German-based software company, SAP, is tapping into a unique talent. The company announced recently that it will be employing people with autism as software testers, programmers and data quality analysts.
SAP will employ hundreds of people with autism spectrum disorder around the world to work in various fields of software engineering to boost productivity, the company said in a press release, Tuesday.
The new trend in employing autistic staff globally, who will be serving as software testers, programmers and data quality assurance specialists for the company, is following the success of a pilot in India and Ireland. SAP is the first major multinational company to follow the new recruitment trend.
People with autism spectrum disorder display unique capabilities of high focus, which can be useful in technology fields. Many people with autism have great IQ's and hold college degrees, but due to their difficulty in communication and tendency to get upset easily, holding down a job is difficult for them. But SAP, is ready to consider the pros over the cons of the disorder.
"If one semicolon is out of place, the whole thing just crashes. So they are very good at detecting these minor details," said Jesse Saperstein, autism advocate and motivational speaker. "I'll give you an example. Steve Jobs, he had a lot of Asperger's qualities. Sometimes poor hygiene, temper tantrums, and he was difficult to work with obviously, but he created some of our modern devices."
SAP is working alongside a global autism job placement Danish company, Specialisterne, to employ people with autism around the globe. The pilot programs have shown commendable results in India and Ireland. SAP hired six people in India, who served as software testers for the company's Business Suite applications. SAP will now expand the new recruitment plan in the U.S.A, Canada and Germany later this year.
"We are very excited by this opportunity to enable SAP global access to a huge pool of untapped talent and therefore, help strengthen SAP's position as a global leader in innovation," said Thorkil Sonne, founder of Specialisterne and chairman of the board, Specialist People Foundation. "SAP is the first multinational company to partner with us on a global scale. The partnership will position SAP as thought leader and motivate the ecosystem to follow its example."
SAP is determined to work with the new team and use the skill sets to make the organization stronger. "We'll take the learnings from those communities and whatever pros and cons there were and apply them globally," said SAP spokesperson Robin Meyerhoff, according to ABC News.
