News and Knowledge

My employer, JPMorgan Chase & Co., faces an immense challenge every single day. We need talented people—especially those with technology expertise—and we need them now.

Our competitors in the financial services field are facing the same challenge, but we’re not just competing against them. We’re battling for talent with giant digitally oriented companies, small financial technology companies, and just about everything in between.

So how can we win this competition for the best talent?

Look where the others aren’t.

A few years ago, I learned a startling statistic: The unemployment rate for individuals with some form of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is estimated to be between 80 and 90 percent. Although that statistic won’t surprise anyone reading this, it surprised and saddened me.

Then it intrigued me. JPMorgan Chase & Co., like many successful organizations, looks at situations like this one and sees opportunity. We thought that perhaps this could become a new untapped pool of talent.

And it has: Since rolling out our Autism At Work program, we have hired more than 30 individuals who have ASD, and we anticipate hiring hundreds more across the globe over the coming years.

As you know, autism manifests itself in many different forms; no two individuals with autism face the same exact challenges. It is often said in the autism community that “if you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism.”

A Chase employee whose daughter has autism explained to me that just getting past an interview can be difficult, especially if the interviewer is unaware of the applicant’s ASD. Her high-functioning daughter rocks back and forth and side to side, stutters, frequently says “um,” and has difficulty making eye contact. “I taught her to say, ‘Hi. I’m Billie and I have autism spectrum disorder. Just so you know I’m not weird or quirky.’”

Challenges like those help explain why unemployment in this community is so high.

Through partnerships with organizations that have more experience in working with individuals with ASD, we are learning to look beyond the traditional interview process to find highly qualified employees.

Embracing this untapped workforce allows our company to benefit from the unique blend of talents provided by these individuals who are often detail-oriented, rule-bound, logical, independent thinkers.

It is paying off: Many of our internal metrics show that the performance of individuals with autism in certain functions exceeds that of their peers without autism.

A quality assurance analyst at Chase whom we hired through our program said his strongest attribute is to assess situations and come up with the best possible solutions in order to make them more organized and more efficient. “I would encourage anyone on the spectrum to embrace what makes them different and see it as their greatest strength,” he said. “I firmly believe that companies could always benefit from having employees who see things in an unconventional way, which is something to remember any time an individual on the spectrum is seeking a job.”

The success of that employee and others confirms our suspicion that individuals with autism are indeed an emerging talent pool. With an open-minded approach and an occasional accommodation, we and other employers will be well served to open our doors to more employees like this.

And that provides a winning solution for all of us.

James Mahoney is an executive director in global technology and head of Autism at Work for JPMorgan Chase. In this role, he oversees the program to identify roles for which people on the autism spectrum would add high value, as well as develop candidate pipelines and ensure best practices for ongoing support. He has been with JPMC for five years, serving in a variety of technology roles, most recently as chief quality officer for mortgage banking technology. Prior to joining JPMorgan Chase, he held various leadership positions in the technology and business sectors.