Making the workplace more inclusive: Optimizing professional development for autistic employees.

This research explores learning in the workplace for employees with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in the context of the Israeli high-tech industry.  Although it is set in a specific context, it has a wider applicability for employees with ASD.

The global workplace environment has been undergoing a major transformation in the last few decades, with computers taking over and outperforming various tasks performed by humans for generations. Human roles have been shifting and will continue to shift (World Economic Forum, 2016), although there are still many areas where humans outperform computers, such as social intelligence, emotional intelligence, collaboration, communication skills, and creativity. The importance of these abilities is likely to increase and become more critical to success, retention, and the creation of effective work environments (Deming, 2017; Jarrahi, 2018; World Economic Forum, 2016; Frey & Osborne, 2017). However, individuals with autism have deficits exactly in these areas as they display differences from neurotypically developed persons in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts; and also display restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).