{"id":1072,"date":"2018-03-25T19:44:51","date_gmt":"2018-03-25T14:14:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.serrendipforautism.com\/demo1\/?p=1072"},"modified":"2018-03-25T19:46:36","modified_gmt":"2018-03-25T14:16:36","slug":"workers-with-autism-recognised-for-unique-skill-set-anz-recruiting-nine-new-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.serrendipforautism.com\/hi\/2018\/03\/25\/workers-with-autism-recognised-for-unique-skill-set-anz-recruiting-nine-new-employees\/","title":{"rendered":"Workers with autism recognised for unique skill set, ANZ recruiting nine new employees"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Matt Ormiston knows his 12-year-old son Joshua will face challenges throughout his life that his older sisters won’t, especially when it comes to getting a job.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Joshua is on the autism spectrum, and his father is part of a growing movement to help people with autism find employment that they will excel in.<\/p>\n

Mr Ormiston is the director of the ANZ Spectrum Program, and the bank is currently hiring its inaugural intake of employees on the spectrum.<\/p>\n

“That won’t only just help my children, but will help other people’s children who are also going to face into those same sort of challenges that I expect Josh will as he comes into that place of working life,” Mr Ormiston said.<\/p>\n

“It really starts to put you in a position after 20 odd years of working around the world in technology, to say here’s something that I can really leave a legacy.”<\/p>\n

Currently in Australia only around 40 per cent of adults on the autism spectrum are employed.<\/p>\n

Those who do find employment are often working in jobs below their educational or professional level.<\/p>\n

But that could be beginning to change.<\/p>\n

Cyber security a good fit for autistic people<\/h2>\n

ANZ has become the latest major company to deliberately recruit people with autism.<\/p>\n

Nine new employees are due to begin work early next year: four in cyber-security roles, five as test analysts.<\/p>\n

The banking group insists the initiative is not driven simply by a “feel-good factor”.<\/p>\n

“There’s a real untapped pool of potential here in the autistic community,” Mr Ormiston said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Autism researcher Professor Cheryl Dissanayake from La Trobe University said cyber security in particular was increasingly recognised as\u00a0“<\/strong>a very good fit” for many people with autism.<\/p>\n

“The attention to detail, the looking for information, for detailed information, for variations in code, is critical,” she said.<\/p>\n

“And many people with autism have very good skills to bring into that.”<\/p>\n

While the ANZ program is starting out with an intake of just nine employees, it is hoped it will expand significantly.<\/p>\n

“We’re really looking to be able to dream much bigger, and look at opportunities right across the ANZ,” Mr Ormiston said.<\/p>\n

Small boy inspired workplace program<\/h2>\n

The ANZ program is modelled on a similar initiative which has been running for several years at DXC Technology, formerly Hewlett Packard.<\/p>\n

\"\"DXC’s Dandelion program now employs close to 60 people in Adelaide, Canberra and Brisbane, many of them working in Federal Government departments, including Defence, Human Services and Immigration and Border Protection.<\/div>\n

It is the brainchild of executive Michael Fieldhouse who said he had an “epiphany” one evening while watching a friend’s son, who has autism, throw pebbles into an urn at a dinner party, an action that initially frustrated him.<\/p>\n

By eventually timing him Mr Fieldhouse realised that the boy was dropping the pebbles at exact intervals.<\/p>\n

“He did that for a bit over two hours,” Mr Fieldhouse said.<\/p>\n

“I learnt that night that talent actually comes in all shapes and sizes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“I saw raw talent not being utilised.”<\/p>\n

“I felt like I could not perform at all”<\/h2>\n

Twenty-four-year-old Martin Ribot de Bressac is one of the employees on the DXC program.<\/p>\n

Before being hired by DXC, he struggled to find full-time work.<\/p>\n

“A big barrier that I find is the interview process and being able to connect with the other side of the interview,” Mr de Bressac said.<\/p>\n

“It’s very anxiety-ridden talking to someone that I’ve never met before, I felt like I could not perform at all.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n

Starting out in his new job in automation was not plain-sailing either.<\/p>\n

“I was having self-esteem issues thinking I’m not really doing a good job and not really saying the right thing, and everyone at work is judging me because of my anxiety and because of my Asperger’s,” Mr de Bressac said.<\/p>\n

Almost two years on his confidence has grown enormously \u2014 in fact, he is thriving.<\/p>\n

“I find that when I’m given a task that I can just demolish it way, way quicker than a lot of my peers,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I’ll hack into a piece of software, completely understand the deep roots of it and then build something out of it I get to the point where I can do crazy things with technology.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Co-worker Kayne Weir, 20, has also been with DXC Technology overseeing IT systems for close to two years.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

He too still struggles with the social aspects of the workplace, but said he and his family are “ecstatic” that he has employment.<\/p>\n

“It’s good money, it’s good work,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I’m happy is what they see.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matt Ormiston knows his 12-year-old son Joshua will face challenges throughout his life that his older sisters won’t, especially when\u2026 more<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-autism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.serrendipforautism.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.serrendipforautism.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.serrendipforautism.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.serrendipforautism.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.serrendipforautism.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.serrendipforautism.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.serrendipforautism.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.serrendipforautism.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.serrendipforautism.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.serrendipforautism.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}