Companies harness neurodiversity with tech solutions, advocacy

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Asha Sreedhar was diagnosed with autism at the age of nine. Before joining SAP Labs India in 2015 as a quality associate, she completed her schooling and college in the US and graduated with a degree in office administration.

Sreedhar worked a few jobs but had a hard time sustaining employment due to intensive customer service interaction and multitasking. In one of her jobs, Sreedhar’s manager suggested that she pursue a new career in the information technology (IT) sector.

After moving to India in 2014, she went through a training programme and enrolled herself in an internship.

“Later, I found EnAble India, an organisation that helps people with disabilities, trains them and provides them with employment. I joined the ‘Autism at Work Employability Training’ programme and after my training, I got selected for SAP Labs India,” Sreedhar told Moneycontrol.

However, her shyness around people at work was a challenge and that held Sreedhar back from interacting with SAP Labs’ colleagues.

“Since I was new to the organisation, I was a little apprehensive about how I would be perceived as an individual with autism,” she said.

But she overcame this challenge by conducting a self-advocacy session on autism disability for workplace colleagues. Other session trainers were the EnAble India staff members. Most of the team members heard about autism for the first time and they showed interest in learning more about it.

Leave no one behind

SAP Labs India’s ‘Autism at Work’ programme, which is aimed at recruiting and supporting neurodivergent individuals, particularly those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is one of the unique programmes of select multinationals that subscribe to the idea of “leaving no one behind.”

Neurodiversity describes the idea that people experience and interact with the world around them in many different ways; there is no one "right" way of thinking, learning, and behaving, and differences are not viewed as deficits, according to a paper on the Harvard Health Publishing website.

For neurodivergent candidates, SAP Labs India’s job postings are designed to focus on skills and abilities rather than traditional qualifications. The interview process is flexible, depending on the candidates’ needs. It could be in-person, online, written, or oral, or project-based.

The company aims to match the unique talents and abilities of neurodivergent individuals with roles that align with their interests and strengths. Some employees are in software development, quality assurance and testing, data analysis and analytics, system administration, information development, and UX design.

Under its ‘Code Unnati’ initiative, SAP Labs recently launched digital inclusive learning especially designed for the neurodiverse community.

“Our goal is to provide training to candidates on advanced technologies. But we need to start the journey from the beginning. Right now, we are focusing on manual testing, a few programming languages and graphic designing,” said Shweta Mohanty, VP and head of HR at SAP India.

Assistive tech to the rescue

JPMorgan provides a broad suite of technology-based solutions for its staffers that can support a wide variety of conditions including blindness, low vision, hearing impairment, mobility and navigation challenges, and neurodivergent conditions, and ensures that all tools and software applications are compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

A suite of software tools has been designed to help users with reading, writing, and learning difficulties, as well as cognitive differences like attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, dyslexia, or other learning categories.

While the jobs that JPMorgan initially filled through its ‘Autism at Work’ programme, started in 2015, were technology-focused, the playing field is levelling out in terms of IT versus non-IT jobs. The split is roughly 60/40 now, respectively.

Since its inception, the programme has widened to encompass various roles, including marketing, client services, HR, controls, compliance, KYC, relationship bankers, technology operations, data analytics, software engineering, application support, and cybersecurity.

“Individuals with autism contribute diversity of thought and perspective to the workforce and enhance the innovation potential. This untapped talent pool can be integrated into teams within a functional group in roles such as interns, apprentices, part-time employees, contractors, or full-time employees. With the right support, these individuals are excelling in their roles,” said Deepak Mangla, CEO of corporate centres in India and the Philippines at JPMorgan Chase.

Paarth Gururajan and his family were thrilled when he received an offer to join Accenture in 2022. Gururajan, who has Asperger’s Syndrome, is a qualified digital media professional and works as a functional tester and does data artificial intelligence (AI) labelling at the multinational information technology services company.

“In 2022, my family and I were thrilled when I received an offer to join Accenture. Here, I have the flexibility to work from home given that I am sensitive to noise and find it difficult to work in a busy office environment,” he told Moneycontrol.

Accenture has a programme called 'Udaan', which offers entry-level neurodiverse candidates an opportunity to intern with Accenture for six months.

The interns go through life skills training before joining the programme. During the internship, they are given technology or domain skill training and hands-on exposure to projects to give them an authentic experience of working in a corporate environment.

This also allows Accenture to evaluate their fitment for roles at the company. The interns and their managers at Accenture receive coaching from neurodiversity experts to support the interns’ integration at Accenture.

The interns are mapped to roles based on business requirements at Accenture and their skills and experience.

“We have found that neurodiverse candidates can take up a wide range of roles – for example, application development, testing, and operations. What matters is that they are provided with the right training and enablement that they require,” said Lakshmi C, MD and lead of human resources at Accenture in India.

To build awareness and sensitisation among employees towards their colleagues with neurodivergent conditions, Accenture offers virtual reality-based learning modules on autism and learning disabilities. It helps the neurotypical view the world through the eyes of the neurodiverse and thereby imparts a better understanding of the world of a neurodiverse person.