#66 Meaningful Employment for Young Adults with Disabilities (with Neurodiversity-Friendly Companies)

If you know anyone who is attending college and looking for gainful employment with a good company, check out this latest episode that shares several amazing resources specifically designed to provide job opportunities for individuals with disabilities, including neurodiverse adults on the Autism Spectrum, or having Dyslexia, Tourette Syndrome, or ADHD.
You will have access to over 500 companies that have been identified by Forbes Magazine as being "diversity-friendly." A second resource shares nearly 50 companies identified on the Neurodiverse Career Connector website that actually have neurodiverse hiring programs in place.

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America's Best Employers for Diversity - Forbes

Disability Employment Statistics

Neurodiversity Career Connector

Top Companies Seek Workers with Autism

Tip Sheet for Managing an Autistic Employee

Rising Tide U "The Blue Print" Step-by-step process for creating an autism social enterprise

"Moving Forward" Video featuring Shawn Kelly's story. 

Transcript

Mickie  0:00  
Do you know a young adult with a disability who is at a loss trying to figure out how to go about getting a job that brings meaningful gainful employment? Did you know that at least one in every 15 people is neuro divergent, and that includes autism, learning disabilities, ADHD, and Tourette's. Currently, the labor force participation rate for individuals between the ages of 16 and 64 with a disability is 37.5%. Whereas the labor force participation rate for individuals without a disability is 76.9%. These statistics are coming directly from the reports by the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics April 2022. So it should come as no surprise to you if you know somebody with a disability who's really having a hard time finding meaningful employment, especially someone who is on the autism spectrum or has a learning disability or has ADHD and has trouble focusing and holding jobs. So that's what we're going to talk about today, I have several resources that I'm going to share with you are specifically designed to provide job opportunities for individuals with disabilities, including neurodiverse individuals. So welcome to College Disabilities and Success, Episode 66 "Meaningful Employment for Young Adults with Disabilities by Mickie Hayes. The opinions in this podcast are my own, please reach out to your college physician or legal services for additional information.

Mickie  1:46  
As we all know, the last few years have been particularly difficult because of the pandemic and the impact of COVID 19 on communities education, socialization, employment, health care, businesses, housing, finances and access to capital, especially for underserved communities. So with this in mind, Forbes magazine decided to partner up with a market research company called Statista to compile their annual list of America's best employers for diversity. The criteria that they used in their report included age, gender, ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation, equality, as well as general diversity statistics surveyed 60,000 people, Americans working for businesses that at least had 1000 employees so that they could pinpoint companies that were dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion. And then they asked participants who belong to underrepresented groups to nominate organizations of their own. So they had a very large collection of data to base their conclusions on. On April 26 2022, Forbes released America's best employers for diversity, the 2022 edition, and that link will be in today's show notes. It's in an article edited by Jared Council and it includes links to 500 Diversity friendly employers across the country. So this is literally hot off the presses because this is less than a month old at the point that I'm recording this podcast. Now just to satisfy your curiosity a little bit. I'll give you a few of the top companies so you can get a sense of the industries that they're looking at the number one company that is most diverse, friendly, is progressive, the insurance company and they have over 43,000 employees in their company. Other companies include Booz Allen Hamilton professional services, the Interpublic Group IPG, which is media and advertising Commons for engineering and manufacturing Adobe for the internet. Clorox for packaged goods, Quicken Loans for banking services, Vera Bradley for clothing and shoes, Qualcomm for electronics, electrical engineering, technology, semiconductors. So these are just a few of the top companies that they listed. But in the top 10 companies alone there are it Internet software companies, professional services, companies, media and advertising companies packaged goods company banking and financial companies, clothing, shoes, sports equipment. So you can tell by the list of companies at the very start of this 500 company list that it's a very eclectic group of companies that could have jobs that would work in any area that the individual is interested in, in researching And this list contains a link to every single one of those 500 companies. So it's a very, very user friendly report with a lot of user friendly companies with a lot of accessible information with regards to diversity. And remember though diversity is age, race, sexual orientation, and disability. So disability is part of the diversity picture, the once again, that's Forbes magazine, America's best employees for diversity 2022. The second resource that I'm talking about today is from an online magazine called Disability scoop. And it's entitled top companies seek workers with autism by Sean Heasley. And this was done may 3 2022. So this is also very, very new. But this article is aimed specifically at recruiting individuals that are neuro divergent to come and interview for jobs. But what's unique about the jobs and the companies at this site is that they are looking at nearly 50 companies that actually have a neuro diversity hiring program as part of their services. So this article is very specific to servicing individuals on the autism spectrum with learning disabilities with ADHD with Tourette's with neuro diverse disabilities. Now, this is a brand new recently debuted platform on a site that was developed by the neuro diversity at work employer roundtable, which is a group of nearly 50 companies that have these hiring programs. And they got together and created a career portal known as neurodiversity career connector. And the neuro diversity career connector features very specific jobs in these 50 companies that are offered because they are part of a neuro diversity hiring program. And that means that these companies have developed a specific interviewing process for individuals that are neuro diverse, that allows those individuals to show what they know and show what they can do and a specific training programs and support systems in place so that the companies can attract top talent with autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyspraxia, dyslexia, dyscalculia Tourette syndrome, and similar conditions like that

Mickie  7:40  
because they value the knowledge and the competencies that these individuals bring to the corporation. Some of these corporations include Dell Technologies, Google traveler's insurance, IBM, Microsoft, Freddie Mac, Hewlett Packard Ford, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, there's a lot of companies on the list and the list is in the link Gil hufton, who's president and CEO of disability in formerly known as the US Business Leadership Network states the following neurodiverse individuals possess key competencies that are increasingly valuable to companies such as strong problem solving skills, and unconventional thinking. And Jill hufton continues to state that a growing number of companies are seeking the value that diversity and inclusiveness bring to accompany. And that's why she's part of the neurodiversity at work roundtable that helps the companies activate programs specifically to hire neuro divergent candidates. When you go to the link that I gave you today, you will find the neuro diversity career connector portal and you can search the portal to see what jobs are already posted there. But besides that, you will also see several links that will introduce you to the companies that are part of this organization and stories from many of the people that are already working at these companies to explain their jobs and share a little bit about their experiences. And you'll find when you start listening to this and start listening to the different people that have had these experiences, and are already working at the companies that they also share some really important information. I strongly recommend that the parents who are listening listen to Shawn Kelly's story and see AI a company that does internet solutions and listen to Shaw's story because his mother speaks on the video and she talks about her experiences and her hopes and dreams for her son and how going through this program allowed them to happen. So suddenly Whitley check that video out that link will be in with the other links as well. And for those of you who want to know more about how they work their program, their autism to Work Program, which they have since renamed Caapi neurodiverse solutions, but they talk about some of the particulars of that program specifically, and how they built the program when they decided to actively bring on individuals with autism into the corporation. There are so many good stories that people are sharing on the website. But another one in particular that I thought might interest you was the conversation between the Google manager Patricia Lee and her employee, Tim Goldstein. Tim is an advocate for autism and neurodiversity. One of the questions in the conversation was, what was that first conversation disclosing your workplace needs with Patricia, your manager like, and Tim responded with? For me, it was not anything out of the ordinary. Because of my work as an advocate for autism, and neurodiversity. I am very public to better control my disclosure,

Mickie  11:12  
I regularly tell people upfront when I told Patricia I was autistic. I also sent her a manager tip sheet that I designed for Vanderbilt University's Frist Center for Autism and innovation, which is specifically focused on disclosing your neuro distinction and ways to self advocate with your manager. It gives your manager concrete ways to best work with anyone who is neurodivergent. So I also included in the links for today, a copy of the manager tip sheet that Tim created for Vanderbilt University. So you will have access to that as well today, it's very, very helpful to have these resources in my opinion. Now, you may have noticed that there seems to be a lot of job opportunities that are it specific computer specific, but I want to point out that there are also opportunities other than it that are part of the neurodiversity career connector. For example, the Ford Company, the Ford company has a specialized program for Neuro diverse individuals, and it is called Ford works and they promote it under a program called upbound. At work, and right now the Ford works participants are using skills in IT product development, credit and manufacturing, but they are looking to expand the program beyond those topics and use Ford works candidates and employees all across the entire company. So you can tell right there. It involves way more than just the it part of things. There's also another program called Rising Tide, carwash and the rising tide carwash, I believe is local to Florida, but they specifically hire individuals on the autism spectrum to run all aspects of the carwash. The point that I want to make about sharing the rising tide Corporation is that they have produced what they call a cheat sheet called the blueprint. And the blueprint is actually a step by step process for creating an autism social enterprise. So if anybody you know is interested in starting a company or a business for individuals on the spectrum, this would be an ideal resource to check out now rising tide has been featured in Ink Magazine on the nightly news, NBC in the Huffington Post The Economist, so they are a nationally known resource that has won all sorts of national recognitions the asaa Voice of autism national Employer of the Year award in both 2014 and 2017, the Ink Magazine, they had a featured story in Ink Magazine in May of 2015. And in the Entrepreneur Magazine, they were the cover story in April of 2016. They have a 2018 Community Leadership Award. They were in the Forbes list of 30 under 30, the class of 2019. And they have Community Leadership Awards. So this is an award winning organization that helps individuals set up programs supporting young adults with autism. So that might also be worth considering. And that is another one of the companies that is on the neurodiversity career connector website. I think we might be at the forefront of a trend that is going to help individuals with neurodiversity find meaningful gainful employment in good solid companies, because the companies are beginning to value the contribution that individuals that are neurodiverse can bring to the business. And so it turns out to be a win win for everybody. And that's a very big deal. And the more companies that begin to realize this, and established programs, the more the young adults that are graduating from college with these amazing degrees and an enormous amount of knowledge and skill will be able to find their place in the corporate world. I hope you found value in today's podcast. If you know of a story or an interview, that would be interesting on the podcast, please reach out to me on my website, Mickey teaches.com.

Mickie  15:48  
There's a forum that you can fill out with your name and your subject idea that you could share with me, you can also send me an email at Mickey teachers@gmail.com. That's M I C K I E teaches@gmail.com. and my website is mickieteaches.com, mickieteaches.com. But I'd love to hear from you. And I'd love to hear your story or your child's story, your young adult story. I'd love for them to be on the podcast. So anybody who's interested out there, please reach out to me and I'd love to talk to you. In the meantime, I hope you have a great rest of the day, and we'll talk again soon. Bye. The information contained throughout this podcast has been gleaned from my own personal experiences, but to ensure accuracy, please contact the Disability Services at the college of your choice to have firsthand information and the most up-to-date policies and procedures followed for your particular institution of higher education. The content in any of these podcasts is not intended as a substitute for information from legal, educational or medical professionals. Always seek the advice of your attorney or qualified health care provider with any questions you may have with regards to illegal educational or medical concerns.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai