Creating autism friendly work places

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Ok so I'm the father of a small boy with autism. I am also a business owner and employer. Our company is not big, we employ 10 people and turn over around £1.5 million a year.

Now obviously employment is a while away for my own son but I want to understand a bit more about the challenges autism presents people in the work place.
I have read that only 15% of people diagnosed with autism have full time employment . I'm not sure of the source of that figure but have seen it banded around many times. If true that is a quite disgraceful figure and to me represents a tragic failure in our society. To me that 15% figures says we are wasting autistic talent and as a business owner this is actually an opportunity for the smart business owner to tap into an under utilised pool of smart hard working people.

That being said I am sure the modern working environment needs to be modified somewhat to ensure autistic people can work well. At the moment, like education, it is heavily geared towards the way NT's work best. So my question is what needs to change? What can I do as a business owner to make my work place more autism friendly?

Good on ya for considering it.
I love my work, but, I HATE HATE HATE the environment... I have told my boss I can accomplish more working from home for a few hours than I can working in the office all week. Maybe not a smart admission, but, I have to be honest with him. There are obviously also interpersonal issues, maybe others will cover those...

But, this thread is a great one to learn about the physical environment and it's effects:
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt39899.html

What needs to change. that's the million dollar question isn't it? Unfortunately, I don't have an answer, or at least a concrete one that would help.
One problem that I see often goes with the adage " It's not what you know, it's whom you know. " Sure autistic people can have a vast amount of knowledge on a particular thing. However, unless that understanding is relevant to a job. It won't help them in getting a job it's all about your connections with other people. Which is a bit of a problem for anyone on the spectrum. An anecdotal example of this would be my sister, let's just say she has a spotty record on her resume, but she has been able to get jobs because of the people she knew. On the other hand, I've struggled to get a job even though I don't have a spotty record. Is that fair? not particularly , but that's is how it works right now. Now I'm not saying references should be disbanded altogether. Because it helps the employer to understand the potential employee from another perspective, but it seems to me that references are placed on a higher pedestal than what they should be.
Again that's my opinion on it, and it probably shouldn't be taken as a viable business practice.

Ideally any environment that would offer the autistic individual solitude to get their work done without the same "motivating" pressure used on NTs.

I work great by myself in my own way. I work awful when watched closely -- I even start cutting food wrong or sloppy when people come around and get it perfect when I'm alone, for example. no one can see any of my skills because the act of observing me interferes with displaying them for you.

Also autistic people, even though capable of lying, need to be trusted that they say what they mean and mean what they say. There is no sugarcoating for a reason, we don't know how to use it effectively so discard it in favor of more direct, logical interaction.

I'm the same as kirayng, if I'm watched closely while working it actually ruins my ability to focus on the work and do it as well as I can do it when left alone. Also, to be able to work in relative solitude is better for me than working in close interaction with a lot of people.

I had to opt for self employment as a way to escape the often hostile environments of conventional workplaces and the situations that arose with co-workers. Bullying was a part of it.

Evilreligion, I'm very happy that you should ask. What kind of business are you in?

I have a very clear image of a good working environment.
I will give you three ideas that works for me:

1. Micromanagement. NT employees hate this, but people like me are having a hard time scheduling and planning out their day. A simple day calendar with short messages about what has to be done will help a lot.

2. Listen to the aspie. It is difficult for me to say anything about autism. I'm definetly on the spectrum, but I'm having a hard time speaking and talking at meetings. Especially about autism. It's shameful for me. Formalize the communication and be patient. It is hard to understand the aspie, and we really want to please as hard as we can, but it is so hard for us to tell other people what is wrong with us.

3. Give us the work that nobody else wants to do. I'm very good with administration and even better with IT. My favourite task is working with documents, because it calms me. NTs will get bored easily, because they lack the concentration. Be demanding and bossy, and tell the aspie that they need to stay focused as hard as they can.

It's a good idea if you read the book called "Aspergers On The Job" by Rudy Simone. It's fits my working life pretty well.

Hire people with autism. Working and being needed is all it takes for an aspie to prosper in the work place. Before you know it, you will have a very devoted and keen group of workers.

My business is the distribution of industrial components specifically spray nozzles. Its a niche very specialist little business.


So taking everyones feed back so far:

1- Create a good clear structure of what needs to be done on a daily basis
2- Consider giving the "boring" tasks like admin to Auties because they might not consider them boring at all.
3- Allow the person to work at their own pace
4- Allow the person to work on their own i.e. in solitude

One of the atypical things about my business is that everyone tends to work from home. With the exception, that it is, of our warehouse staff who for obvious reasons can't.

Do you think home working would be beneficial? I guess this meets points 3 and 4 but we would need to be careful about how we schedule work. My general philosophy on business is that it should be task based i..e we set the tasks to be completed rather than a set number of hours per week. Also I have never really cared when people get stuff done as long as its done on time. If someone wants to work at odd hours then what do I care? Obviously there needs to be some sensible common time that we all work at because we need to be able to collaborate sometimes.

One issue with the home working model in general is trust i.e. trusting that the person will be working rather than being on face book or whatever. Without wishing to generalise to much I think autistic people generally have a propensity towards being more trust worthy than NT's in that respect so perhaps thats another good reason for home working.

Anyways, any feed back on this would be greatly appreciated. I think another idea for an article may be forming in my brain.

Can I work for you?

Seriously, some of the management in my company is pretty opposed to working from home. It's really silly, especially considering how much time most of my coworkers spend talking about non-work-related items.
I get SO much more done when I'm working at home, because I'm without distractions.
I am the only non-management person in my department who has access to work from home, but, as the SysAdmin, I have work which can only be done at night. BUT, I'm still expected to be in the office for most of the regular hours. ~shrugs~ I usually put in my 40 in the cube farm and get OT for the work I do from home.
My coworkers have petitioned to work 1 day a week from home (saving the commute!), rotating, only having one person out of the office each day, but, I doubt that will ever get approved with our current VP. (I really like her for everything else, this is one blind spot she's got, though.)

First things first, Asperger's is a spectrum. One employee with AS may not need the supports that another may need.

But the first step is to create an environment and work culture where the autistic employee feels safe, valued, and her manager empathizes with that person's needs and proactively addresses those needs. As a manager, educate yourself. Understand things like executive function, executive planning, non-verbal learning disabilities, among other issues and come up with strategies to help the person on the spectrum work around those. You may want to collaborate with a on-the-job coach that can provide coaching for the employee with ASD. Be ready to adapt your leadership and communication style in a way that accommodates those with ASD.

Be aware of sensory issues and allow flexibility which allows the autistic worker to manage their own sensory inputs. If they need to work from home a few days a week and the job allows for it, line up the IT resources. If possible, allow for a quiet place for the worker with AS to work for a few hours in the event that they're right at the edge of sensory overload.

Drop the requirement that the employees multitask. For persons with ASD multitasking is next to impossible to do. For NTs, multitasking may be detrimental to quality work output (tons of brain research done on this). So drop the multitasking and use kanban and flow to get staff working "in the zone". The quality of work will improve as well as people' stress goes down. If you need case studies to justify this, learn about the Toyota Production System or Lean Process.

The single important thing is to empower the worker with AS by providing tools and supports that allows them to optimally manage their A.S.

EDIT: I'm in the planning stages for an IT services firm that will create HR policies that assist adults on the autism spectrum. Please feel free to PM me.

I can not understand businesses that insist on people coming into the office! Its madness. This goes way beyond anything to do with autism it just makes not bloody business sense in my opinion. Its wastes money, stresses out employees by making them commute, means they have less time with their families and is rubbish for the environment. Makes no sense! We save a small fortune in rent every year and it means I can employ anyone from any location!

This is a bit the daily telegraph did on our company which explains it a bit better - (its me doing the talking)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0v8lRZ ... nQvAJ2cK3Q

Sorry that went a bit off topic but home working is a passion of mine, every company should do it and I think they will in due course but there needs to be a bit of a cultural shift. The technology is there to make it happen and is only getting better but most business are stuck in the mind set that "everyone must go to the office like good drones" and it makes no sense to me!

You are preaching to the converted on this topic. Part of my job is data analysis for our facilities, so I know how much time and money and real estate we spend on keeping staff in our main offices. What a money pit. (completely aside from the stress issue of cramming us in here like sardines.)
Oh, yeah and don't get me started on the time suck and environmental disaster that is commuting.

I do like BitterGeek's response, great points all.