Enhancing Resilience in Autistic Adults Using Community-based Participatory Research: A Novel HRD Intervention in Employment Service Provision

Abstract

The Problem Although previous research suggests current human resource management (HRM) policies and procedures do not fully accommodate the diverse strengths and needs of jobseekers and employees on the autism spectrum, the human resource development (HRD) community, including its scholars, researchers and practitioners will benefit from learning more about autism and how people with the condition can develop resilience capacity at work. The Solutions Utilizing a community-based participatory research approach (CBPR), we recommend an Autism Work Peer Support Group (AWPSG) program as a new framework that can help the HRD community as well as HRM work coaches and disability employment advisors to foster environments, where people’s social adaptation is key for their resilience capacity development. The Stakeholders The current research provides a framework on how a CBPR approach could be utilized to operationalize the design and evaluation of an employment intervention (i.e., AWPSG) that could involve autistic jobseekers in the process of resilience building. Furthermore, our findings indicate that fostering the emergence of a subjectively meaningful employment-focused peer support group program could help enlighten the HRD community about the challenges faced by this particular group and thereby offer effective autism-HRD advice and support to autistic jobseekers, employees and employers, management, work-coaches and disability employment advisors.

Insights into Creating and Managing an Inclusive Neurodiverse Workplace for Positive Outcomes: A Multistaged Theoretical Framework

“…Recruitment of neurodivergent individuals in organizations has often been carried out to comply with legal requirements, when hiring managers demonstrate negative attitudes and discriminatory behavior towards neurodivergent applicants (Loiacono & Ren, 2018;Rabenu & Tziner, 2016;Sumner & Brown, 2015). Consequently, this leads to a passive approach to recruitment and selection, without an authentic effort to modify the process to address the needs of neurodivergent applicants (Farkas et al, 2020). Examples include employers not making reasonable accommodations in face-to-face interviews for applicants on the autistic spectrum (who may not understand social cues in the same way as neurotypical applicants) or provide extra time to fill forms or use text-to-read software for applicants with dyslexia; these accommodations could remove disabling barriers for neurotypical applicants, yet the employers' hesitation may indicate a lack of genuine interest (Macdonald & Cosgrove, 2019;Parr et al, 2013;Waisman-Nitzan et al, 2019).…”

“…Neurodivergent jobseekers highlighted experiencing discrimination and exclusion from hiring managers, which they attributed to unconscious bias towards people with invisible disabilities (Feerasta, 2017; Johnson & Joshi, 2016; Macdonald & Cosgrove, 2019). Such discrimination can be manifested in not modifying standard recruitment procedures to consider and adapt to the needs of neurodivergent applicants (Farkas et al, 2020; Parr et al, 2013; Waisman-Nitzan et al, 2019). For example, common interview processes that consider factors not necessarily related to the content of the job, such as eye contact, may lead to rejection of neurodivergent applicants, excluding them from employment (Dunn et al, 2018).…”

“…For example, common interview processes that consider factors not necessarily related to the content of the job, such as eye contact, may lead to rejection of neurodivergent applicants, excluding them from employment (Dunn et al, 2018). A lack of empathy during the recruitment process and discrimination following the disclosure of neurological conditions ultimately lead to high levels of anxiety for neurodivergent jobseekers and feelings of being stigmatized (Farkas et al, 2020; Khayatzadeh-Mahani et al, 2020; Meachem et al, 2019; Meltzer et al, 2020; Soeker et al, 2021).…”

“…Insights drawn from the literature exploring the perspective of employers and hiring managers demonstrated a lack of information and understanding about neurodiversity, misconceptions about accommodations, and perceptions of high costs (Annabi & Locke, 2019; Kwan, 2020). A lack of information about neurodiversity often resulted in misconceptions about actual abilities of neurodivergent applicants (Farkas et al, 2020; Feerasta, 2017). This included relying on stereotypical assumptions about neurodivergent applicants, such as unsubstantiated presumptions about the intellect of dyslexic jobseekers (Macdonald & Cosgrove, 2019) or assuming autistic individuals were better suited to special workshops than “regular” workplaces (Ditchman et al, 2016).…”

Beyond HRM’s Performance Management: Towards Strategic Workforce Resilience

“…The additional elements should therefore focus on how individuals and/or teams could develop not only decision-making capability [50] but also the capacity to become more innovative in doing so given resource constraints that most SMEs face and, therefore, given the need to be high performing [22,44,51]. In order to see whether developing an ultimate model, which would be beneficial for the respective parties and one that may be similar to Farkas et al's [52], the research methodology is examined next.…”