Published on 12, July, 2020
My name is Michelle and I am new to this forum, so first of all Hello. I would like to run an idea I have by you and would welcome any advice from autism experts and professionals to perceived problems, issues.
I am not an expert on ASD, but with my limited knowledge and first hand experience, I understand and have seen the difficulties faced by those in the workplace with ASD.
What I would like to do is start up a recruitment company which will offer work to individuals with ASD. It would be a way for the industry to be able to tap into and utilise talent and for individuals with ASD to possibly take up skilled work that they would normally be unable to. Companies could post freelance work (It would not be a cheap labour option, market rates would apply). With freelance the focus would be more on being home based rather than office based. Additional support would be in place from a conventional recruitment site to cater for the needs of Clients.
Can anyone see any major issues with this. Maybe it would not be legally allowable to only offer jobs to individuals with ASD? Would it be easy for someone on benefits to put them on hold, take up temporary work, then reinstate them easily?
I would welcome any comments, advice J
The first thing that struck me was that you are writing about offering freelance work which will probably involve regular changes rather than routines and the need for routines is common amongst people on the spectrum. I once tried temping and hated it; I really had a struggle dealing with regular changes.
I certainly like the idea of home working (because, for example, I can control, to a degree, my environment) but that need not be restricted to freelance work.
Regarding your benefits question, I am no expert on the subject but every dealing I have had in that area has been far from easy. I would not expect it to be easy to switch to and from benefits and it will almost certainly be very stressful. This would be yet another area of change rather than routine.
Thank you for taking the time to respond, much appreciated. I have the same concern about benefits, I will spend some time to look into this. I take on board your comment about short term roles and this possibly not being a benefit because of the lack of routine. This is not something i had thought of, I had only considered that any work that is offered has to be completely clear and well defined. It is my hope that companies would also offer long term or even permanent roles and that sounds like something i would need to actively work on and encourage. I think my main concern is that i spend time doing all this and get so far, then find out that for legal reasons I cannot offer such a service because of discrimination, i.e not being allowed to offer a site aimed solely at people with ASD.
Reading your reply reminded me of an article (Actively Employing Autistic Workers Could Be a Legal Minefield):http://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/article-details/actively-employing-autistic-workers-could-be-a-legal-minefield
Hopefully, the article will be a useful starting point.
It does seem that you need to deal with the legal aspects before anything else.
I most certainly will do, and thanks again.