Companies doing the work
Plenty of companies say the right things. This page is about the ones with a published record of doing something: a different hiring process, a real program, a whole building staffed differently. What they did, and where you can read about it.
These companies are not AbleVerse partners, sponsors, or advertisers. No money changed hands in either direction, and none of them has any relationship with us. We put them here because their work is public and worth knowing about.
Listing a company is not a promise that it is a good employer in every way, or that it is hiring today. It means the specific thing described below is on the public record, with a link. Programs change. If something here has gone out of date, tell us at hello@ableverse.org and we will fix it.
Technology
Started a hiring program in 2015, originally for autistic candidates and now broader, that replaces the standard job interview with a multi day process where candidates show what they can do. New hires get onboarding support and mentors. The hiring standard stays the same as for any other candidate. Only the way in changes.
Source: Microsoft.
Enterprise software
Announced in May 2013 that it wanted people on the autism spectrum to make up at least 1 percent of its global workforce, and built the Autism at Work program to get there. SAP says the program now runs in 16 countries, and it publishes what it learned for other employers to copy.
Source: SAP's Autism at Work page, and SAP's ten year review.
Professional services
Opened its first Neurodiverse Center of Excellence in Philadelphia in 2016, a working team rather than a training program, doing real client work in areas like automation and data. The model has since opened in more cities and more countries.
Source: EY.
Retail and distribution
Designed a distribution center in Anderson, South Carolina to be staffed in large part by people with disabilities, working to the same performance standards as every other site in the network. ABC News reported in 2008 that more than 40 percent of the roughly 700 workers there were disabled. It is one of the earliest large scale proofs that this works in a mission critical facility.
Source: ABC News, 2008.
IT consulting, international
Founded in Berlin in 2011 and now working in more than a dozen countries, auticon is a consulting firm where the majority of the consultants are autistic. It is not a program inside a larger company. The whole business is built this way, and clients hire the consultants for the technical work.
Source: auticon.
Quality engineering, United States
Founded in 2013 by two MIT engineers, Ultranauts is a quality engineering firm where more than 75 percent of the team is on the autism spectrum. It is fully remote, and it rebuilt its own workplace practices rather than asking people to mask and fit in.
Source: Ultranauts.