A recent HBR blog piece,The Case for Hiring “Outlier” Employees, points to a wonderful practice which SAP and other forward-thinking companies have adopted. These companies have started hiring substantial numbers of employees on the autism spectrum for certain jobs where these individuals can be expected to outperform other employees. These companies, and others who may adopt this practice in the future, have the opportunity to make it even more successful. Using an assessment process for selecting candidates on the autism spectrum and for matching them to particular managers and teammates, can greatly enhance the odds of their success, turning a creative, competitive advantage into an even greater one.
The autism spectrum presents individuals with a very broad array of abilities. Individuals exhibit these abilities with different strengths and with different combinations of characteristics. The strengths and combinations of abilities that fit particular jobs can be identified from existing high performers in these jobs using the Bizet Activity Vector Analysis (AVA) assessment. Candidates can then be mapped against these abilities using one of the AVA tools. This will ensure a really strong fit of abilities to the role.
With respect to relationships, we suggest using the Four Groups 4G assessment which will show how strong a particular candidate’s relationship will be with other employees, including his prospective manager. This is a great way to help employees on the autism spectrum have a soft landing and a good experience with your company.
For companies like SAP which are already recruiting from this talented pool of candidates, assessments can meaningfully increase recruiting effectiveness and performance results. For other companies, perhaps the availability of assessments can inspire them to embrace this unique diverse population as part of their future.
