Tackling Autistic Underemployment, with Louise Stone | Spectrumly Speaking ep. 147
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IN THIS EPISODE:
Louise Stone is Head of Recruitment and Community Partnerships for auticon US. Since joining auticon in 2020, she has been at the helm of its autism-friendly recruitment process, leading to the launch of multiple new business markets, the development of a “ready to work” community, and massive growth for the company. Louise is passionate about getting to know each candidate and matching them to client projects, taking into account both technical skill and workplace accommodation needs.
Fore more about auticon US: auticon.com/us
For auticon international: auticon.com
For more about Louise: linkedin.com/in/stonelouise
Spectrumly Speaking is the podcast dedicated to women on the autism spectrum, produced by Different Brains®. Every other week, join our hosts Haley Moss (an autism self-advocate, attorney, artist, and author) and Dr. Lori Butts (a licensed clinical and forensic psychologist, and licensed attorney) as they discuss topics and news stories, share personal stories, and interview some of the most fascinating voices from the autism community.
For more about Haley, check out her website: haleymoss.net And look for her on Twitter: twitter.com/haleymossart For more about Dr. Butts, check out her website: cfiexperts.com
Have a question or story for us? E-mail us at SpectrumlySpeaking@gmail.com
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION:
Note: the following transcription was automatically generated. Some imperfections may exist.
HALEY MOSS (HM):
Hello, and welcome to Spectrumly Speaking. I’m Haley Moss, an author, artist, attorney. And I’m autistic. Grateful as always to be here on Spectrumly. And of course, I am joined by my one and only co host. Say hello.
DR LORI BUTTS (LB):
Hi, I’m Lori Butts. I’m a psychologist and an attorney.
LS:
How are you doing?
LB:
Good, how are you?
HM:
I’m hanging in there somehow it feels like time just keeps going. But we’re doing our best.
LB:
Yeah, that’s long. That’s why you do exactly.
HM:
I feel like there’s always an adventure to be had. So there’s more adventures to be had this week and next week and the week after So, and then all of a sudden, we’re gonna hit the end of the year, it feels like and then boom, I don’t have the skills.
LB:
Yes, you do.
HM:
But this is still one of the best parts of my week. Yes, me too. Mostly because I always enjoy that I get to learn something new and meet new people. Yeah. And it always feels very safe to do so you know, like, sometimes it’s very scary when you go out into the world. And you have to meet new people and say hello. And then you’re like, Okay, this isn’t so bad to get to have a conversation with somebody here.
LB:
That’s really true. The last time we were encouraging you to go out and network. So hopefully that went well.
HM:
I attempted to I think it went well. I made some new friends. Oh, that’s great. I’m gonna have to say hi to them. Thank you for the reminder to you know, keep in touch with people. Exactly, exactly. I think I make a lot of friends in the moment, then, like, forget that I have all these random friends.
LB:
You have a lot of friends. Everyone I meet tends to know you. So you have a lot of friends.
HM:
Keep in mind, we’re using the term friends here pretty loosely.
LB:
We are yes.
HM:
Because I would like to have deeper relationships. And I realized that there’s kind of this object permanence thing that happens. It’s like, oh, you’re my friend at this very specific moment and specific thing, but I need to actually do the work to nurture those relationships outside of that specific moment, or that specific thing.
LB:
Yeah, that’s the work.
HM:
I think we’re all very guilty of that as a society, but it’s something I want to do better about.
LB:
Yeah, it’s hard. You get a lot of a lot of obligations and then taking care of yourself and it gets put on the backburner and then time flies by and the whole thing. So it’s nice to be up there in their priorities, that’s for sure.
HM:
I regularly find myself telling people “I’m so sorry, I’ve been out of touch life is lifing”.
LB:
Oh, I like that.
HM:
Because I don’t know how to describe it cuz you don’t want to talk about everything that went on in your life. And the two months or however long it’s been there, like life was doing was just like sitting around waiting to eventually talk to this person again. So life was doing life.
LB:
Yeah, I like that.
HM:
But life is not doing life here at podcast because we exist in you know, whatever time vacuum this must be. And we get to make a new friend together. And we’re very excited to welcome Louise Stone to Spectrumly speaking, Louise is the head of recruitment and community partnerships for Auticon. Since joining Auticon in 2020. She has been at the helm of its autism friendly recruitment process, leading to the launch of multiple new business markets. The development of a ready to work community and massive growth for the company. Louise is passionate about getting to know each candidate and matching them to client projects, taking into account both technical skill and workplace accommodation needs. Welcome to the show.
LOUISE STONE (LS):
Thank you very much for having me.
HM:
Thank you for being here. So just to help us all out and to introduce you a little bit more to our audience. Would you feel comfortable sharing with us how you became involved in the autism community?
LS:
Yeah, sure. Um, so I’m autistic. So that’s the main reason that I’m involved. But um, yeah, I’d say it was like, I don’t know, around six years ago or so that I really started getting involved in the autism space. I was diagnosed earlier than that, but I kind of like ignored that part of my life wasn’t really accepting it didn’t really understand it. And then when I found like an online community, specifically at that time autistic women, I kind of found people that I really saw myself in and so I started looking into ways to get more involved in the community. And I was living in San Francisco at the time I connected with some local organizations. I helped to kind of restart and get off the ground, a nonprofit called Autistic Women’s Alliance, and then I knew I was moving from San Francisco to Los Angeles. And so I was able to connect with Auticon. And after some light pestering and chasing, I was able to start working right at the beginning of 2020 at Auticon and since then I’ve just been like full force in the autism community because it’s my job.
LB:
Can you tell us about Auticon and the work that you do there?
LS:
Yeah, so Auticon is a global tech consultancy. So we’re in 14 countries. But basically, we’re a tech consulting company, we do all kinds of tech projects, for mostly pretty large companies, but in all types of areas. So not just like true tech, but you know, healthcare, finance, anything, really. And our niche is that 100% of our consultants, so people working with our clients are autistic, but also a lot of our back office and operations staff is autistic or neurodivergent, as well. And, yeah, we’re basically a social enterprise. So we operate as a business, not as a nonprofit, but we have a mission of providing careers to autistic people, and just bettering, you know, company’s neuro inclusion. While we do that. And, for my role, particularly, it’s kind of two or three sided, I run our recruitment process. So I did help design, our autism friendly recruitment process, which is free of traditional interviews, and instead has really focused on getting to know an individual through more casual chats and conversations and actual relevant skills assessments. And getting to know what somebody can succeed in technically, but then also what they need to succeed in terms of support needs and work environments.
So I lead that process and get to work with our candidates from start to finish. I also stay connected with our community partners, and maintain those relationships. So that’s organizations like nonprofits, regional centers, vocational rehab, things like that, that tend to be a place where they can get our name out there to the community, because most people don’t know our company or companies like ours exist. And then I also work in our neuro inclusion services, which is where we consult with companies that rather than just hiring a few autistic consultants through us want to really overhaul their internal processes, that recruitment process, their onboarding process, and just generally, you know, being a more neuro inclusive company. So I do help consult in that realm as well.
HM:
That is extremely cool. So you mentioned how Auticon is a autism majority company. And what do you think other organizations can learn from that model?
LS:
I think autism and neuro divergence and disability in general, kind of I do believe it’s shifting. But I think for the whole rest of the time, we’ve been existing, it has been in this weird sort of limbo, where, if you were to question anybody about it, they would think that’s kind of weird, but it was also normalized. So like, for example, if a company was going to start an erg, for LGBTQ i plus people, they probably wouldn’t have it completely run by straight people. That’s just like a no brainer. But for some reason, that is not as much of a no brainer for neurodiversity, or autism hiring programs. And again, I do believe it’s shifting. But traditionally, there have been a lot of organizations launching these programs without any input of autistic or neurodivergent people, let alone you know, people at the leadership and development level.
So I think that that is the biggest thing. I just don’t think you can build an efficient program or support people. Well, if you don’t have that firsthand lived experience. And I also understand that it’s not an overnight thing. You know, people have the best intentions and they have great people working on these programs. And they’re not just going to fire them all and hire the first autistic people that they come across. But you know, starting with their current employees, making sure that those people are having the opportunity to give their input and being considered for roles in that area, and are really just is being heard and consulted with until they can get to the point where those people are, you know, truly leading the process.
LB:
On the Auticon website, it mentions the role of job coaches. Can you tell us about what what they do and the importance of coaching for the client and the consultants?
LS:
Yeah, so our job coaches have always been a really integral part of our success. So what I think is a bit unique about it is that when a client works with us, and somebody is hired by us, both parties get access to the job coach. So we always have job coaching as part of our recruitment process, actually, it’s the last step in our recruitment process, where we can evaluate what people’s needs will be what they might need support in what won’t work well for them. So that when we’re hiring them into a role, we already can make sure we’re doing as best possible to match up to those things, but also can go into it ready to support on some of those things that we know, needed support. But also the job coaches provide some autism awareness training to at least at the immediate team, that that employee will be working with, but sometimes to the larger organization as well. And I always like to say that that initial session is probably one of the most important steps because we all know people want to ask questions, and everyone, nobody wants to ask the wrong question, or offend somebody or anything like that.
But they also want to get answers. So I always kind of say, That’s people’s time to ask whatever they want to ask, and make sure that there isn’t any unknowns. And that people can feel comfortable going into working with that employee and knowing how to support them. But that job coach doesn’t disappear. So they’re always available. For any type of ongoing support on either side, we do have, like regular check ins with for all of our employees, typically weekly. And that can be you know, they actually need specific help with something. Or maybe they just need kind of that third party person to like vent to, that’s not their manager, or, you know, just someone to talk to, and then also on the client side, they can access that person at any time, if there is maybe a performance issue, rather than going to the consultant directly and saying, why are you not doing a good job, they can go to the job coach, and then the job coach can check in and see maybe if there’s an external factor, like some stress at home, or something like that, that can be addressed to improve that performance. So yeah, I think that they’re really important for a number of reasons, but mostly because it is on both sides, not just for the consultant.
HM:
I think that’s wonderful that you’ve mentioned a lot of that, especially because it speaks as well to so many issues and potential supports that we should be having as autistic employees and in the employment space. So kind of to shift gears a little bit, we typically talk about how folks in the autism community are unemployed. But there’s something that’s really interesting here about underemployment. And it’s something I think would be really interesting just to chat about and how we get there, how we can improve since clearly, it seems that you are doing such an amazing job with Auticon at bringing in autistic talent and fostering successful employment relationships. So let’s talk about underemployment for a little bit. And if there’s anything that you feel comfortable sharing, or why we even think that happens in the first place, and how we can improve upon it.
LS:
Yeah, so I feel like people that know what underemployment is, because I think a lot of people have never even heard that term. But when people have heard of it, I think they tend to think extreme like the super PhD level, amazing coder with some special skill that is currently working part time at McDonald’s and is just like is undiscovered and there are definitely people like that. But I think a lot of people that I encounter and honestly myself included, have experienced chronic underemployment in a variety of different ways. So for me personally, before working at Auticon, I would consider myself underemployed even though if you were to look at like my LinkedIn or whatever it might look like I was gainfully employed my job titles didn’t seem like vastly different from my experience level and things like that. But they just were not at all utilizing my skills and also it was not a secure employment. I had like seven jobs in four years, mostly like contracts and part time jobs that I would get fired from for kind of no reason and I thing that’s a big type of underemployment that we see is what looks like job hopping. But it’s really just not having been in a supportive environment where your skills can thrive. And I think another big form of underemployment that’s even more missed than that is people that have been in a role for a long time and have not gained any promotions may be entitled or in money. Because they don’t really know how to like play the system. And they don’t understand that unfortunately, in a lot of organizations, promotions don’t just happen and you kind of have to like put yourself forward for them.
HM:
Interesting thing because I think so much we think that we’re just gonna get rewarded based on merit. And there’s so many kind of unwritten social rules have jobs of how do I ask for a raise? How do I put myself out there for a promotion? That I’m really glad you mentioned, all that types of stuff as forms of underemployment, I know that even what you’re saying and how it’s a little bit sneakier, even from your experiences, it looks like you do a whole lot, but it also just doesn’t quite match the experiences that you have. That’s a really big thing. And I’m glad that it’s not as necessarily extreme as people tend to think of it as Oh, you have a fully trained engineer who is a cashier in the grocery store. That’s usually the obvious example that I get when people have never heard the term. But I appreciate the ways that you’ve explained that it’s a lot subtler. So how do we fix that?
LS:
I think the fastest way is, first of all, internally, you know, a lot of work that we do, especially in our neuro inclusion services work is starting with your current employees. So everyone kind of gets an idea that they’re going to start a program and it’s going to be great, and they’re going to hire all these people who say like, back it up here, you already have a bunch of autistic neurodivergent disabled employees, whether they’ve disclosed that or not. So let’s start there and make sure we’re supporting them. So kind of looking internally and making sure that there is a readable roadmap to promotion, that it is not just completely subjective. Obviously, when it comes down to it, there’s going to be some subjectivity, there’s always going to be multiple people that can be great for a promotion, and only, you know, one person that can get that promotion. So we’re not asking for anything crazy here. But just making sure it’s not completely based on, you know, a social hierarchy that may not be understood by everybody.
But then also, when it comes to outside of your organization, I think it’s really looking at people’s profiles holistically. So I get a lot of people asking me all the time, like, Oh, if I got this certification, could I work for Auticon, or if I had this experience, could I work for Auticon. And I always say that it’s not, we’re not going to look, for one particular thing. You know, we’ve had people that have no work experience, and are amazing and can take, you know, a mid level job right away. And then we have people that have, you know, five years of experience, and really, it’s not matching up skills wise. So breaking down, rather than looking for a particular job titles, or, you know, like I said, extreme continuity, like every job has been two plus years, and there’s no career gaps, kind of giving people the benefit of the doubt and looking to screen people in rather than screen them out. And then you know, when you get further down the process, you can really find who is the right skill set for that for that role.
But I think that can really help get some of those people that are missing out on opportunities, just because they don’t have the perfect repertoire on their resume that a particular role is looking for. And it just comes to being more open to different profiles and different skill sets. When you’re looking at hiring for a role.
LB:
That makes a lot of sense. It, it also makes a lot of sense. Like the traditional way that you get promoted or the traditional way that you get more money is by social things, going to lunch with people like you know, like, that’s kind of like the more traditional path to like networking or, again, being able to, you know, stand up for yourself and ask for a raise, and things like that are all kind of very traditional skills, even, you know, not even just not neurodivergent but women aren’t aren’t, aren’t traditionally taught those skills as well, right? Because we’re taught more to be polite and those kinds of things and advocating for yourself in this way is Um, you know, it’s not, it’s not something that a certain part of our demographic is taught. And so that’s a really large piece that the mentorship and helping people gain those skills is really important. And also, like what you’re saying, like assessing people in a different way and thinking about doing your assessments in a different way. That’s also I mean, it’s, it’s on both friends through it. And obviously, from the, from the employee and from the employer, right, everybody has to kind of shift and do things different.
LS:
I think a common, I guess, pushback that people will generally not share that upfront, but you know, we’ll share sort of in passing, or maybe when they think that they’re just kind of venting or something like that is like, well, you know, they don’t want to be unfair. So they don’t want to hire somebody that has less experience just because they are like, insert diversity metric here. But that’s kind of the point, it’s like, you’re not just going to hire any autistic person that comes across your desk, just because they’re autistic, they have to have qualifications, but you have to look for those qualifications in different ways. Like, maybe they have had QA jobs instead of software engineering jobs, but have, if you dig deeper, you find that they do have all the coding skills, and they’ve been working on it on their own, and they just haven’t had the job title to match. And it takes more effort than just looking at a resume really quickly, to be able to garner that. And so it’s kind of an ask of just taking a few more seconds to look at somebody’s resume and profile. And like I said, look for the positives, versus like, looking for things to just screen them out.
LB:
Right, and also helping the people that do their resumes to be able to, to communicate that as well, right? Because you don’t, you might not think that something’s important or something, it differentiates you. And it really does. But it’s Yeah, we all need to be expansive. And the way that we think and problem solving make these choices. And I don’t know, I guess, again, I’ve been thinking to that, in my mind, it’s, I, you know, I have a small business, I think, in some ways, large businesses have an advantage. Um, because in a small business, each person has to do everything. And in a large business people can be, you know, there’s people can be very, a little more specific, and what they do if they do one thing really well, that’s all they can do. But in a really tiny business like mine, everybody has to do everything, well, or else, the ship sinks, you know.
LS:
So yeah, and I think that’s kind of like why we do a lot of assessment of what types of work environments people will work in, because not everybody’s going to work well in the same type of environment. So if we have two people that have the same, you know, skill levels, one might be a fit for one client, and one might not be because of the way that that team works. And, you know, we always try and have people come half way, or at least part of the way. So, you know, the client might have to make some adjustments, maybe their work super, super fast paced, really dynamically. And, you know, people have to wear a lot of hats, and maybe they need to make some adjustments just to maybe have some more documentation or some follow up in writing some minor supports like that, that are going to be a change for them to support an autistic employee.
But at the same time, we’re not going to put somebody in that role that needs extremely structured, repetitive, you know, the same schedule every day, because that’s just it’s not it’s a mismatch, it’s just not going to work out for success. So I think that’s the other thing, too, is like, you know, right now, I feel like a lot of people hiring, they’re looking for a perfect match in every way, but you have to kind of look at it from all angles, like, you know, can I make this small change and have this be the right person? Or is it just not the right role? Or the right company? And that’s okay, you know, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s going to be perfect for everyone.
LB:
Right, right. Right. Right. And, and, and the fallback position is, well, this is this is how we’ve always done it. And it’s like, I’m always looking to hire somebody that can tell me how to do things better and different because this is how he always doesn’t do it doesn’t necessarily always work. And so to get like a fresh set of eyes, a new set of skills to help you look at something differently is is such a welcome endeavor, from my perspective.
LS:
I agree.
HM:
Also with you on that one. And I think when you were mentioning as well, about smaller businesses, there’s such an opportunity, I think, if you’re willing to learn even as a business owner, because you really can help somebody, like, tap into that potential, learn those skills, really mentor like, I’ve always struggled with mentorship at workplaces, this is something I think I’m very open about. And it’s also one of those unwritten rules of how people get ahead, whether and something you touched on as well, earlier doctor about this, how even like women, there’s certain rules that you have to know or learn or you’re expected to act a certain way. And it really got me thinking as well about kind of the intersectionality component here. So just kind of some food for thought, as we’re wrapping up thinking out loud, but I don’t know, I feel like this is making a lot more sense in my head, and it’s coming out as word salad.
LB:
You’re making sense. You’re making sense, there’s just a lot there.
HM:
My head is running faster than my mouth, and my mouth is trying to catch up, and it’s coming out funny, and my and then hopefully for myself, like oh…
LS:
No, it’s definitely making sense to me. And I mean, obviously, we know that, you know, people that are, do have intersectional identities, across many different types of areas will have even more difficulties, you know, and more underemployment, unemployment, things like that. So those are things you have to take into account. Which again, you know, you it’s a lot easier said than done, but you know, just looking at the whole person, and all of their skills, and also, you know, maybe where they haven’t been able to gain skills, but you can see that potential, that’s really important.
LB:
It’s so true, it’s so true. And so many people have so much to offer. And like I said, you don’t even know, you know, as a business owner, or whatever, you don’t even know what you’re missing out on sometimes. And that’s where I think Louise, you come in and, and, and how, like that coaching piece, like, help like this could really help you in this area. And it’s something that as a business owner you hadn’t even thought of and that could present that whatever that is, could be potentially game changing for that organization.
LS:
So yeah, and it’s interesting, too, because, you know, the reason why I think we have a lead, you know, if I took a candidate and submitted them to our client, and then the same candidate with the exact same profile, applied, you know, externally to that company, I do think we have a leg up, because when people are coming to us, they understand some things that they’re agreeing to undertake with that is working with the job coach, understanding that that person may need support, and that those supports may change. But also people because of the education portion that we provide to our clients, before we even start working with them on on hiring for roles, is they understand that it’s gonna be hard to find a perfect fit for any role, because job descriptions are just so specific, and people don’t have the exact experience. But what we hear a lot of is, you know, we’re okay, you know, it might say, four years of experience, but you know, they experience doesn’t matter, it might say that they need a bachelor’s in computer science, but if they don’t, that’s fine. And other things like that, even you know, they’ll have a candidate talk to them realize that it’s they’re not a fit for that position, but they’ll actively look for a position that they are a fit for somewhere else in the team or in the organization.
And that’s, you know, something that a lot of people screen themselves out of those opportunities. Because when you look at a job description, and it says you need this, that and the other, if you don’t have those things you don’t apply. And that’s especially true for a lot of autistic people, because we tend to be literal. So it’s like, if it’s saying this is required, and I don’t have it, I’m not going to apply. But there’s also been studies, I don’t have the statistics on women, I will make up general statistics, nobody quote me, but like, I think it’s like men usually will apply to a job if they meet 50% of the requirements, but women will only apply to a job if they meet 90% of the requirements. And most companies understand that their job descriptions are like, you know, wishful thinking and they’re really looking for the best candidate that has, you know, different boxes checked. But again, it’s that social those social rules Those unwritten rules that people don’t tell you about.
HM:
A lot of that also falls on companies to kind of reexamine what an ideal candidate is.
LS:
Yes. And that’s something we often immediately tackle. In our neuro inclusion consulting is, you know, we do a whole assessment of everything, you know, what are you doing? Well, what are you not doing? Well, and a lot of things start with the job description, which a lot of people don’t even think about when they think about trying to have more inclusive practices. But it’s something that’s usually a very easy fix, and gets them a lot more candidates that, you know, maybe neurodivergent, or something. But my favorite example, which has nothing to do with neurodiversity, is if you were to just like search for random jobs, like office jobs, not physical jobs at all, so many of them will say, must be able to lift 25 pounds as like a random requirement. And I don’t know how this started becoming like, in so many standard job descriptions, because I remember, when I was looking for jobs, you know, many years ago and stuff, I would see that sometimes I was like, that’s weird. And I guess it’s because, you know, maybe you might need to like, move some filing boxes, or like, move your desk around or something. But that instantly screens out. So many people with physical disabilities, and they’re usually not trying to do that. But it’s just some outdated metric that’s in there that they haven’t thought about.
HM:
I’m glad that you’ve mentioned all of this, and you’ve given me a lot to think about as well.
LB:
Yes, yeah. Is this is really, really great stuff.
HM:
So Louise, how can we learn more about you, and also what you’re doing at Auticon?
LS:
Yeah, so for me, you know, my LinkedIn would probably be the most relevant place to learn anything about me or just connect with me. And my name is just on there, Louise Stone, I should be pretty easy to find. And then for Auticon, our website, which is Auticon.com/us. There’s any international listeners, if you just go to Auticon.com You’ll be able to find the country that is relevant to you. And yeah, you know, we do a lot of like press, we do a lot of different — We do actually like a podcast in the UK. And we have a lot of different content out there for people that might just be interested in learning about us or, you know, interested in applying for a job or working with us on consulting for Neuro inclusion. So yeah, anybody can just reach out.
HM:
That is completely awesome. And I think that’s a great place for us to end with lots to think about. Be sure to check out differentbrains.org and check out their Twitter and Instagram at DiffBrains. And don’t forget to look for them on Facebook. If you’re looking for me, you can find me at Haleymoss.com or all major social media. I’m happy to help however I can and to be a friend and I look forward to connecting with you. And I can be found at
LB:
CFIexperts.com Please be sure to subscribe and rate us on iTunes and don’t hesitate to send questions to Spectrumlyspeaking@gmail.com. Let’s keep the conversation going.
