In the end our findings are only as important as what we can come away with. Though the focus is around autistic individuals and their journey finding successful employment there are several other stakeholders in this issue to which these findings may be relevant. The relevant implications of this research have been stated under each of these stakeholders. There is also a discussion of this research’s limitations with the suggestions for future research.
• For people with autism
It is important to understand that the source of this challenge stems from a complex issue involving things outside the individual’s control such as the expectations or misconceptions employers place on job candidates and their own employees. Autistic individuals that experience unemployment
experience negative psychological effects as a result. Some of which happen due to the complexities of social interaction. In this regard as seen by the example in the data, it seems that it is important for both employee and employer to put the effort in navigating these complexities.
In this regard, it may be beneficial to autistic individuals to seek employers who are building a positive diversity climate in their organizations as the literature suggests a positive diversity climate is better adapted to accepting differences as a source of competitive advantage and so more likely to be a good fit for an autistic individual.
• For facilitators (private)
This includes job coaches and several support organizations that work with autistic individuals to help them find and sustain employment. As mentioned previously each autistic individual varies greatly and so it is important to define where their strengths lie. The data and literature suggest that there is a large overlap between the areas autistic individuals are knowledgeable and proficient in and their own personal interests. Identifying how these areas of personal interest could fill a job role seems to be a promising way for autistic individuals to experience engagement. Secondly, facilitators can act as a mediator between autistic individuals and employers bridging the communication gap. For example, some employers have reached out to autism specialists for consultation on how to change their workplace environment so that it can be a good fit for autistic individuals. These employers demonstrate that they are more flexible to change due to their initiative and attitude. Partnering with these kinds of employers seems to be a potential route for autistic individuals to transition to after developing their personal skills through the facilitator’s aid.
• For facilitators (public)
Despite this paper’s focus on the firm level and government/public sector being outside the scope of investigation, there were some results from the data that showed promising potential for the public sector’s role in autism employment. As mentioned by our second interviewee, their company has recently received government funding to continue developing their autism employment framework and scale their processes to promote employment. Previously, most government funding was dedicated towards facilitators like job coaches with the intention to adapt autistic individuals for the employment environment. However, as this research suggests it may be needed to reverse the roles by adapting the organizational environment to autistic individuals’
needs to allow them to truly thrive and deliver their full potential in the workplace. Policy makers should consider the implication of this role reversal and rethink their funding by evaluating the outcomes of said funding. Investing in building sustainable autism employment could see greater returns to the economy by reducing the unemployment rate and therefore potentially reducing the cost of support for this population, allowing them to live meaningful lives while also giving them the ability to contribute value.
• For employers
One of the key stakeholders and the center of our focus. The most emphasized component in the data and literature has been the motivation and commitment of leadership to cause positive change.
This fits our understanding of leadership behavior as one of the key drivers of change since it is a requirement to keep the momentum of the change going in the face of challenges and those who are resistant change. This is most evident in this quote from our second interviewee’s experience with building a sustainable autism employment program.
“When people ask me what it would take for autism employment to be successful, it isn’t one thing.
People think about one change like assistive technology but it’s not just about access to assistive technology, it’s about integrating all these components. We learned by doing this ourselves and it involves organization, philosophy, motivation, and a commitment.”
This quote also hints towards a pitfall that employers could find themselves in. We have covered how expectations and misconceptions act as barriers to entry in the workplace for autistic individuals but even those that are trying to promote autism employment in their organizations may fall prey to their own assumptions. Understanding the scope and cost of this investment is essential to avoid creating a superficial change which satisfies nothing more than falsely building
‘diversity’ for diversity’s sake. Understanding that including differences as a source of competitive advantage requires the organization itself to change around those differences otherwise, one cannot truly claim to be inclusive if they expect to integrate different individuals without themselves undergoing change to meet them. Finally, it is important to recognize that the changes required for a company to be a sustainable autism employer must be treated as any other innovation adoption.
Misjudging the value of this investment by only looking at its immediate returns will prevent organizations from realizing the full extent of this change. Employers should look at this as a continuous improvement like many organizations today that are experimenting with their own
autism programs, going through the iterative process of trial and error and by truly committing to change with the aid of their leaders they may prepare themselves for future with a diverse climate.
• Further research
Looking at the limitations of this research we may observe that the sample size for the data was not large. Despite this however, the data covered two central perspectives to this problem by looking at it through a facilitator aiming to help autistic individuals live an independent life and through an employer who was driven by the same motivation trying not to just make a positive change in their firm but demonstrate the feasibility of mainstream autism employment to inspire other organizations to follow. The first recommendation would be to test the propositions of this question through a different data sample. Despite making comparisons in this research between the examples in the data and secondary data in the literature, a comparison of primary data sources may reveal more insights into this complex issue.
Secondly, the scope of focus was centered around the organizational as most of the focus was on autistic individuals and employers. However, the issues they face, and depth of the problem likely goes much further. We know that autism spectrum disorder does not only affect individuals in the workplace as it is a part of those individuals lives from the very beginning. Examining the effects of a potential societal transformation as a result of autism employment becoming mainstream may be of interest so broadening the scope to examine higher level economical and societal impact could be fruitful. Furthermore, as alluded to in implications for public facilitators, this higher level of observation could be helpful to future policy makers as they decide what disability support should look like and such insights could bring a new model to them.
Finally, we note the fact that only recently through the past decade has neurodiversity in the workplace drawn so much attention from researchers. Looking at trends in autism research shows us how in the beginning most of the focus was on the childhood phase but recently the outcomes of adulthood have begun to enter focus. Our understanding of autism is rapidly changing with this new focus and changes in society’s perception of it as a whole could influence new directions in research. That is why it is important to reexamine the principles presented in this paper surrounding autism and employment since in a few years they may become inaccurate as our understanding of autism grows. And despite the emphasis and scope of this research centering around autistic individuals we note that the neurodiversity movement encompasses far more than just autism,
perhaps there may be more insights to be found when we compare autistic individuals in employment to other neurodiverse individuals to see which ideas differ or even those that reoccur.