An international company plans to hire six people with autism as software testers in Vancouver after embarking on similar pilot projects in India, Ireland and Germany.
SAP just launched a similar program in Germany, where it hopes to hire seven workers with autism. The fourth country targeted by the company is Canada, where there are plans to hire up to six people in Vancouver and three people in Montreal with autism.
The Denmark firm Specialisterne, which focuses on finding jobs for autistic people, is helping SAP hire the workers, train existing employees how to interact with autistic colleagues, and connect Canadian managers with those in India and Ireland for advice.
Specialisterne (which means Specialists in English) now has branches in many countries and its founder Thorkil Sonne, who has a son with autism, will speak today to SAP employees in Vancouver.
In India and Ireland, SAP managers report increased productivity due to the work done by autistic employees and also improved workplace bonding.
“And since we’ve promoted it here in Canada, we seem to get a lot of solidarity from employees asking us, ‘What is this about, how can I help, how can I support this?’ ” Ostertag said.
Existing employees will be advised to be straightforward with their new colleagues, as most people with autism have great difficulty communicating and forming relationships.
“Leave aside cynicism or sarcasm, it’s really about being very open and direct,” Ostertag said. “It’s also about taking down the barriers. Some people might be at first scared, because they don’t know how to deal with people on the (autism) spectrum.”
The Vancouver office aims to hire its six people by early 2014. All will be paid competitive salaries.
There are an estimated 40,000 adults with autism in B.C. — many without a diagnosis — and statistics suggest less than 25 per cent have steady work, said Deborah Pugh of Burnaby-based Autism Community Training.
“Jobs for adults with autism is the No. 1 priority in the autism community right now,” she said. “The real challenge is finding them work that is (compatible) with their intellectual ability.”
SAP’s initiative is important, Pugh added, because even though high-functioning people with autism might be good at software code, they are often handicapped during traditional job interviews due to their awkward social skills.
Support groups hope other companies will acknowledge the specific skills of people with high-functioning autism, while understanding they likely cannot do some tasks, such as giving presentations or writing reports.
“You can’t generalize, but these people can often be very focused on particular activities that they are engaged in. And something like reviewing software code in many cases is right up their alley,” said Michael Lewis, president of the board of the Autism Society of B.C. and past president of Autism Society of Canada.
“They can be very focused and very bright in areas that are of interest to them. Often the deficit is in the social area.”
Therefore, it is important that SAP is educating its employees about how to work with people with autism, Lewis added.
There are a few small start-up companies in B.C. which have hired people with autism to review code for video games, but Lewis knows of no other international companies with such a goal.
“It’s a good news story,” he said.
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