SAP the best run Podcast | Neurodiverstiy in the workplace

9:09PM Aug 24, 2021

Speakers:

Rushenka Perera | Head of Marketing ANZ at SAP

Andrew Peters | neurodiversity.org

Andrew Eddy, CEO Untapped Holdings

Sehida Frawley Head of Services SAP

Keywords:

sap

people

talent

individuals

neuro diverse

diversity

create

neuro diversity

benefit

companies

program

work

starting

employee

andrew

journey

university

untapped

talent pool

business

This is the best run podcast brought to you by SAP.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to today's edition of The Best round podcast. Today we're going to be talking about neuro diversity in the workplace. And I have with me two special guests, Andrew Eddie, who's the CEO of the untapped group. And Sehida Frawley, who's a head of services for SAP, Australia, New Zealand. Now, Andrew Peters a little bit of background about yourself and also a bit of background about untapped group.

Yes, sure. So I'm actually a chartered accountants, and I've had a long history in working in large business. So I've worked for a couple of large global public companies in the finance area. And that's given me the opportunity to work in Australia and the USA and the UK. And I've also had the opportunity to be on the board of a university sighs deputy Chancellor of Latrobe University for nine years. So it's given me that chance to, I guess, get that understanding of business and getting that understanding of university and I've also done consulting to tapes and work with some schools. So it's given me the chance to straddle that whole area and so bleeding into untapped been working with people a dig safe for many, many years, first of all, introducing them to Latrobe University and the Aga tenants in autism research into their but also then working with them on identifying companies that might have an interest in neuro diverse employment programs. And then ultimately, starting up and tapped and helping expand the service offerings that the Dixie have done and work with various companies in other areas. So trying to get into non it areas as well. So that's what we do. So we're really working with companies to take them to this next stage of diversity, this neuro diversity, the sort of invisible diversity, and how you know, the benefits of having different levels of thinking or different ways of looking at things as a way of helping companies on this journey.

So say, Hey, I know you have a lot of background in terms of diversity, and you're a champion of that at SAP, can you give us a bit of background about your role, and also what you've been doing in the area of neuro diversity?

Yes, a little bit of background and certainly really proud to be the sap exec sponsor within Australia, New Zealand, around our differently abled to learn obviously, neuro diversity, being part of that, my background. It's interesting, Andrew, you're a CA. And as my husband would say, he's a CA, because I'm a CPA. But maybe you did something a little bit more challenging. But my background was accounting, monitoring, information systems, and in that journey with the airforce, and then in public sector, happened to implement SAP, and then start my journey, actually, and then in the 90s, worked with SAP. And then we came back again in about eight years ago back to SAP. But in that journey in as you're working with teams, and that's probably a lot of what I've done in my career, whether it's been in the accounting space, or in the technology space, is the importance of the talent that you work with. And that drive to create those talents. And particularly with us at SAP, a lot of what we do is about transforming and working with our customers to transform, to innovate, and do things differently, do things that bring business value to them, and ultimately, their end customer or an end constituent. So as part of that, certainly about six years ago, looked at what we could be doing at SAP and in fact working with one of our customers and one of our partners, and happened to discover that SAP had done an awful lot globally around neurodiversity with their autism and work program. And about six years ago, became the journey of why couldn't we do that within Australia and New Zealand, within our marketplace, understanding that program, understanding what it brought, could bring to our workforce, how it could diversify our talent, and the talent that we could draw on but also not just diversify our talent, but the benefits it can bring to our organization. So certainly, I've had the privilege in services roles in SAP over the last eight years to work with this talent, but also influence quite frankly, I tell him expansion or I would call it that talent, expansion of SAP by bringing forward our autism at work program within our workplace.

Great. Now, we've all mentioned neurodiversity and now Andrew, could you just give us a little bit more detail exactly what that is?

Yes. So this it's it's interesting. The The term was originally coined by Judy Seeing a sociologist in Sydney. So she was the global thought leader if you like, but she intended it to be a much broader term. She likened it to the concept of bio diversity. But for people and the way we think so that neuro diversity is actually about all of us, how it's sort of looked at the moment is that it's describing a group of individuals who have particular labels such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, PTSD, Tourette Syndrome, these are all people have slightly different wiring in how their their brain is wired. But how I'd like you to look at it is that neuro diversity is really about extending the amount of neuro diversity we have in the workplace, because we are all neuro diverse in some way, we all have different ways of thinking. And I'd like you to see it as a way of intentionally broadening the diversity of thought, and that, you know, that neuro diverse set of ways of thinking that we already have in the workplace, we want to extend it further and be more inclusive of these people that have those labels. So that's, that's how I would encourage you to look at it.

Yeah, and how would you have untapped work with employers to implement a neuro diversity program,

what we do is we don't tend to start with going to HR or inclusion, diversity, we try and focus on capability in the business. So we all try and look at the company and talk to business people that talent, people and and talk to them about what are the potential gaps in the capability of the business? And how could some of those gaps be filled by a group of individuals who have some great talents, including loyalty, and being very sticky employees, alongside the fact that they can have a very focused approach, looking at their work, different way of seeing things, attention to detail, great memory, some great traits. And so we really talk we're really approaching business from a capability point of view, not, not specifically DNI, but DNI will be an outcome, if you like, of doing it. So we, we try and work with companies about identifying those opportunities, and then re redoing a different approach to how we attract people for that, how we screen them, how we assess them, how we recruit them, how we onboard them, how we develop them, it does take a different approach. Alongside that we need to also look at the the actual workplace, and how inclusive that is, and what accommodations might be required to allow these individuals to survive and thrive in the workplace. And that includes training of people in the business, the co workers, the managers, and help them understand how to maybe work a bit differently with the neurodiverse individuals. But it is about not just giving them a job, but actually trying to start them on a career. So we want to work with them, help them understand their strengths, help them develop their advocacy, and help the business, you know, come in and have more of a business's usual approach to working with these people and make it a more inclusive environment.

So so he to Andrew mentioned, some of the benefits of implementing a neurodiversity program. Do you have any specific examples you can share about the positive work contributions that you've seen at SAP.

But first off, I'll start with some of the experience we've had at SAP. And there are three parts of our business that we have talent that is neuro diverse, within our finance team, within one of our development teams based in New Zealand, and also within our project management team. You know, three different parts of our business where we've sought out tell us, and that happened, that talent happens to be on this spectrum. So in each of those, and I wanted to call out the different parts of our business, because in each of those, there are specific roles, obviously, and development coding particular skills in project management, project coordination, specific skills in finance specific skills. So for me, it's that the breadth of skill, so almost that what's their craft or their trade, but also the positive is not just those individuals and what they contribute to our business in those areas, but in fact, what it's done to change our broader teams in the working relationships in those teams. And when we've embarked on this program, and really, it is about the team that they work in and the office that they work in. And I've seen the positive benefits in even just communication as a manager or leader, how you structure your communication and that influences both the employee on The spectrum and their productivity, but really, as a team member, or a manager, working with them, also what it's done to enhance your own skills. Because it makes you sit back and think about how you explain things, how you communicate expectations, how do you nurture and develop individuals, and consider their different needs along that journey. So for me, it's both the areas of our business that they were here, but also the influence that they have in the team around them. And in fact, our communication skills, our organization skills, our young people skills, that also bring neuro diverse talent into our workforces influenced

an entry, you obviously work with a broad range of corporates. So tell us about why you see them employing people from neurodiverse backgrounds.

So it is a combination of that capability gap and filling those gaps. But it is also at the end of the day part of a broader inclusion strategy that organizations are looking to do as part of their social contract. And so it is a combination, and they're also starting to get this into the graduate programs, internship work experience programs, there's a recognition that there are more and more people identifying as being neuro diverse in the workplace anyway. So that's sort of coming out. So this just goes into recognition, I think that it's not a choice to employ a neurodiverse person, you they're already there, it's just that maybe they haven't made it known. And there's that opportunity to be more pointed in actually starting a program and expanding existing programs to include your diverse individuals.

So if you wanted to start your own neuro diversity program, where would you start? And who would you involve? Um,

so there's a number of things, a number of factors that really make for a sustainable program. And I think that's where you really need to start. And that really starts at the top. So you really need to have that senior sponsorship. And this is certainly something that SAP has done having that senior sponsorship, where they've done this, and really running as an important thing, and having passionate people likes to heat up taking that that role. But the next thing is how do you then start to change the culture and the idea of having an employee resource group, many companies are starting to have these employee resource groups which are focused on particular areas. And you know, one idea is to have a group like that that's focused on neuro diversity. You know, some someone like IBM has 1000 people in their global near diversity employee resource group. And it's run by two neurodiverse individuals, and they have a lot of autonomy, and agency to run that group and really be an internal voice to help drive change. And there's other situations where organizations are helping have that sort of group drive systemic change, about how they do various HR processes to make them more inclusive. So I think that's an important factor. Another one is about education. And every organization has a certain amount of mandatory employee training and education. And I think the idea of trying to build some sort of neuro diverse awareness education into that is an important idea as well.

So Hey, where did SAP get involved? Why'd Why did we want to get involved? And what benefits? Have you seen so far from an employer and an employee perspective?

Really, if I start with the Why did we get involved? And I'd say, two reasons, the need for talent, and you know that that competition for talent in the marketplace? Honestly, it was, why would we not look at areas that were untapped talent in the marketplace? So how do we broaden that pool of talent that we can access? But then why would we also want to broaden that pool of talent and the diversity in that pool, and I touched on earlier, our business is about assisting our customers innovate and transform. And to innovate and transform, you can't always have the same way of doing things and the same ideas. So for us really important that we broaden our talent pool. So we can bring that diversity of thought that diversity of approach. So we can innovate and transform and do new things and drive that with our customers. So that's the why. And the benefit, really, maybe if I share an example that might highlight this, and I think part of it was not just, you know, it's not just about doing a good thing. It is about the impact it has. And I look at one of the first teams where we introduced some interns who are neuro diverse, into our camera office, and I look at that and the underneath consequences. And we had one particular individual, one of our account executives who was always, you know, everybody get with the program, you know what we need to do with this customer? Yeah, we should know. And by increasing the diversity in the team that worked, I watched the change in approach to communication, it was almost this person sat back and thought, okay, I actually need to structure what I do, which didn't just support the individual who was neurodiverse. In fact, it was a breath of fresh air for everybody that was working with that individual, that more structure came in the communication. In fact, it always gave the right for more barriers to be broken down people to ask questions that they probably would have been dismissed on previously. So in that environment, where we become a more considered employee or leader in the team that we work with, that, that real benefit for me was the atmosphere of created that awareness that it created, that organizational cultural change, where people really did focus on how we communicate and how we interacted, how we now allow new ideas, even to me is some of the benefit that I've seen come and showcase its self in the workplace.

Now, if I can just add to that, because there's some great examples. I know, there's some organizations that purposely will put their managers into an area where they are managing autistic individuals because of the development opportunity as a manager. Yeah. So there's that. And then the other thing with one, the implementations we did with a, with a bank, there was this implementation, it was only a small team. But they had this incredible spike in the engagement in employee survey that was done shortly afterwards, to the point where HR came to investigate what had happened. Why Had this been this positive spike in the engagement of employees, particularly at the time, which was around the Royal Commission around banks. And there was all this, you know, depression happening in the bank sector. And so it was really just the recognition that the company wasn't just talking about inclusion it was actually doing it is actually doing something about it. And it had this huge impact, just from a small program, a huge impact on the culture and the feeling about the business and being part of this company for that whole area. It's not the

end, the culture, the inclusion, but honestly, that freedom to contribute ideas just changes, which for us now, as a company that thrives on, you know, success by transforming the customers that we work with, unless we're fostering an environment where not only everybody can communicate feels included, but included in a way that they can contribute different thought and ideas is a huge positive,

your business is so dependent on having that brilliant idea. Yep. In dealing with particular customer issues, or ways of doing things, how to apply your business solutions. There's a lot in your, your, your software is so sophisticated, but it needs that understanding the ability to think about what's the best way to achieve the best business outcome for the customer. And that's why it needs that diversity of thinking that you talked about.

I love that that's such a small little change can make such a huge impact. Now, Andrew, I know that you're set up a neuro diversity hub, can you explain to us what exactly that is?

Yes. So they've been all this work with companies to talk to them about having employment programs, and that's sort of the demand side, but you've got to be able to find the people. And with this cohort, they often disappear off into the wilderness. During high school, they disappear, they become invisible. And so is this idea of how do we create a better pathway and pipeline of talent coming through and help them achieve a higher level of education completion, and then allow them to integrate interface more into the, into the employment pathways. So there's the idea of working with universities and tapes, to create a co curricular program that would sit alongside the normal academic courses, and is really designed to address three particular areas where we believe that we could do better and one of those things about pathways to university and TAFE so how do we create a safer way of getting from school there to to university and TAFE give the parents the comfort give us the students a comfort to go so that's that's one piece. The next piece is once they get there, how do we help them with their academic success? So what are the what are the programs and coaching we have in place to help them get through And the third one is about teaming up with employees and creating those opportunities for work experience. so that by the time they come to the final year, and they're in front of the hiring manager, and they're stacked up against someone else who is neurotypical, and who's done all these other work experience, places that they actually have a chance to compare and have a have a chance to get that job. So that's that was the original intent. And we did this co design process three and a half years ago, SAP was involved from the outset with this, which is we're very grateful for but working with a number of universities, researchers, employers, parents, students, and creating this co curricular program. And now where we are three and a half years later, is that we have one university in each state in Australia, it's a member. And something that wasn't intended, we actually have 12 universities in the USA, that a joint and that wasn't the intent. But there was such interest in what we were doing over there that they wanted to join. So they're also now part of the university hub. And we also have a university in the UK and in Dublin, so it's gone all over. And then we're in terms of companies. Now SAP DMC, am Zed, and AB, Westpac, we've got medibank, we've got bhp, there's just a whole range of organisations, Dell, IBM, are involved as well. So it's become a more of a global idea. And alongside that, we've identified the need to create life skills training, because many of the cohort don't pick these things up. So we've actually created using a group of neuro diverse writers and editors and illustrators, we've created a set of courses called be your best. So this is a be your best start Academy when these courses are available for people, for neuro diverse people to to undertake. And another initiative we had have to create another pathway is to help people understand the opportunity of cyber security as a career. And so we've created this set of materials that people can undertake and get a better sense of what a career in cybersecurity could be like. And we've like just recently launched that it's called genius. armory.com. So that's another way in which we're trying to identify pathways for for individuals.

And so either from a sap perspective, you're obviously one of the corporates involved. Can you tell us why you did get involved and partner on this initiative?

Why? Because I touched on earlier that competition for talent, obviously, in our industry, and particularly with those in it with sa fe skills is very competitive. So that was the beginning of the why, why do we explore further, if I reflect on where we started this program, what it was about six years ago, where we initially started with in terms of those that that we're currently studying, and just going through that experience of even finding enough talent to interview even at that level, to as the talent pool to say, from the journey that they've been on what what helped what hadn't helped, certainly was a key part of that. So I love what Andres just touched on, which is no be your best. And for us it is part of that is we're looking to attract talent into the organization and foster talent in their organization, if we're not getting and it's not just for those on the spectrum, if we're not starting that journey much earlier, as they choose their career pathways in the choice, and that making those career pathways a successful career pathway. So getting into study, getting into it study, getting down this journey, is something that we want to contribute in flux, because it has ultimately a positive benefit to SAP in the talent pool that we can select from. And in fact, I suppose the quality of that talent pool so that we've got the candidate to come into SAP, who have worked in your environment, being supported in an environment where they can bring their best. So they the best employee that they can be. So that's really the driving force behind SAP getting involved in this, both a contribution to the talent, but quite frankly, the talent that we want to attract and what we want to see in that talent.

So just final thoughts for both of you, if an employer or corporates listening to this, what advice would you share with them for getting involved in in a new diversity program? Andrew, did you want to go first?

Yes, sure. Um, so you know, as I said before, I think having that senior sponsorship is important. encouraging the idea of employee resource group, having that education and awareness, but also joining up with a community of practice with others. There's no point reinventing the wheel here. Companies can spend years trying to work out what to do, but there is that's the whole purpose of the neurodiversity To try and stand on the shoulders of giants and, and have the opportunity to get get going on this. So I really encourage them to do that. And then another idea is to participate in these conferences. So we were just starting to plan the next Australian autism work summit, which SAP is very involved with. And I think, again, thank them for that. And they've been involved in all the sites we've had over the years. But I'm getting involved in these sorts of summits, where's a chance to come together with other companies and find out a lot more face. So head up,

I'd absolutely say you need to do you need to get involved in what I mean benefit your organization. But don't embark on it. Just because you think it's a good thing to do. It does need to be done. In a well considered you want to set yourself up for success and set the individuals up for success. For me, in that that requires partnership, working with organizations working with untapped. We're working with Andrew and others. So building that community around you where you can tap into skills and knowledge over how to make this successful. When it does take any development of individuals, it needs a certain view a certain plan. And please make sure you consider that as part of your journey and that plan. And then investment will not only benefit you through what you get from those who are your neuro diverse employees, but then they impacts far more than that it actually impacts the entire workforce that you have and how they communicate the culture that you have in your your workforce, what your workforce is capable of achieving. So can I absolutely do it. But before you take that first step and make sure that you engage with the community, do a bit of research, do some planning, so you can set this up for success.

Sound Advice, the hidden entry? Thank you. So for anyone who's interested, why don't you just type into your Google account your neurodiversity hub, and that should come up with the neurodiversity hub.org www dot neurodiversity hub dock org, or just type in untapped group and that should also bring up the details for Andrews company. Anyone else interested in finding out more? Please also, feel free to drop us a line at SAP on our website.

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