Bridging the Workforce Gap by Looking at Untapped Talents

DXC Technology is an independent, end-to-end IT services company that serves clients across 70 countries. Since 2014, through its Dandelion Program, DXC has been working to increase technology employment opportunities for people on the autism spectrum and capitalize on their innate skills.

The lack of employment opportunities for people on the spectrum and the overall tech talent gap are dual challenges that DXC set out to address. “It was the perfect intersection of problems,” Michael Fieldhouse, DXC Dandelion Program executive, told TriplePundit. “DXC was facing shortages in finding skilled labor in IT. And I had recently begun to recognize that people on the autism spectrum represented a talent pipeline that we—and many other tech companies—were overlooking.”

Fieldhouse recalled the moment he made the connection: One evening, while hosting friends and their two sons with autism for dinner, he noticed one of the boys dropping pebbles one by one into a Japanese pond. “At first, I glanced over at him, annoyed that I’d have to pluck them out later,” he said. But when the boy was still engaged in this activity two hours later, Fieldhouse was struck by “his incredible concentration at this repetitive task,” he told us. “That was my epiphany. How to bring that skill into the workplace was another question.”

“We wanted to create a program that allowed neurodiverse people to have careers, not just a job,” Fieldhouse told 3p. That means creating space for people to develop themselves, he said, “and the organization has to be prepared and willing to support that development.”

After a year of research to better understand the circumstances around neurodiverse individuals—particularly those on the autism spectrum—in the workforce, DXC began employing its first group of neurodiverse workers in 2014. The company has since established seven teams across four states in Australia, employing over 100 people on the autism spectrum in fields like cybersecurity, data analytics and software testing.

The DXC Dandelion Program engages a range of government partners and private companies to provide work opportunities, and universities such as La Trobe, Cornell, Stanford, City University of New York and University of Haifa provide research support. The focus on research informs a sustainable program that creates the right environment with the right support structure to ensure that participants are able to learn and grow as employees and as individuals.

“Companies get the ‘D’ of diversity but not the ‘I’ of inclusion,” Fieldhouse said. “It’s easy for people to tick the box and hire individuals of a certain background, but not actually change the fabric of the organization to be inclusive.”

When it comes to creating a culture that welcomes neurodiverse workers, buy-in from management is critical, Fieldhouse said. “Companies need to focus on what management practices they have in place and the level of education their general employee population needs about autism,” he told us. “The key thing is to create a sense of empathy. When you start to empathize, you hear other people’s thoughts, and that enriches the conversation. … This is the art of the manager, to navigate these situations skillfully and bring the organization together.”

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