gain compliance and be an NDIS registered provider is between $100,000 and $150,000. The current system is a barrier for companies like ourselves to be able to provide affordable job coaching and support to autistic individuals to assist with finding and retaining meaningful employment. On top of this the trend is to have people self managed and therefore there is no need to be registered as an NDIS provider. In this instance the disincentives far outway the incentives in the system as it stands.
Leadership conditions and media portrayal The autistic and neurodiversity inclusion efforts are lagging behind the race and gender discussions. This is a new frontier, so it will take time to catch up. To accelerate this process of understanding, autism employment research can learn a lot from other areas of diversity that are leading the way.
For example, other inclusion fields are looking at the lack of diversity at CEO level. This reminds us we need to do more to better understand how to support autistic people who want to start new companies or lead companies. Who is researching the barriers and conditions for autistic leaders to thrive?
Other areas of diversity are learning that an effective approach to progress is to change stereotypes in the media. Employable Me, the Good Doctor and other shows are having an impact on portrayal of people on the spectrum. We can certainly be doing more to research and better understand the positive and negative sides of this impact. Autism spectrum by its very definition as a spectrum presents differently in each individual. Understanding the thematic presentation of autism and their correlation to job advertising, hiring practices, onboarding methods, job coaching and the training required for team members and managers is the starting point for barrier removal. Shining a light on bias, both conscious and unconscious is necessary to see societal norms begin to shift. Business culture will follow slowly behind this but as we have seen with other bias in the workplace such as gender and LGBTQI+ the time required for these changes is significant.
Too often, we see people working in laundries and cafes; what about studying the story of leaders such Temple Grandin or Xceptional staff working at some of the leading tech firms?
Changes in technology companies
Xceptional is seeing a shift in corporate Australia. Increasing numbers of companies,
especially technology firms and those that heavily utilise technology, such as banks, financial
firms and governments, are seeking to transform their workplaces to be more accessible for
autistic people. They are seeing the importance of increasing diversity within their
workforce and see the valuable skills autistic people can provide including unique
approaches to problem solving, high attention to detail and excellent logical reasoning. We are seeing this happen at some of the biggest technology companies in the world, from both the US and Australia. Several hundred contacted us after Xceptional appeared on ABC’s Employable Me, for example.
In a sense, these companies are asking us to help them transform; it is like there is a need for an NDIS for corporations. Alongside employment supports for individuals, we are now providing employment support for companies.
A systemic transformation is needed The wording used in the AARC priorities document for education refers to an “inclusive education system”. The focus of the comparable sentence for employment is “meaningful employment opportunities”. Why are we looking at opportunities and not looking at a systemic change in the workplace, as with education?
At Xceptional, we would like to see an inclusive employment system that meets the needs of all autistic adults both for opportunities and long term success.