CAI: Harnessing Neurodiverse Talent, with Anthony Pacilio | EDB 317
Anthony Pacilio of CAI shares how they are helping organizations realize the benefits of neurodiversity.
Anthony Pacilio, is recognized domestically and internationally, as an expert in neurodiverse employment and currently serves as Vice President of CAI Neurodiverse Solutions. Pacilio specializes in advancing neurodiversity programs and leads the global expansion efforts of CAI Neurodiverse Solutions.
CAI Neurodiverse Solutions is an end-to-end neurodiversity employment program that helps organizations realize the benefits of neurodiversity. Our successful employment model is designed to bring the untapped talent pool of neurodivergent individuals into the workforce and creates more career opportunities for the neurodiverse community. Our mission is to build innovative business solutions that deliver results while developing rewarding, long-lasting careers for the neurodiverse community and leading the way to an inclusive workforce environment.
For more about CAI Neurodiverse Solutions: cai.io/neurodiverse-solutions
Or visit the CAI homepage: cai.io
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FULL TRANSCRIPTION
Note: the following transcription was automatically generated. Some imperfections may exist.
HACKIE REITMAN, M.D. (HR):
Hi, I’m Dr. Hackie Reitman. Welcome to another episode of Exploring Different Brains. And today we’re lucky to be welcoming Anthony Pacilio, the Vice President of Neurodiverse Solutions for CAI. Welcome Anthony.
ANTHONY PACILIO (AP):
Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.
HR:
Well, we’re excited to have you now why don’t you introduce yourself properly so our audience knows about you?
AP:
Sure, sure. Again, I am the Vice President of CAI Neurodiverse Solutions. My job is a couple fold that I’m Brandon media ambassador for one, so I do these types of engagements. The other bigger piece is I help companies, clients and organizations build neurodiversity at work programs. I am neurodivergent myself. So I have extreme social anxiety disorder, I have depression. So it’s kind of humorous that they give the guy with extreme social anxiety disorder, the podcast, the the interview is all the other good stuff that goes along with that. So and previous to this, I worked at a financial institution helping start their autism work program for a number of years, and CAI actually happened to be the very first vendor that I used to bring in your diversion talent. So exciting saving journey throughout.
HR:
Very exciting, so your brain is certainly different than your whole lot smarter than I am. So why don’t you tell us all about CAI, so our audience knows what it is.
AP:
Sure, absolutely. So we’re an end to end neurodiversity employment program. So what that really means is we find the talent look for the talent, we have about 400 to 500, partnerships across the US, looking for that talent, cultivating that talent, right. So we do things a little bit differently, non traditional, obviously, a very used word, but really, the way that we do things is quite non traditional by looking at you know, cognitive behaviors, we look at skills and aptitude more than anything, right. But we’re looking, our clients are looking for talent. And what happens is, they just don’t understand that there’s a lot more talent out there. And we’re just kind of pointing them in the right direction. So we really work with those clients over a set number of months and years, to kind of build the support inside their organization. So we have job coaches, we have service delivery people, we have HR learning and development, all the things that ca neurodiverse solutions needs to help clients support themselves, you know, hopefully, eventually, it’ll be universal design. And, you know, they’ll be able to do it on their own. But you know, a lot of companies right now are looking for us to help them break into this, and ensure that we are serving the underserved community.
HR:
And you, you go ahead and stress to these companies, that this is good for them, because these people have talent, and you’re stressing their positive talents?
AP:
Yeah, you know, companies talk about ROI all the time, then that’s great, right, your return on investment. And listen, we understand you and I probably more than a lot of people understand that the talents and the productivity and the loyalty and, you know, coming to work on time, all those good things, that they’re great for companies. But I think there’s a bigger piece to this as well, right? Great profit bottom line, what’s the return on investment of that person who hasn’t had the chance to go to work because they couldn’t get in the door because of whatever XYZ we’re showing that the return on investment is the human piece, right? Maybe that person gets their first apartment, or they’re gonna get their driver’s license, or, you know, they found newfound confidence, responsibility. That’s the bigger piece to all of this. It’ll all work itself out for the company and the culture, we hope to change cultures. But I think the bigger pieces we need to concentrate on the people coming in making sure that they feel supported, and we’re going to teach the client organization how to do it.
HR:
Anthony, how’d you to get into this racket?
AP:
It’s been a long journey, actually. You know, ever since I was a little kid, I was a little probably quirky and maybe odd to some and that’s fine. So I overcompensated as many people do, and I was like, Hey, you don’t want I’m gonna go into radio and television when I graduated high school. I’ll just become the biggest extrovert known demand. And I did and I did that for a bit and I realized that I wasn’t going to to eat a lot of food in the radio intelligent industry. So ramen noodles were my mainstay. And so I knew I had to do something a little bit different. So I went into the financial world that’s been for the Last 20, some odd years, obviously hit the 50 stage. But all through that time, like something’s been kind of not right, so to speak internally, and I knew I obviously knew. And, you know, I think it took me going to my last financial institution, and they were starting a program in autism at Work program, because they couldn’t find talent to do software engineering, or QA jobs. And this was in their mortgage banking division. And I happened to be the chief of staff to my boss at the time, and they just, you know, the governor of Delaware, Delaware was involved. And it just so happened to all come together, and I’m like, Oh, my gosh, this is really what I want to do. And I was allowed to kind of build that, and help out and understand, there’s a lot of folks like me out there that were struggling. And, you know, that’s really kind of how it started. And I got to speak about it, and I got to go out and go see the world. And, you know, by the time I left that financial institution, we were in 10 countries and 40 different job roles and 300 people on the spectrum. And that was it. For me, like I found my absolute calling. There’s a lot of stuff in there. That was very, very challenging, and, you know, trying emotionally, for me, personally, a lot of things that probably shouldn’t have happened that happened, personally, but this is who I am now. And the only way I was going to get there is by going through those things. And now I get to impart whatever wisdom I got on other people to tell them that there is just an amazing talent pool out there, you just got to kind of be a human being have a little empathy, and you’re gonna see the positives.
HR:
And so you’ve been battling the one size fits all syndrome.
AP:
For for way too long. You know, and that’s, that’s really, it’s funny, the one size fits all piece. I just like I couldn’t get out of that one size to tell him I’m not really that one size, I’m a medium, I’m a nine to 10. They just like society wouldn’t allow that to happen. And until we kind of break that mold and get out of that one size fits all, I was going to be stuck in that. So I was luckily, you know, diagnosed I already already knew. But I was diagnosed and I was able to tell my employer at the time like, This is who I am. We got to change things up. We got to make it more available to people, we whatever the support mechanisms are. We have to build x y and z And I think that’s why we do what we do. And I love coming on programs like yours to say that, like, I want people to hear that there isn’t a one size fits all.
HR:
Well, we are happy to have you here at different brains. How would you say that see AI differs from some of the other companies who might be working in this space?
AP:
Yeah, I think we do it a little bit differently in the fact that we are really, we’re not really a direct hire sort of company, we have felt, from inception, that it’s a person first organization. And that means meaning supporting the individuals, but also looking at the tribe mentality, the camaraderie and bringing in three to five, four to six individuals with a supportive mechanism which we call a team lead, and utilizing it in that capacity. You know, a lot of times you’ll see companies not in that service providers, per se of a company’s going, Hey, listen, I just need one person in finance, but I needed another person, the back office operations. And that’s great. But here’s what happens sometimes. You know, for whatever reason, if somebody doesn’t do well, they’re soured on the program, right? They’re like, Oh, you know, this didn’t work. And, you know, I think that might not be the way that we want to go. That’s not what we want to employ. Meaning that’s not the feeling. We want to take whatever conceptual risk that people feel about it and take that out. So that’s why we’re putting in cohorts of individuals. Now, it doesn’t have to be in the same job per se, but that same job function, because our team lead is versed as a subject matter expert and whatever their job function is, but it’s also neurodiverse certified as well. So they’re the they’re the coach and the mentor. They’re conduit between the management team and our associates. There’s there’s a bigger support system built in there.
HR:
Can you expand upon how you go into a certain area, let’s say right here in South Florida, and how you find ways To support the local, neuro diverse community.
AP:
Yeah, I think it’s great, very timely discussion. Because Commissioner, Raquel regolamento, just had an event in Miami, my ability in Miami, and we had met Commissioner about a year or so ago at an event in Houston. And she’s like, Hey, listen, we we need to have you come here and talk and, you know, huge advocate. And those little pieces of meeting people, and just happenstance, we start to understand that okay, maybe South Florida, you know, Dade County, like, maybe there’s something else in there. Here’s what happens those events. Luckily, you know, she’s able to bring in a lot of businesses small and large to come and listen to all of us, right. So there’s community colleges and colleges that come in, and different employers and goodwill was there. That’s how the, the motion of this kind of movement starts to pick up. And it’s just those little things that kind of, say, to small, medium, large business, we can do this too. I think the call to action at the end of that event and things that we’re doing is go back and look at your organization and see where neurodiversity fits in. You already have people to the left, and to the right of you who are neurodiverse, they may not have disclosed, but how do you support them? And maybe how do you build the program? And that’s what we’re, that’s what we look to do in those pockets.
HR:
Walk us through what a candidate’s experiences, you know, from when they first connect with you?
AP:
Yeah, so and there’s a couple of way that couple of different ways that they can connect, right, we have a large kind of college university portfolio, right, we’re making friends in different places across the country. But there’s also you know, OVR, and different nonprofits. And so we’re able to find talent there, and those particular places. But we need to know whether the job opportunities are remote hybrid or on site, because geography plays a large part of it. And I think once we identify candidates to come in, we’re not going and saying, Hey, listen, you know, you’re gonna have a panel interview, it’s gonna be six people, it’s gonna be four hours over two days, we’re literally calling them up and saying, Hey, listen, if you want an advocate on the phone with you, while we talk initially, please do we want you to feel very comfortable in talking to us. So we’ll reach out initially with a phone call, talking to that candidate, we’ll put them through what we have is a narrative read neurodiverse. It’s easy for me to say neurodiverse friendly hiring platform, we use gamification we go through and whether they want to use video or not video to do maybe answer a question. They can use teams, they can use the phone if they wish. It’s not timed, we’re not putting pressure. So we’re trying to take the anxiety out of that. After that piece, we have what we call a talent discovery session, which is like a two to three day extended job interview, where we’re looking at, how do they work independently or collaboratively. But it’s also about the job, right? So we have a client and and they want us to do make a widget of XYZ, well, we’re going to put them through the job starts at eight and ends at five, we’re looking to see if they show up on time at eight, right taking the breaks coming back, we’re looking at those time management, executive function skills. And at the end of those two to three days, we’re able to make with all the people that we have kind of looking in listening in a bigger kind of robust decision about what that individual may need from an accommodation standpoint, or not accommodations at all, we’re able to place the person who’s going to be a good fit within the organization, meaning we want them to be successful. And we’re taking out, you know, the onboarding process is typically large and cumbersome. You know, to go get drug tested and fingerprinted. We’re providing, you know, Google Maps of where to go. And here’s the train schedule. If you don’t take you know, if you don’t drive, what’s the public transportation, here’s your here’s who you’re going to meet at the door. Here’s what the door looks like. Like companies don’t go to that depth to make sure that people understand where they’re going, who they’re going to meet. We are going that extra step. And by the end of that, hopefully we’re replacing an individual in a company.
HR:
Now, obviously, one part of having a strong neurodiverse workforce is making sure they have the education they need as well as the on site training. And from your perspective, how are universities doing at setting up neurodiverse students for success independent of you if you will.
AP:
So let’s take it like I said earlier, I go to a lot of colleges and universities I Talk to the administrators of faculty. I’m always looking for what do they have from a disability and Career Services? How does that? Look? I think what we find is that I think they’re about 99% of the way there and trying to support the students. There’s there’s one piece from one piece from an educational standpoint, they’re always asking us. So, you know, what’s the newest thing? What’s, what’s the curriculum supposed to look like? What are we not teaching, right? That’s a big part of it. We know what the jobs are coming from the clients and organizations. And maybe that university is not doing that, or they’re knocking it out of the park. And they have a whole bunch of candidates that are just, you know, they’re young students are waiting to get in. I think where we see success is where there’s enough career advisors, counselors, whatever you want to call them, to ensure that the student has a good backdrop of support, where it can be challenging at times is where universities have a newer program, and they’re getting their feet wet. And they’re they’re asking what should come next for the student, right? And these students, they can be 18 to 22, they could be 22 to 52, right, or, or 62. And they’re still fine trying to find their way. And I think where we’re leading them to is ensuring that we don’t, how should I say we we take a little bit more risk, they take a little bit more responsibility, meaning the student and sometimes over the years of elementary, secondary High School, there’s a lot of hand holding, and we’re trying to get the independence out of the individual. And we’re trying to find what that nook and cranny is that to kind of draw it out of them, I think sometimes, or there may still be some of that hand holding, and we’re trying to build that independence. So when we’re going in there, executive function skills, alright. It is also okay to fail. And you gotta let the students sometimes do that in a supportive way, though. So I think that’s kind of the educational piece that that we see.
HR:
Tell us about some of the work you’ve done with our friends at Beacon College.
AP:
Yeah, we love Beacon College, we, we signed a memorandum of understanding a bit ago, we took a visit down there to see I wanted to see firsthand with my eyes that campus, what does it look like? How does it feel? I was blown away because they took a college campus have neurodivergent students, right? Mostly are probably all at this point. neurodivergent students who have a plethora of different things going on dyslexia, dyspraxia, everything, and put it right in the middle of town. How amazing. And I hate to ask the question, I’m like, so is everybody like, integrated community? Like, yeah, they are now like, it took a while for everybody to be embedded. But as you walk down the street, you have a restaurant here. And then you have college admissions right here next to it. And I think they do a wonderful job of being open and welcome. And I will tell you this, and amazing career fair there too, right? So they had that or no 2030 businesses, some of them service providers, but local businesses as well. In these students were coming in, and they had everything to a tee provided, so that there would be no like, where do I go next? Who do I talk to? Like there was guidance. And these are what these young adults were needing right? So now they know that there’s employers out there for them. There’s also employers like us who go maybe a little bit farther with them from a supportive mechanism. And we have one young lady at Beacon, and I’ll never forget her. And she came in and she she stood in front of myself and our talent acquisition coordinator, Nick Allen, and she was she looked at us, she said, I don’t know if I can ever work. And we kind of asked her, like, why is that? She goes, Well, I got all the skills. But you know, as you can see, I’m a little I just, I’m shy. I’m like, listen, here’s what we’re here’s what here’s what 40 other businesses are here to tell you. We’re looking for your skills and aptitude. It’s okay that you might be a little shy, but if you can do the job, and help their bottom line and maybe helped change your culture, you’re you’ve already won. And the smile that comes to her face. She goes I can’t wait to tell my parents what you just said. Oh, like okay, her warm. In a moment, you know, it gets you in the field and got a little goosebumps. But that’s kind of the continued theme at Beacon college like these kids are coming in, maybe a little bit shy, but, man, by the time it ends, they’re just smiling and laughing with you. And that’s all we really want. Right?
HR:
Absolutely, you know, I was so honored to give the commencement address there ahile back and I met so many of the students, I spent some time on the campus. And they just blew me away. I mean, they’re really. And it really made me feel good about all of the players who like yourself, and the organizations that get what Temple Grandin said: Different, not less, that’s all what different. And I was so glad to see the relief I gave them. When I told some of my story. Look, I got expelled in the first grade and in the 10th grade, okay, so and I still got where I was going, and you work hard, and you play hard, and you value friendship and a lot of the values that they have at Beacon College. And I was so glad to see and learn how they were their approach was there.
AP:
here’s the other thing that they had, they have amazing facilities, too, right? So, you know, these kids are coming in, and my gosh, they have a swimming pool, they’re gonna use sports complexes, like there’s things to do, right. They don’t have to stay in the four walls, and they’re actually really nice dorms, you know, they can go out and experience life. That’s what it’s really about.
HR:
Anthony, what have we not covered that you would like to cover today and tell our audience?
AP:
I think the most important part is, you know, from, from my perspective, is that we need to develop a different culture within small, medium, large businesses that we can employ universal design, we want to be able to teach them mechanics and mechanisms of hiring individuals and not utilizing the old school of thought processes, we need to change that narrative, right? We want human beings who love human beings, so that they can be human beings at work. And I think the, the empathy factor is still a little bit lacking in the workplace. But we’re getting there, we’re moving the needle, but it’s just probably not as fast as I want it to go. Right. I’ve been doing this for for a long time. But I still see that there’s a huge need for people like ourselves to talk about this, to get it out to the masses so that they can see, right? So I think, you know, everybody listening in today, I think we just need to sit back, take take, take a moment, and understand that we should be helping our fellow man, woman, they he she all of it tried to succeed, and we need to be able to give them the tools in order to do that. And I think that’s probably the biggest pieces of takeaway.
HR:
And that, mister company president you’re talking to, will result in your company making more money.
AP:
And well, it’s just kind of the natural progression. And I think it’s missed, right? We, we try to tell companies and organizations, this will lead to this, right? We give them the whole curve up the mountain thing. And they’re like, Well, you know, isn’t it? Isn’t it cost prohibitive? Or aren’t I gonna have to pay for accommodations? But like, not everybody needs accommodations, right? It might be a simple noise cancelling headphone or a visor because the lights to these are nothing. But wait, do you see the 120% increase in productivity? Because you got somebody who was focused on doing the job at hand.
HR:
Very well said. Why should a company out there consider using a neuro diverse workforce?
AP:
As I stated, I am neurodivergent. And it’s giving the opportunity to someone like me, who has struggled a long time to get employment opportunities to show the world what they can do.
HR:
How can people learn more about CAI?
AP:
Absolutely, they can either go to cai.io. And we have the website and they’re able to get a hold of us that way. Or they can email myself: Anthony.Pacilio@cai.io.
HR:
Anthony, what advice would you have for a neurodiverse individual who is just now starting to look into working?
AP:
Yeah, so there’s there’s a couple things. I think the first piece of it advice is, don’t be nervous. I think there’s a lot of neurodiverse friendly companies out there that are hiring. rejection letters seem to come in not just for neurodivergent individuals but for neurotypical people as well. But also to understand that there’s companies like ca neurodiverse solutions, who can help that individual navigate the employment institutions so to speak.
HR:
Well, Anthony Pacilio of CAI Neurodiverse Solutions. Thank you so much for all you’re doing for those of us whose brains are a little bit different and for all these companies, you’re helping to make more profit. Keep up your great work, and please stay in touch. Thanks.
AP:
Thank you so much. I appreciate the time.
