Embracing neurodiversity in the workforce
How autistic Australians are powering our cyber security and much more
This story mentions mental health issues and suicide within the autistic community. If you or someone you know needs support, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14, or visit lifeline.org.au. Young people can also contact headspace on 1800 650 890 or visit headspace.org.au.
This article uses identity-first language when referring to autistic people and the community.
There’s no denying a COVID world is an online world. Whether you’re banking, shopping, working or socialising, a strong internet connection has proved itself a necessity. And as naturally as we once locked our front doors before leaving for work in the morning, or covered the keypad as we punched our PIN number in at an ATM, we are now looking for ways to secure our online lives. It takes great minds to provide this cyber security, and the industry has found those talented minds in the autistic community.
Every 10 minutes a cybercrime report is made to the Australian Cyber Security Centre and in the pandemic controlled world where people have been confined to their homes for their protection against the coronavirus, cyber-attacks – however big or small – are on the rise. As recently as June this year, Australia was the target of a widespread cyber-attack on various industries, including governments, by a state-based actor widely thought to be China. Such attacks are increasing in frequency, scale, and sophistication, and their effects have only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the ACSC’s Annual Cyber Threat Report released earlier this month.
Yet, massive shortages remain in the nation’s emerging cybersecurity workforce. Michael Fieldhouse, Social Impact Leader at DXC Technology and Executive Lead of the DXC Dandelion Program, says the industry is struggling to meet the demands of individuals, workplaces and governments looking for online security in a socially distanced world.
“Everyone’s going online. We’re consuming more digital streams to interact with either banking services or just even [to] communicate, so you can imagine the growth of IT in those areas,” he says.
But the cybersecurity field is still learning how to address a variety of consumer needs and refine the skills required of its workers. That is, of course, except for some autistic people once overlooked because of their differences but now highly sought after because of them.
According to Amaze, Victoria’s peak body for autistic people and the community, 98 per cent of Australians have heard of autism but there is still much confusion about and discrimination from neuorotypical people against the country’s 205,200 autistic people.
Lecturer in Psychology at La Trobe University, Dr Rebecca Flower, explains while almost all Australians know about autism, they have been misinformed by dominant media portrayals of the disorder.
“Most people have heard of autism, but they may have a misconception about what autism is because they may only have heard of or seen TV shows about autism or movies like Rain Man that present an autistic savant as your everyday autistic person.”
“Autistic people and their experiences of everyday life, their needs, their challenges, their strengths, vary person to person,” Dr Flower says.
Autistic people with low support needs, for example, may be excellent lateral thinkers with skills in pattern recognition and attention to detail. These skills in particular are highly sought after in the cyber security field.
So why then is Australia’s cyber security workforce short-staffed, and why do autistic adults remain some of the most under- and unemployed people in the country?
Barriers to employment
The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ most recent data shows the unemployment rate for autistic people stands at 34.1 per cent - three times higher than the rate for all people with a disability.
This rate, however, isn’t an accurate representation of many autistic adults' desire to work. While completing her PhD in Autism, Dr Flower heard of similar challenges from hundreds of people.
“I was talking to so many autistic adults and the number one thing that was coming up was, ‘I need a job’, ‘I want a job’, ‘I’m having difficulty getting a job’ or ‘I’m having difficulty keeping a job’.”
“It really came across to me that so many people just wanted to be a part of the community and wanted to give back. It wasn’t about money. It wasn’t about climbing the career ladder – of course for some people it will be – but it was really about access to employment.”
This desire is often challenged by traditional job hunting and application processes. Resumes can be marred by inconsistent work histories in roles that may have ended due to unsupportive employers or workplaces, and job advertisements can be misleading and unintentionally discriminatory, as Mr Fieldhouse explains.
Job interviews also present a challenge for some autistic people and hinder their chances of a job offer as they anticipate a type of communication autistic people may not conform to.
"In a job interview what you need to do is communicate - in a way that is expected - that you are going to be a great employee. You have strengths, you try to minimise your weaknesses and kind of sell yourself, whereas people on the autism spectrum are quite literal, very honest, and may have difficulty in selling oneself, so non-verbal and verbal communication is often a little bit different,” Dr Flower says.
“It’s not that there are deficits… but my opinion is that it’s more a difference. It’s more that autistic people just communicate in a different way to non-autistic people.”
Minor differences such as averting eye contact if it makes the autistic person uncomfortable, or issues like sensory sensitivities – to sound, light, touch, smell or movement – that can cause stress and even pain for some autistic people, can come off as ‘rude’ to the interviewer and harm an autistic person’s chance of landing a job in which they could have had success.
Barriers to ongoing or sustainable employment can also occur once a person becomes employed as they navigate workplaces and the relationships in them with little social experience and confidence.
“If someone hasn’t spoken to their employer and mentioned that they are autistic - because that can be uncomfortable, or you might not be sure about how much the employer knows, if you’re going to experience stigma or discrimination if you do disclose that you’re autistic - then you might not have your accommodation needs met,” Dr Flower explains.
Emma Wong, a Security Analyst at NAB, dealt with these challenges firsthand before hearing about the DXC Dandelion Program, the organisation’s training program for autistic people teaching them a variety of professional and life skills and providing them with pathways to employment, on a Facebook group aimed at autistic women.
“I’ve always struggled with employment. Often, I would be able to make it through the interview process but not make it past the 3-month probation period. The only employment success I’d previously had before the program was through self-employment,” Miss Wong explains.
Another graduate of the program now working in IT, who asked to remain anonymous, had similar difficulties in their search for employment despite excelling in the program and its variety of activities, including robot programming.
“The algorithm flow suited the way I think, and because it was an exercise in problem-solving with a clearly defined outcome. It was also quite different being with so many other people like myself,” they said.
Challenges directly impacting work can also present themselves outside the workplace, as Mr Fieldhouse explains.
These barriers in the traditional employment experience can also exacerbate already high rates of mental health conditions among the autistic community, with 50-70 per cent of people experiencing such conditions.
Anxiety, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder remain the most common conditions, according to Amaze, and autistic adults are nine times more likely to commit suicide than someone in the general population.
Supporting autistic people in the workplace
Supporting autistic people, then, extends beyond workplace boundaries for their employers.
“We have to understand… if we’re going to be supporting a person they don’t automatically turn off at home and then automatically turn on again in an employment situation. We need to have those more streamlined support services,” Mr Fieldhouse says.
The DXC Dandelion Program combines these professional and personal supports, with an individual’s needs informing and guiding their training.
This meant all the difference for Miss Wong, who had considered working in IT since high school but lacked the support to pursue tertiary education in the field while living in a remote area.
“When I was selected to join the DXC team at NAB I was thrilled to be learning all these new skills in a cyber security role.
“I had a fantastic opportunity to showcase my skills despite having zero background in IT or administration. I also felt my confidence grow immensely when I joined the NAB team. I feel a lot more at ease within the program, that I’m not in a constant vigilant state of waiting to be fired for a misunderstanding,” she says.
But autistic people’s needs are as individual as their passions, and the push for what Dr Flower describes as an ‘autism advantage’ in the workplace is creating a harmful stigma for the many autistic people who want to pursue career paths outside the IT field, particularly in creative industries.
“IT became the focus of a number of autism hiring programs and has really been the dominant industry where autism programs internationally have been occurring. There has been a little bit of push back where some autistic people have said, ‘Well I want a job but all these autism hiring programs are based in IT and I don’t like IT’, ‘I’m not good at computers’ or ‘I’m very creative’, so just like everyone, people on the autism spectrum can be excellent in any role but there is a bit of a stigma or misconception that people on the autism spectrum are best suited to working in IT.”
“We don’t need to commodify people. I think [the push for an ‘autism advantage’] walks the line between trying to get equitable access and promote autistic people as being wonderful employees, but I think we need to be very careful that we’re not saying that autistic people need to have particular skills to be worthy of employment because everyone is worthy of employment, everyone should have equitable access to employment should they want employment,” she says.
The challenge, then, becomes about expanding initiatives like the DXC Dandelion Program to other industries that can cater to similar programs to their own workforce.
“What we’re hoping is that by us doing the program, people can develop their own program related to their own work type,” Mr Fieldhouse says.
"Creativity covers the whole spectrum"
Expanding employment opportunities
For some, autism can be characterised by niche passions and a burning interest in them.
“When they’re interested in a particular area, they really excel in that. They really, a bit like all of us, they pour their passion into it,” Mr Fieldhouse says.
To give autistic people employment opportunities they’ve long since been denied, Dr Flower believes there needs to be a shift in public discussion about autism so that it involves the very community it concerns.
“We need to be learning from autistic people and any solution involving better workplace outcomes for autistic people needs to be working alongside autistic people in making those solutions happen,” she says.
While leading the Partnership for Employment Outcomes for Autistic People in Society initiative, Dr Flower has worked with Disability Employment Service Providers (DESP) and the autistic community to learn about their experiences with one another. Her research uncovered gaps in knowledge of autism among DESP, and changes that could be made to better service the needs of autistic job seekers and employees.
Her recent pilot testing of a training program devised from this research with a group of 42 DESP has shown positive results, and resources for employers – coproduced with autistic people – will be released next month for free, including tip sheets about autism and how to make equitable workplaces for autistic employees.
With this shift in public attitudes towards autistic people comes much-needed understanding and acceptance of the highly individual and varied nature of autism, but many barriers still exist to equal opportunity. As Dr Flower explains, autism hiring programs are yet to acknowledge and service the needs and passions of the many job seekers in the autistic community.
“They’re still so small scale so we need to do more, and we need to do it quickly. I still think for your everyday autistic person, if you’re looking for a job now it’s still unclear where you could go to get that support that you need to get into employment and stay in employment.”
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