AutonomyWorks was founded to create jobs for people with autism. We leverage the unique talents of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and combine these professionals with technology and systems design, to provide both exceptional quality and cost competitive solutions.
Our team and our processes create tangible benefits to any corporation looking to lower costs and increase quality. In this short article we will discuss four benefits of partnering with AutonomyWorks. The benefits we will discuss are:
We often ask our clients and potential partners a simple question: how many opportunities do you have to change a life? In your whole life, you will be lucky if you have even a few chances to permanently change the trajectory of an individual’s life.
Partnering with AutonomyWorks gives you the chance to impact lives sustainably – not through charity but through a mutually beneficial business relationship based on two simple truths:
Autism is the fastest growing disability in the United States. One in 59 children will be diagnosed with autism. Half a million Americans with autism will enter the workforce in the next decade.
Autism has the highest level of unemployment of any disability. 80% of adults with autism are unemployed. Many of the employed are working in low-skill jobs that do not leverage their natural talents. Not tapping this resource comes with an overall cost of to the U.S economy of more than $250 billion annually.
A job is a core part of how all people identify themselves. People with autism are no different. For most of our team, AutonomyWorks is their first paying job. Time and time again, we see new Associates move from struggling with a limited future to flourishing individuals with higher self-esteem and greater independence.
Karrie Pece, Director of Talent and Operations explains the immediate and long-term impact you can have on people’s lives.
Poor quality impacts your top-line and bottom-line. It upsets your customers and creates openings for competitors. Quality issues create rework and crush the efficiency of your team. They undermine your brand and reputation.
Quality outputs require focus, process discipline, and attention to detail. You must do the right things, the right way, every single time. People with autism can maintain focus for extended periods. They follow every process step every time – with no shortcuts. They pay attention to the details. A team of people with autism can virtually eliminate the errors that are damaging your business.
Companies have tried many different solutions to address chronic quality issues, including entry-level staff, contractors, and offshore teams. Regardless of the approach, most teams struggle to maintain the attention to detail and high level of focus required to deliver quality outputs.
People with autism bring a unique set of talents to this work. As discussed earlier, they maintain focus and process-discipline over time. They are highly attentive to accuracy and details. Furthermore, people with autism prefer to work on similar tasks consistently day to day enabling them to build deep expertise in their tasks and roles.
Even if they can maintain focus for a short time, most staff look for new challenges after only a few months on the work.
Waste and inefficiency can cripple your business. They cut into your margins and consume money that could be invested in growth and profitability. They reduce your ability to beat more productive competitors. And, they reduce profits, bonuses, and share price.
AutonomyWorks lowers your costs in two ways. First, as discussed above, AutonomyWorks improves the quality of critical outputs and services eliminating rework and improving customer relationships.
Second, people with autism are simply more productive. They spend more of their time attending to tasks than typical employees. They are not easily distracted therefore they are able to produce more output in each time period.
AutonomyWorks has created a business system and training process that unlocks the talents of people with autism and allows them to flourish and excel in a business environment. Based on the groundbreaking work of Karrie Pece, AutonomyWorks’ Director of Talent and Operations, AutonomyWorks has built custom hiring, training, and management tools and processes that empower the team.
Companies with highly engaged employees are more productive and more profitable. Yet, even before the pandemic, only 34% of US employees were fully engaged at work (Gallup, 2018). Perhaps more concerning, close to 15% were actively disengaged – looking to minimize effort and, eventually, leave. Remote work and COVID-19 have stressed the relationship further. Many organizations have seen productivity and collaboration fall while burn-out and disengagement have skyrocketed.
Partnering with AutonomyWorks impacts two core building blocks of engagement. First, the partnership allows you to improve job content for your employees. Repetitive, detail-oriented tasks are the worst part of many jobs. Shifting this work to AutonomyWorks frees your employees to work on more engaging and creative tasks.
Second, partnering with AutonomyWorks demonstrates your commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. In most companies, more than 20% of employees have a disability. Many more are caring for family members with disabilities. Autism is the fastest growing disability in America. Undoubtedly, many of your employees are close to someone with autism.
Partnering with AutonomyWorks immediately creates jobs for people with autism in the community. It demonstrates the type of concrete action and impact that builds loyalty and engagement among your staff.
The world is evolving at breakneck speed with new tools, new data, and new metrics appearing nearly every week. These innovations give organizations countless new ways to improve operations and better reach and engage customers and partners. Unfortunately, there is a downside – an exponential increase in operational complexity.
Successful execution demands trained teams able to implement and optimize at exceptional levels of quality. The challenges of recruiting, retaining, and motivating teams adds further complexity. For many tasks requiring high-quality execution, most people are unable or unwilling to maintain the required level of focus. Turnover is high. Job satisfaction and engagement are low. This is where AutonomyWorks steps in.
We have made supporting a worthy cause and increasing organizational diversity, seamless. And at the same time, AutonomyWorks frees our clients from this complexity and management burden. Your team can focus on strategy, while AutonomyWorks ensures that your vision comes to life.
A partnership between your organization and AutonomyWorks can generate a sustainable ROI quickly. When the scale exceeds five FTEs, most clients experience increased quality and lower cost with a positive Return on Investment within 10 weeks. In the short video below David Friedman discusses best practices to drive this quick ROI in one of four areas:
The ideal projects for AutonomyWorks are in areas and processes with three to five FTEs, high employee turnover and where quality is essential.