THE SPEAKERS
ANTHONY PACILIO
MIKE FENLON
LORI COSTEW
Why is neurodiversity
important to your company?
How have you seen company culture change because of neurodiversity programs?
In your opinion, what are the most effective models or best practices for developing neurodiversity programs?
Some countries have certain laws that require companies to employ a certain percentage of people with disabilities. Unfortunately, in many cases, companies discount those employees they hire to meet a quota. I’m proud to say that is not the case with Ford. When I visited Ford Brazil, I spoke with a woman who told me she's turned down other jobs because Ford fosters a workplace that makes her feel that she belongs. That feeling of belonging should be fundamental to company culture, regardless of company size or employee role.
I’ve heard multiple times that, with entire teams working remotely, inclusion is actually increasing with virtual collaboration tools. We also see kindness, sharing and connection across virtual coffee hours and lunches as well as crowd-sourced training and employee resource group offerings, such as virtual yoga, workout classes and prayer hours.
In times of crisis, how should corporate leadership support D&I work? How have you seen existing D&I initiatives impact neurodiverse employees in the wake of the current pandemic?
Do you believe the current global
crises will result in reconsiderations about how the workforce operates and prioritizes D&I work? What are your future goals?
"WHEN EMPLOYEES WANT TO BE WHERE THEY ARE, THEY ARE MOTIVATED TO DO THEIR BEST AND PRODUCE GREAT WORK."
"WHETHER YOU’RE A SOFTWARE ENGINEER, IN AN OPERATIONS ROLE OR ON A LINE, THESE FOLKS ARE BLOWING NUMBERS, GOALS AND QUOTAS OUT OF THE WATER."
JPMORGAN CHASE AND CO.
Chief People Officer
Chief Diversity Officer and People Strategy
FORD MOTOR COMPANY
PWC
VP, Global Head of
Autism at Work
"That feeling of belonging should be fundamental to company culture, regardless of company size or employee role."
Our Autism at Work program, which is now five years old, started off as a need for talent. We knew that we were low in our technology-related areas, software engineering and quality assurance. Because we didn't know what we didn't know at that time, we consulted with a vendor who is versed in neurodiversity and could source talent with us at that point.
Getting to the meat of it, our first cohort was four people who had limited quality assurance or testing background. We brought them in, and within the first six months those employees were 48% more productive than folks who've been at the job three, five or 10 years. We now have 190 people currently who are on the spectrum that work for us in 40 different job roles in eight different countries. We try to instill compassion, and we're seeing that spill over into the culture of JPMorgan Chase.
These executives are committed to
advancing neurodiversity inclusion.
When we bring together people with diverse perspectives, it helps us solve important problems in new and creative ways. Leaders should foster opportunities that enable people to develop deep relationships at work with those who are different from them, and to encourage staff to have open conversations about why diverse teams are critical to fueling innovation.
Cultivating an inclusive culture that celebrates the unique skills and talents of individuals is core to PwC’s talent philosophy. We are purposeful in taking a look at areas in our business that benefit from the unique attributes that individuals on the spectrum possess. At PwC, we believe attracting, retaining and developing talented, diverse professionals — including individuals with disabilities — is a business imperative to help spur innovation, drive growth and sustain competitive advantage in the marketplace.
We want everyone to feel that they belong — which requires empathy, understanding and compassion — because it creates an environment where people want to be there. When employees want to be where they are, they are motivated to do their best and produce great work. At Ford, we are taking a human-centered design approach to how we work internally, as well as how we build our products and services. Since establishing our FordWorks program, we’ve found that our employees are showing more empathy, in general. Because if they've learned to have empathy for what our customers want and need, they can recognize the importance of empathy amongst our team members.
We are proud to cultivate an inclusive work environment where employees can be open and honest about who they are, which enables them to perform at their highest potential. At PwC, we have seen that our neurodiversity talent acquisition program has allowed for more open dialogue from our job seekers candidates, and professionals who either identify as being on the spectrum, or have a family member or friend who is. Those job seekers and candidates have felt more comfortable in self-identifying and thus setting themselves up for success.
We have found that encouraging open and honest communication is the most effective path forward in creating an environment of acceptance and inclusion. Instead of shying away from questions, we encourage our people to elevate questions to their coach or team leaders to create open dialogue without fear or confusion. We do not expect all of our people to know the ins and outs of handling these complex relationships, but we do expect all of our people to treat our neurodiverse employees with the professionalism and respect that we all deserve.
The laser focus that we’ve seen from our talent throughout the Autism at Work program results in increased productivity across various roles and departments. Whether you're a software engineer, in an operations role or on a line, these folks are blowing numbers, goals and quotas out of the water. I can't tell you how many people out of our 190 Autism at Work team members have now obtained their driver's licenses. We've had people get married. We’ve had people move out of their parents’ home for the first time and are now living independently. Moreover, this is not about the numbers. It's not charity; it's talent and we recognize that fully. We see the firm's culture shifting in terms of inclusivity, in terms of hiring practices and being extremely accepting of those who think differently.
We’re proud to have a success-and-retention rate of about 90% with all of the FordWorks candidates that we've hired so far. We've baked in a system to help candidates get vetted, and have a similar white glove service to walk them through the application and interview process.
We also have a comprehensive onboarding program. Our FordWorks employees have up to 90 days of on-the-job training experience. That way they can get comfortable, and see if it's a good fit for them.
The automotive industry has been dramatically changing with the rise in electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles, mobility solutions and ridesharing, and as we look toward the future of what types of products and services we are producing, it requires much more ability in the deep technical space. When you think about the required software, AI and ML, we are going to have to do a lot more in finding candidates and upskill. A lot of these skills you don't need a college degree for, and so we're looking at how coding certifications can help to bring in another subset of employees. There's a lot of opportunity in the future, and the war for talent is going to force companies to broaden their approach to acquisition.
"The stress and anxiety that many people are experiencing now can be more profound with neurodiverse employees."
The future of work is going to be wrought with new challenges awesome new tools and ways of working. There’s no better time to make these programs a part of what we do, so that they're not standalone programs but rather are naturally built into the way that we operate and what we expect from everyone who works at our organizations.
Our goal is to build on this momentum and to further our position as an inclusive workplace that embraces the diversity and richness of backgrounds and perspectives of our people, and leverages their diverse talents to empower opportunities and arrive at winning business solutions. We are attempting to spur a societal shift: Acceptance is key, so that neurodiverse individuals can succeed inside and outside our walls.
We’ve had a robust D&I presence throughout the company for a number of years and there is no doubt that we will continue to pursue diversity and inclusion, not only because it’s a business imperative but because it’s the right thing to do. But we need to delve deeper into the youth.
We have a college internship program, and this year we have eight students coming to work for JPMorgan Chase who are on the spectrum, and we hope to grow that in the coming years. In the UK, we're going to offer cyber camps later this year. Our first camp will host 260 children, ages 13 through 16, to come learn about coding and software. We’ll have employees working with the children and teaching them lessons about what it's like to work in corporate life baked into fun activities. That’s a step in the right direction.
One piece of the puzzle that we needed to ensure — before we started to bloom our Autism at Work pilot into a program — was to educate all of our people, starting with autism awareness classes. Fast forward five years, and now we offer e-learning and conduct instructor-led training internally for colleagues and managers. And we are trying to establish that for every person who onboards at JPMorgan Chase.
We have what we call a white glove service for onboarding. We bring in people dedicated to supporting our Autism at Work folks. We offer one-on-one support for walking candidates through the application process, and we have a dedicated person who helps them go through fingerprinting and drug testing. We lay out where buildings are, we provide pictures of the colleagues they're going to see when you walk in and we walk new hires through the office to see if it’s conducive to the environment that best suits them.
Of course, we're always learning. We hold Autism at Work employer roundtable summits each year as a way for employers and partners to share learnings.
We are proud of the disability talent acquisition pilot that we have developed to continue to build out our talent pipeline. This pilot is focused on the identification, selection and retention of individuals on the autism spectrum. We collaborated with a neurodiversity advocacy organization based on the belief that people who have autism have often unrecognized talents that can be utilized by employers with the right understanding of how to accommodate and manage people with different personalities and skills. This approach to talent — and the recognition that we each have different strengths and areas for improvement — is the same approach that we take across the board in order to help set our employees up for success.
We build our talent pipeline through our reverse-engineered interview process, which gives candidates the opportunity to demonstrate their skills and abilities, as well as strengthen their soft skills (i.e., relationships, passion for quality, collaboration, professional skills). At the end of this assessment period, the pilot candidates were interviewed through the firm’s behavioral-based interview model. A critical part of this pilot is the involvement of a job coach that provides additional coaching support for those candidates selected for hire with PwC.
You must have support systems in place. And so we have been working with and trying to vet participating supervisors properly because not everyone can be really effective in this space. We also have an employee resource group for empowering diverse abilities so that in addition to the support they're getting from being in the program, they also have a larger cohort of people that they can talk to and help them understand Ford a little bit better.
In our past, employees tended to hire in straight from college and stay 30-plus years. What we have learned is that many skills now are industry agnostic. When we look at things like data science, artificial intelligence and machine learning, those are skills where people can go anywhere they want, in any industry they want. Looking at the neurodiverse talent pool, it is a great source of talent who can execute those very specialized jobs well. And we've learned that cognitive function is a superpower for our employees, because the way they are, they're able to do amazing, very focused work, like work that I, frankly, could never do in a million years.
During times of crisis, building an environment that supports the needs of all employees — including neurodiverse employees — requires directly addressing the fears, apprehensions and obstacles around inclusion. Leaders should foster opportunities that enable people to develop deep relationships at work with those who are different from them, and to encourage staff to have open conversations about why diverse teams are critical to fueling innovation. Diverse voices lead to new ideas, new services, new products, new results.
As we concentrate on our employees’ health and well-being in this new reality, we are being hyper-cognizant of adjustments that those with neurodiverse conditions may need. Any size company should invest time and resources to ensure their employees have the tools they need to navigate potential issues.
I am very pleased at the amount of material that has been created and disseminated for those on the spectrum in the wake of the pandemic. From nonprofits to our own Autism at Work program, there has been some wonderful information to help those on the spectrum treat anxiety or being isolated, such as strategies for employees and managers coping with the uncertainty of COVID.
The stress and anxiety that many people are experiencing now can be more profound with neurodiverse employees. Some actions we have taken include providing supplemental resources for supervisors and employees, hosting internal roundtables for support and ideation and engaging consortiums and cross-organization groups. We also increased wellness checks from counseling partners as well as prioritized flexible leadership and increased coaching to ensure success.
"We are attempting
to spur a societal shift."
MIKE FENLON
LORI COSTEW
LORI COSTEW
FORD MOTOR COMPANY
Chief Diversity Officer and People Strategy
PWC
Chief People Officer
Mike Fenlon
JPMORGAN CHASE AND CO.
VP, Global Head of Autism at Work
ANTHONY PACILIO
PWC
Chief People Officer
Mike Fenlon
FordWorks is a program that focuses on serving individuals with autism. Participant work on teams across departments including:
• IT
• Product Development
• Credit
• Manufacturing
Program Spotlight
Guest Speaker
PWC
Chief People Officer
Mike Fenlon
Ford Motor Company
Inclusion and Diversity Specialist
NIAMBI POWELL
Ford Motor Company
Inclusion and Diversity Specialist
NIAMBI POWELL
Guest Speaker
PWC
Chief People Officer
Mike Fenlon
PWC
Chief People Officer
Mike Fenlon
"WHEN EMPLOYEES WANT TO BE WHERE THEY ARE, THEY ARE MOTIVATED TO
DO THEIR BEST AND PRODUCE GREAT WORK."
FordWorks is a program that focuses on serving individuals with autism. Participant work on teams across departments including:
PROGRAM SPOTLIGHT:
Guest Speaker
Chief Diversity Officer and People Strategy
ANTHONY PACILIO
"There's a lot of opportunity in the future and the war for talent is going to force companies to broaden their approach to acquisition."
Guest Speaker
"WHETHER YOU’RE A SOFTWARE ENGINEER, IN AN OPERATIONS ROLE OR ON A LINE, THESE FOLKS ARE BLOWING NUMBERS, GOALS AND QUOTAS OUT OF THE WATER."
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"Diverse voices lead
to new ideas,
new services, new products, new results."
"When we bring together people with diverse perspectives,
it helps us
solve important problems in
new and
creative ways."
"We now have 190 people currently who are on the spectrum that work for us in
40 different
job roles in eight different countries."
"Our first camp will host
260 children, ages 13 through 16, to come learn about coding and software."
"The future of work is going to be wrought with new challenges awesome new tools and ways of working."
“... we are
being hyper-cognizant of adjustments that those with neurodiverse conditions
may need.”
FORD MOTOR COMPANY
Chief Diversity Officer and People Strategy
LORI COSTEW
FORD MOTOR COMPANY
Chief Diversity Officer and People Strategy
LORI COSTEW
FORD MOTOR COMPANY
Chief Diversity Officer and People Strategy
LORI COSTEW
FORD MOTOR COMPANY
Chief Diversity Officer and People Strategy
LORI COSTEW
"Our FordWorks employees
have up to 90 days of on-the-job training experience. That way they can get comfortable, and see if it's a good fit for them."
JPMORGAN CHASE AND CO.
ANTHONY PACILIO
VP, Global Head of Autism at Work
JPMORGAN CHASE AND CO.
ANTHONY PACILIO
VP, Global Head of Autism at Work
JPMORGAN CHASE AND CO.
ANTHONY PACILIO
VP, Global Head of Autism at Work
JPMORGAN CHASE AND CO.
ANTHONY PACILIO
VP, Global Head of Autism at Work