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goldfish21
Veteran
Joined: 17 Feb 2013
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Posts: 22,612
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
06 Nov 2013, 10:39 pm
Article in today's news:
Quote:
Software company seeks to hire autistic workers in Vancouver
BY LORI CULBERT, VANCOUVER SUN NOVEMBER 5, 2013
0
STORYPHOTOS ( 1 )
Thorkil Sonne is the founder of Specialisterne, a Danish company that now works internationally to help people with autism find skilled and good-paying, jobs. He’s photographed in Vancouver on Nov. 5, 2013. Global software company SAP is using Specialisterne to hire six autistic people to test software locally.
Photograph by: Mark van Manen , Vancouver Sun
An international company plans to hire six people with autism as software testers in Vancouver after embarking on similar pilot projects in India, Ireland and Germany.
B.C. autism support groups laud the initiative by Germany-based SAP because the employment rate for autistic people is so dire, and hope other businesses will emulate the unique program.
Both the company and the support groups, however, insist this is not charity — that SAP is hiring from an untapped labour pool of high-functioning autistic people with sought-after software skills.
“They have extreme attention to detail, they are outstanding in terms of memorizing things, also they are logical thinking,” said Baerbel Ostertag, head of human resources for SAP (Systems, Applications and Products) Canada.
The multinational enterprise application software company hired six workers in India and five in Ireland to perform skilled yet repetitive jobs that are attractive to some people with autism, such as software testing, programming and data management.
SAP just launched a similar program in Germany, where it hopes to hire seven workers with autism. The fourth country targeted by the company is Canada, where there are plans to hire up to six people in Vancouver and three people in Montreal with autism.
The Denmark firm Specialisterne, which focuses on finding jobs for autistic people, is helping SAP hire the workers, train existing employees how to interact with autistic colleagues, and connect Canadian managers with those in India and Ireland for advice.
Specialisterne (which means Specialists in English) now has branches in many countries and its founder Thorkil Sonne, who has a son with autism, will speak today to SAP employees in Vancouver.
In India and Ireland, SAP managers report increased productivity due to the work done by autistic employees and also improved workplace bonding.
“And since we’ve promoted it here in Canada, we seem to get a lot of solidarity from employees asking us, ‘What is this about, how can I help, how can I support this?’ ” Ostertag said.
Existing employees will be advised to be straightforward with their new colleagues, as most people with autism have great difficulty communicating and forming relationships.
“Leave aside cynicism or sarcasm, it’s really about being very open and direct,” Ostertag said. “It’s also about taking down the barriers. Some people might be at first scared, because they don’t know how to deal with people on the (autism) spectrum.”
The Vancouver office aims to hire its six people by early 2014. All will be paid competitive salaries.
There are an estimated 40,000 adults with autism in B.C. — many without a diagnosis — and statistics suggest less than 25 per cent have steady work, said Deborah Pugh of Burnaby-based Autism Community Training.
“Jobs for adults with autism is the No. 1 priority in the autism community right now,” she said. “The real challenge is finding them work that is (compatible) with their intellectual ability.”
SAP’s initiative is important, Pugh added, because even though high-functioning people with autism might be good at software code, they are often handicapped during traditional job interviews due to their awkward social skills.
Support groups hope other companies will acknowledge the specific skills of people with high-functioning autism, while understanding they likely cannot do some tasks, such as giving presentations or writing reports.
“You can’t generalize, but these people can often be very focused on particular activities that they are engaged in. And something like reviewing software code in many cases is right up their alley,” said Michael Lewis, president of the board of the Autism Society of B.C. and past president of Autism Society of Canada.
“They can be very focused and very bright in areas that are of interest to them. Often the deficit is in the social area.”
Therefore, it is important that SAP is educating its employees about how to work with people with autism, Lewis added.
There are a few small start-up companies in B.C. which have hired people with autism to review code for video games, but Lewis knows of no other international companies with such a goal.
“It’s a good news story,” he said.
[email protected]
Twitter.com/loriculbert
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
BY LORI CULBERT, VANCOUVER SUN NOVEMBER 5, 2013
0
STORYPHOTOS ( 1 )
Thorkil Sonne is the founder of Specialisterne, a Danish company that now works internationally to help people with autism find skilled and good-paying, jobs. He’s photographed in Vancouver on Nov. 5, 2013. Global software company SAP is using Specialisterne to hire six autistic people to test software locally.
Photograph by: Mark van Manen , Vancouver Sun
An international company plans to hire six people with autism as software testers in Vancouver after embarking on similar pilot projects in India, Ireland and Germany.
B.C. autism support groups laud the initiative by Germany-based SAP because the employment rate for autistic people is so dire, and hope other businesses will emulate the unique program.
Both the company and the support groups, however, insist this is not charity — that SAP is hiring from an untapped labour pool of high-functioning autistic people with sought-after software skills.
“They have extreme attention to detail, they are outstanding in terms of memorizing things, also they are logical thinking,” said Baerbel Ostertag, head of human resources for SAP (Systems, Applications and Products) Canada.
The multinational enterprise application software company hired six workers in India and five in Ireland to perform skilled yet repetitive jobs that are attractive to some people with autism, such as software testing, programming and data management.
SAP just launched a similar program in Germany, where it hopes to hire seven workers with autism. The fourth country targeted by the company is Canada, where there are plans to hire up to six people in Vancouver and three people in Montreal with autism.
The Denmark firm Specialisterne, which focuses on finding jobs for autistic people, is helping SAP hire the workers, train existing employees how to interact with autistic colleagues, and connect Canadian managers with those in India and Ireland for advice.
Specialisterne (which means Specialists in English) now has branches in many countries and its founder Thorkil Sonne, who has a son with autism, will speak today to SAP employees in Vancouver.
In India and Ireland, SAP managers report increased productivity due to the work done by autistic employees and also improved workplace bonding.
“And since we’ve promoted it here in Canada, we seem to get a lot of solidarity from employees asking us, ‘What is this about, how can I help, how can I support this?’ ” Ostertag said.
Existing employees will be advised to be straightforward with their new colleagues, as most people with autism have great difficulty communicating and forming relationships.
“Leave aside cynicism or sarcasm, it’s really about being very open and direct,” Ostertag said. “It’s also about taking down the barriers. Some people might be at first scared, because they don’t know how to deal with people on the (autism) spectrum.”
The Vancouver office aims to hire its six people by early 2014. All will be paid competitive salaries.
There are an estimated 40,000 adults with autism in B.C. — many without a diagnosis — and statistics suggest less than 25 per cent have steady work, said Deborah Pugh of Burnaby-based Autism Community Training.
“Jobs for adults with autism is the No. 1 priority in the autism community right now,” she said. “The real challenge is finding them work that is (compatible) with their intellectual ability.”
SAP’s initiative is important, Pugh added, because even though high-functioning people with autism might be good at software code, they are often handicapped during traditional job interviews due to their awkward social skills.
Support groups hope other companies will acknowledge the specific skills of people with high-functioning autism, while understanding they likely cannot do some tasks, such as giving presentations or writing reports.
“You can’t generalize, but these people can often be very focused on particular activities that they are engaged in. And something like reviewing software code in many cases is right up their alley,” said Michael Lewis, president of the board of the Autism Society of B.C. and past president of Autism Society of Canada.
“They can be very focused and very bright in areas that are of interest to them. Often the deficit is in the social area.”
Therefore, it is important that SAP is educating its employees about how to work with people with autism, Lewis added.
There are a few small start-up companies in B.C. which have hired people with autism to review code for video games, but Lewis knows of no other international companies with such a goal.
“It’s a good news story,” he said.
[email protected]
Twitter.com/loriculbert
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
Thought this was a pretty positive piece of news and had to share it here. Also, even though I live here I have no interest in this type of job (I'm currently gainfully employed, anyways.) so I figured another reason to share it is that a local (or not so local?) forum member might be interested in applying. I know the GUI Manager/Director at SAP Vancouver & could probably shoot him a message and ask any questions about the place anyone might have if that's something people here are interested in.
For those who have no idea what SAP is: It's a German based software company that makes (IMO) the world's best Enterprise Resource Planning software suite. It's used to manage global multi-national multi-site businesses, usually big ones like Coca-Cola and Oakley and countless others. Their product is excellent and everything about using it just makes logical sense - and if an Aspie found something that didn't make sense, or could be improved, they'd change it I'm sure. But as it is, it doesn't even really have any competition in the same league in terms of quality. It's only downfall is that it's pretty expensive so not every business can afford to use it even if it would be good for their business.
_________________
No
for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.
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