Worker question: why are western IT companies interested in autistic employees?
Not so long ago, we, as an IaaS provider, began to talk about the myths [ Part 1 , Part 2 ] that developed around cloud technologies, and tried to dispel them.
Today we will talk about how and why large western IT companies have started to pay special attention and appreciate the unique capabilities of their employees with autism spectrum disorders in general and Asperger syndrome in particular.
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/ photo Kristina DC Hoeppner CC
On the one hand, work in IT companies, both large and small, is associated in many people with teamwork, noisy parties and original team building ideas. This image is actively supported in modern culture - remember the scene of the party from the movie “Social Network”, on which the future employees of Facebook unanimously passed the “collective endurance test”.
People with Asperger's syndrome — rather reserved, not prone to excessive emotionality, not always understanding jokes, preferring to work alone — clearly “fall out” of this picture, do not fit into the “traditional” image of the employees of a technology company. And yet, the IT business is increasingly showing interest in them - for all its “non-command” and “complexity” such people may have unique qualities that are revealed in the technological environment especially well.
Information about autism in general and Asperger syndrome in particular is so controversial that it is sometimes difficult to understand what makes people with this disease different from “ordinary”. It is not easy to describe autism because of the wide variety of its symptoms and manifestations.
In psychiatry, autism is a developmental disorder, neurological in nature, that affects thinking, perception, attention, social skills and human behavior. The term “autism” first acquired the modern meaning in 1938, when the Austrian psychiatrist Hans Asperger used the term Bleuler “autistic psychopaths” in his lecture on child psychology (of course, this definition is out of use now - including because of negative overtones, which in modern society entrenched itself with this phrase).
It is important to note: Asperger syndrome is just one of the autism spectrum disorders. In popular literature and materials on autistic problems, it is mentioned primarily because people with Asperger syndrome can usually be effectively integrated into social relationships: they study, work, give birth to families — they simply differ in some features of character and behavior. In general, the level of intellectual development in autism may be different. But what are the chances of people with developmental disabilities to adapt to life in the big modern world? And is it true that among the "rain people" there are many technical geniuses? Let's figure it out.
In his presentation on the video game industry, Alex John (Alex John), one of the developers of Microsoft DirectX technology, called the engineers with Asperger's Syndrome the "holy grail" of employers. In general, the idea that people suffering from a form of autism spectrum disorder can become ideal programmers is familiar to us from artistic works and TV shows. Lisbeth Salander, the main heroine of the novel “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by the Swedish writer Stieg Larsson, who suffered from autism, was very isolated and struggled to make friends, but was also a talented hacker.
Elliot Alderson, the main character in the Mr. Robot series, is a brilliant hacker, but also has autistic and dissocial personality disorder (sociopathy) and social anxiety disorder (social phobia). Kathryn Stewart, director of a private school for children with highly functional autism in the city of Moraga, California, once called Asperger's Syndrome “a disease of the engineers.” And in 2011, the founder of the organization Wikileaks, Julian Assange, during an interview, attributed to himself some of the qualities of a typical autist.
As you can see, the stereotype about genius programmers with autism is very common, but how true is it? Gary Moore, one of the founders of the autism training institute for developing mobile applications, Gary Moore, says this is a fallacy. Moore and his friend Dan Selec founded the Nonpareil Institute in 2008. The sons of both men are autistic. The special program of this educational institution is designed to help such people find a job.
The stereotype about the genius of autists is actively supported by many software development companies. In 2011, Auticon was established in Germany, providing IT consulting services. She was one of the first to actively recruit people with autism spectrum disorders.
The company's website says that, due to their peculiarities, people with Asperger syndrome are able to detect even the smallest flaws in the software. The Auticon team currently has 80 employees, of whom two thirds suffer from autism disorders.
In May 2013, the German IT company SAP, within the framework of the Autism at Work program, opened 500 vacancies for people with autism. Such an initiative was not only an act of humanism and social responsibility on the part of the company. SAP chief specialist in personnel diversity Anka Wittenberg (Anka Wittenberg), founder of Specialisterne Thorkil Sonne (Thorkil Sonne) and program leaders Stefanie Nennstiel and Jose Velasco (Jose Velasco) explained what caused their desire.
According to the management of the company, among autists there are really talented programmers. SAP executives said that they have already employed six employees with a diagnosis of autism in their Indian office to test software - the effectiveness of the company's QA department immediately increased. Thanks to their penchant for ordering and heightened attention to detail, these unique people are better at detecting errors in the code.
Autists are subject to the same company rules as other employees. Managers in the same way control their working process. The only difference is in the way interviewing, training and equipping the workplace. The selection process lasts for about a month, during which, for people with autistic disorder, among other things, it is suggested using the LEGO designer to build robots according to detailed instructions. As for the interview, the conversation with applicants is conducted in the form that the candidate prefers.
According to Anki Witterberg, before taking an employee with autism into the team, SAP trains him for six months. In addition, there are special rehabilitation centers in the states of Pennsylvania and California, where autists can acquire the basic skills necessary for independent living. In particular, they are taught to rent housing, use public transport, open bank accounts and fill out documents.
In addition, SAP conducts special training for neurotypical employees, where they are told about autism spectrum disorders. This makes it easier for people with autism disorders to adapt. Currently, autists are engaged in all types of IT activities in the company, ranging from software testing to IT project management and staff recruitment. Velasco notes that the vacancy rate for such employees is expanding rapidly. By 2020, the company intends to increase the number of employees suffering from autism to 1% of the total number of staff.
Microsoft, which launched a program for hiring autists in April 2015, didn’t pass by this issue either. Immediately after the opening of the program, the company received more than 700 resumes and in the first days hired 11 candidates. Microsoft offers full-time employment and competitive salary to autists just like any other employee.
Many believe that autism is “embedded in the DNA” of Bill Gates’s company, because its founder was often noticed with features characteristic of people suffering from this disorder: attention to trifles, repetition of elementary movements and low tone of voice during a conversation.
In addition to the problems encountered at the job placement stage, there are other difficulties that autists have to face in the working environment. Some of them find it difficult to interact with other people, and this cannot be avoided in the process of software development. Working conditions in IT companies, in particular, in large gaming studios can aggravate the situation even more.
Gary Moore says that working weeks of 60–70 hours and strict deadlines do not have the best effect on autistic employees. Take, for example, 23-year-old Cody Gillmer (Cody Gillmer), an independent game developer from Longview, WA. At the age of 10, he was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, and at 16 he began to create video games. To date, Gillmer has already participated in many open source projects, but still can not work in the studio for the reasons that Moore called.
According to the World Health Organization, today people with a diagnosis of "autism" make up about 1% of the world's population, while 80% of them are unemployed. Marcia Scheiner, President and Founder of the Center for Training and Employment for People with Asperger Syndrome, believes that it is profitable to hire autists. Many of them are incredibly loyal and attentive. Managers just need to change their leadership style a little bit and regularly meet with such employees to help them prioritize and build a work process.
For many years, autism was considered a disease incompatible with a full life in society. In particular, autists had no chance of finding a qualified job. However, the situation is changing. Today, many advanced companies seek to hire these unique people to work - they can hide an amazing potential.
Unfortunately, in Russia in general, the processes of socialization of people who differ from the majority, in particular autists, are in their infancy. Often, these people simply do not have the opportunity to gain the knowledge necessary for a valuable IT specialist. Those who still manage to integrate into society, learn and grow professionally - rather, it is an exception to the rule.
It remains to hope that the successes of people with Asperger syndrome in the West will not go unnoticed by our social institutions, and in the near future they will begin more active programs for socializing people with autism (especially children), for adapting the learning processes in schools and higher educational institutions . In order for people with autism to become a full-fledged and effective part of Russian society, including the IT community, it must change.
PS Materials on the development of our IaaS-provider:
Today we will talk about how and why large western IT companies have started to pay special attention and appreciate the unique capabilities of their employees with autism spectrum disorders in general and Asperger syndrome in particular.
')
/ photo Kristina DC Hoeppner CC
On the one hand, work in IT companies, both large and small, is associated in many people with teamwork, noisy parties and original team building ideas. This image is actively supported in modern culture - remember the scene of the party from the movie “Social Network”, on which the future employees of Facebook unanimously passed the “collective endurance test”.
People with Asperger's syndrome — rather reserved, not prone to excessive emotionality, not always understanding jokes, preferring to work alone — clearly “fall out” of this picture, do not fit into the “traditional” image of the employees of a technology company. And yet, the IT business is increasingly showing interest in them - for all its “non-command” and “complexity” such people may have unique qualities that are revealed in the technological environment especially well.
Mysterious syndrome
Information about autism in general and Asperger syndrome in particular is so controversial that it is sometimes difficult to understand what makes people with this disease different from “ordinary”. It is not easy to describe autism because of the wide variety of its symptoms and manifestations.
In psychiatry, autism is a developmental disorder, neurological in nature, that affects thinking, perception, attention, social skills and human behavior. The term “autism” first acquired the modern meaning in 1938, when the Austrian psychiatrist Hans Asperger used the term Bleuler “autistic psychopaths” in his lecture on child psychology (of course, this definition is out of use now - including because of negative overtones, which in modern society entrenched itself with this phrase).
It is important to note: Asperger syndrome is just one of the autism spectrum disorders. In popular literature and materials on autistic problems, it is mentioned primarily because people with Asperger syndrome can usually be effectively integrated into social relationships: they study, work, give birth to families — they simply differ in some features of character and behavior. In general, the level of intellectual development in autism may be different. But what are the chances of people with developmental disabilities to adapt to life in the big modern world? And is it true that among the "rain people" there are many technical geniuses? Let's figure it out.
All autists are geniuses: myth or reality?
In his presentation on the video game industry, Alex John (Alex John), one of the developers of Microsoft DirectX technology, called the engineers with Asperger's Syndrome the "holy grail" of employers. In general, the idea that people suffering from a form of autism spectrum disorder can become ideal programmers is familiar to us from artistic works and TV shows. Lisbeth Salander, the main heroine of the novel “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by the Swedish writer Stieg Larsson, who suffered from autism, was very isolated and struggled to make friends, but was also a talented hacker.
Elliot Alderson, the main character in the Mr. Robot series, is a brilliant hacker, but also has autistic and dissocial personality disorder (sociopathy) and social anxiety disorder (social phobia). Kathryn Stewart, director of a private school for children with highly functional autism in the city of Moraga, California, once called Asperger's Syndrome “a disease of the engineers.” And in 2011, the founder of the organization Wikileaks, Julian Assange, during an interview, attributed to himself some of the qualities of a typical autist.
As you can see, the stereotype about genius programmers with autism is very common, but how true is it? Gary Moore, one of the founders of the autism training institute for developing mobile applications, Gary Moore, says this is a fallacy. Moore and his friend Dan Selec founded the Nonpareil Institute in 2008. The sons of both men are autistic. The special program of this educational institution is designed to help such people find a job.
Why are tech companies interested in employees with autism spectrum disorders?
The stereotype about the genius of autists is actively supported by many software development companies. In 2011, Auticon was established in Germany, providing IT consulting services. She was one of the first to actively recruit people with autism spectrum disorders.
The company's website says that, due to their peculiarities, people with Asperger syndrome are able to detect even the smallest flaws in the software. The Auticon team currently has 80 employees, of whom two thirds suffer from autism disorders.
In May 2013, the German IT company SAP, within the framework of the Autism at Work program, opened 500 vacancies for people with autism. Such an initiative was not only an act of humanism and social responsibility on the part of the company. SAP chief specialist in personnel diversity Anka Wittenberg (Anka Wittenberg), founder of Specialisterne Thorkil Sonne (Thorkil Sonne) and program leaders Stefanie Nennstiel and Jose Velasco (Jose Velasco) explained what caused their desire.
According to the management of the company, among autists there are really talented programmers. SAP executives said that they have already employed six employees with a diagnosis of autism in their Indian office to test software - the effectiveness of the company's QA department immediately increased. Thanks to their penchant for ordering and heightened attention to detail, these unique people are better at detecting errors in the code.
Autists are subject to the same company rules as other employees. Managers in the same way control their working process. The only difference is in the way interviewing, training and equipping the workplace. The selection process lasts for about a month, during which, for people with autistic disorder, among other things, it is suggested using the LEGO designer to build robots according to detailed instructions. As for the interview, the conversation with applicants is conducted in the form that the candidate prefers.
According to Anki Witterberg, before taking an employee with autism into the team, SAP trains him for six months. In addition, there are special rehabilitation centers in the states of Pennsylvania and California, where autists can acquire the basic skills necessary for independent living. In particular, they are taught to rent housing, use public transport, open bank accounts and fill out documents.
In addition, SAP conducts special training for neurotypical employees, where they are told about autism spectrum disorders. This makes it easier for people with autism disorders to adapt. Currently, autists are engaged in all types of IT activities in the company, ranging from software testing to IT project management and staff recruitment. Velasco notes that the vacancy rate for such employees is expanding rapidly. By 2020, the company intends to increase the number of employees suffering from autism to 1% of the total number of staff.
Microsoft, which launched a program for hiring autists in April 2015, didn’t pass by this issue either. Immediately after the opening of the program, the company received more than 700 resumes and in the first days hired 11 candidates. Microsoft offers full-time employment and competitive salary to autists just like any other employee.
Many believe that autism is “embedded in the DNA” of Bill Gates’s company, because its founder was often noticed with features characteristic of people suffering from this disorder: attention to trifles, repetition of elementary movements and low tone of voice during a conversation.
As for Russia, this topic has really begun to periodically “emerge” in the IT environment. But so far it’s rather a discussion of personalities, people who appear contrary to the general situation, and not because of it. There is no any pronounced tendency in the Russian IT market yet.
- Sergey Belkin, Head of Development, 1cloud project
Workflow features
In addition to the problems encountered at the job placement stage, there are other difficulties that autists have to face in the working environment. Some of them find it difficult to interact with other people, and this cannot be avoided in the process of software development. Working conditions in IT companies, in particular, in large gaming studios can aggravate the situation even more.
Gary Moore says that working weeks of 60–70 hours and strict deadlines do not have the best effect on autistic employees. Take, for example, 23-year-old Cody Gillmer (Cody Gillmer), an independent game developer from Longview, WA. At the age of 10, he was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, and at 16 he began to create video games. To date, Gillmer has already participated in many open source projects, but still can not work in the studio for the reasons that Moore called.
Instead of conclusion
According to the World Health Organization, today people with a diagnosis of "autism" make up about 1% of the world's population, while 80% of them are unemployed. Marcia Scheiner, President and Founder of the Center for Training and Employment for People with Asperger Syndrome, believes that it is profitable to hire autists. Many of them are incredibly loyal and attentive. Managers just need to change their leadership style a little bit and regularly meet with such employees to help them prioritize and build a work process.
Meticulousness, attention to trifles, striving for accuracy, logic and consistency - all these qualities are certainly important, and even necessary for some positions [in IT]. They are indispensable for testers, very useful for developers and system architects, information security managers and many others. Not to mention the fact that all the biggest problems and breakthroughs usually lie in the details! And if you have a person from whom not a single trifle escapes, your chance of success increases.
A certain “non-creativeness” of thinking and difficulties in teamwork, inherent to people with Asperger syndrome, can be compensated for at the planning stage: delegating to special employees those tasks in which these parameters are not of critical importance. Naturally, the introduction of such an employee in the workflow requires adjustments to the methodology used in the work and in other managerial aspects, which implies additional responsibility and complexity for managers.
- Sergey Belkin, Head of Development, 1cloud project
For many years, autism was considered a disease incompatible with a full life in society. In particular, autists had no chance of finding a qualified job. However, the situation is changing. Today, many advanced companies seek to hire these unique people to work - they can hide an amazing potential.
Unfortunately, in Russia in general, the processes of socialization of people who differ from the majority, in particular autists, are in their infancy. Often, these people simply do not have the opportunity to gain the knowledge necessary for a valuable IT specialist. Those who still manage to integrate into society, learn and grow professionally - rather, it is an exception to the rule.
It remains to hope that the successes of people with Asperger syndrome in the West will not go unnoticed by our social institutions, and in the near future they will begin more active programs for socializing people with autism (especially children), for adapting the learning processes in schools and higher educational institutions . In order for people with autism to become a full-fledged and effective part of Russian society, including the IT community, it must change.
PS Materials on the development of our IaaS-provider:
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/309264/
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