Specialisterne empowers people with autism to work in the IT market

 

Generating job opportunities and promoting training and inclusion of people with autism in the IT market is the mission of the social company Specialisterne, of Danish origin, which has been present in Brazil since 2015, providing training, employment and coaching services for autistic people, in addition to consulting for companies.
 
Specialisterne has sought to contribute to the solution of a global problem: the high prevalence of autism among the population, which is accompanied by a representative percentage of these people who are outside the labor market.
 
“The spectrum of autism is very broad. Our students, in general, have high-functioning autism and stand out for some talents, such as logical reasoning, memory capacity, directing attention for long periods to a single activity and valuing communication clearly and directly, in addition to motivation to work with computers ”, explains Fernanda Lima, Training Director at Specialisterne.
 
Affinity with technology, computing and software
 
The training lasts around 5 months and is divided into modules with theoretical and practical classes, which aim to value individual talents, promote the development of skills and provide guidance on relationships in the labor market, programming and new technologies. The training includes classes on Scrum project management methodology, software testing, statistics, among other topics
  
“In the process of entering our students, we assess whether they are motivated to work and interested in computers. The background difference between them is great. We have everything from self-taught to graduate student. The average age is 18 years old ”, explains Fernanda. Each class has a maximum of 12 participants in order to provide an individual program.
 
After training, they are hired by Specialisterne, start to act as consultants and provide services to IT companies. After entering the job market, they receive coaching at least once a week, as the consultancy provides support for building a career in the sector.
 
Specialisterne periodically conducts “open door days” to present the program proposal to the autistic, their families and representatives of companies.
  
Insertion of autism in the labor market
 
Among the companies that have consultants on their team, SAP stands out, a global partner of Specialisterne. “Hiring people with autism is part of a global SAP program, Autism at Work, launched globally in 2013 and implemented at SAP Brazil almost 3 years ago”, explains Eliane De Mitry, Human Resources Manager at the company. Currently, there are nine consultants, three of whom participate in development activities at the SAP Laboratory for Latin America, based in São Leopoldo (RS), and the others work in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, as interns, in several areas, such as sales support, partner training, technology consulting and controllership.

“Before the professional starts his work at SAP, we hold meetings with the manager and the team to which he will be integrated. We present the program and details about autism to the team, so that they understand the disorder and some behaviors of professionals in their daily lives. This helps a lot in adapting and demystifying distorted concepts about autism, ”says Eliane.
 
According to the executive, the managers of the areas have highlighted the engagement of the consultants and praised their performance in the team. “This program is part of SAP's Diversity and Inclusion strategy, part of the People with Different Capabilities pillar, in line with our commitment to creating an inclusive culture that enables the improvement of the company's results and also of our customers and partners”, ends.

Felipe Ribeiro is one of the Specialisterne consultants working at SAP. He explains that he heard about the social enterprise in September 2015, in the rehearsals of a theater cast in which he participated. “A stage colleague was enrolled in Specialisterne training and her father explained it to me and sparked my interest in the program,” he said.

In addition to doing theater as a hobby and therapy, Felipe worked, at that time, as a receptive telemarketer in an outsourcing company, answering calls in the credit card department of a global financial company. “Completing the training at Specialisterne gave me the opportunity to practice at SAP, a multinational company that I was interested in working with one day. I recognize that I would not be able to get an appointment for an internship as early as Specialisterne's partnership with SAP provided me, ”he says.

About Specialisterne

The idea of creating Specialisterne came from Thorkil Sonne, who at the time was a director at a technology company and the father of a child diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (TEA). He founded the social enterprise on February 2, 2004 and then took the project to other countries, such as the United States, Germany, Spain, Austria and the United Kingdom. In Latin America, the consultancy's performance is expanding, with new education and training bases in Brazil, located in São Leopoldo (RS) and Rio de Janeiro (RS), and also in Buenos Aires (Argentina).