Dandelion Program: Converting Neurodiversity into Competitive Advantage

Identification of the key people

The case study is based on Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s “Dandelion Program” that mainly introduces a new service for the clients of the company so that they can draw special talents from the people with autism. Pods have been deployed by the organization for 8 to 9 employees who are suffering from autism, which are mini-ecosystems with high performance are much more effective as compared to normal service teams.

The main subject of the case study is related to the ways by which diversity and especially neurodiversity can be converted into competitive advantage. The ways in which people who were considered unsuitable for the job can become major part of the service offering which is in high demand (Barak, 2016).

The important aspect of the Dandelion program is to understand the advantages of diversity and way it affects the operations of an organization. The case study is related to the analysis of these advantages and the ways of using these for the organization.

The Dandelion program had started in the year 2014 and the program was announced by Minister for Human Services, Senator the Han. The program was established with the help of a partnership between the Australian Human Services department, DXC Technology Australia and Specialisterne. The program is mainly based on the employment of disabled who suffer from autism. The Dandelion program has employed more than 55 people on the spectrum on autism in the areas of data analysis, cyber security and software testing. These areas are mainly related to the delivery of services to the departments like, the Australian Department Human Services, Department of Immigration and Border Protection, Department of Defence (Currie et al. 2017). The participation rates of the disable employees in the organizations of Australia is 53%, which is less than the 60% participation of the other partner countries. The Dandelion program has experienced a retention rate of 96%, which is above than the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

The major issue that is being addressed in the case study is the non-participation of the employees who suffer from autism in the organizational operations. Autism Spectrum mainly affects the ability of the individuals which can help them in interacting socially. The people who are affected by this disorder face major problems in understanding the degrees of communication which include verbal and non-verbal communication as well. They are not able to connect properly by the usage of the reflexive signals related to attentiveness which mainly includes eye contact during conversation (Goffin & Mitchell, 2016).

Identification of the key issues

These people mainly lack the confidence during social interactions and also experience anxiety while connecting with people in the social situations. Some of them are over sensitive to different stimuli like light or noise, some have the problem of limited imagination, they can also resist to the changes that can occur in their routines and further exhibit repetitive behaviour. The people or the employees in the Autism spectrum can also possess some gifts or special abilities along with the different challenges. The gifts that can be possessed by the employees of this spectrum are the ability related to focus, strong memory and impressive diligence (Goodman & Dingli, 2017).

Some of these people are also capable of exhibiting exceptional behaviour, which are detecting or memorising subtle mistakes and noticing patterns or errors that are not visible to others. The enhanced ability of these people to focus on different tasks can help them in completing monotonous tasks which can be difficult for the normal people. More than 50% of the total people who belong to the autism spectrum have abilities of higher or average levels. However, in spite of these factors the rates of unemployment are more than 86% in this sector. The studies conducted by Peter Maskell who is the President of Autism Asperger ACT and also a partner at PwC state that the people belonging to the spectrum of autism is 50% and the people who are employed is around 34% (Jain et al. 2017).

According to the estimates, it is suggested that around 200,000 of the Australians suffering from autism and are of working age are unemployed or under-employed. The major reason behind the under employment or unemployment of the people suffering from autism is mainly social difficulties that they face for being a part of the Autism spectrum. The main goal of the Dandelion program is therefore to surpass these social problems so that they can deliver quality services to the customers and further improve the competitive advantage of HPE. This is turn can also generate high profits for the participants of the program and Australian society as well. The image of the Dandelion program was established by an employment enabling organization who have the aim to provide more than one million employment opportunities to the people belonging to the Autism spectrum (Kirton & Greene, 2015).

The organization is named as Specialisterne and it originates in Denmark. Hewlett Packard has been partnering with this organization in Australia to implement the Dandelion program in the organizations. The other departments that are connected with Hewlett Packard to implement this program in the Australian organizations are, Human Services department of Australia, Defence department, Immigration department. The program was elevated to an international or global stage in December, 2015 in an annual meeting of the company under the “Living Progress” program of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (Linkedin.com., 2018).

Solution to the issue in the case

The main focus of the Dandelion program is build the career, independence, resilience of the individuals who are a part of this program. The focus of this program is not only on the technical skills of the employees, they are also focussed on the ways to build the executive or adaptive functional skills. The jobs that are performed by the teams of the Dandelion program are analytics, cyber security and analytics. The reports suggest that the program has been able to hire as well as place many employees in the organization who are a part of the Autism spectrum. The employees have been hired into the pods that are mainly used for the purpose of software testing within the Human Services department of Australia (Liu et al. 2017).

The rules and regulations that are implemented by the Department of Human Services of Australia were complex in nature. The consequences of not following these rules were huge for the employees. The detailed focussed work process of the department was fit for the operations, however, the department required support of the political leaders or the executives so that they can move forward. The department was readily supported by the different political leaders in all the levels of the ministry. Hewlett Packard mainly engaged with another organization externally which is named as Autism South Australia and the many other groups as well. The major innovation that was in the Dandelion program within Hewlett Packard is the way of organising the employees who suffer from autism within pods that are mainly designed so that it can be placed into the client organizations (Mor Barak, 2015).

The changes in the composition of pods were quite less, however, the ratio of the number of employees in the pods were maintained. The major concept of the pod was to provide the structure and support with the help of the different phases related to on-boarding. The people who are part of the Autism Spectrum have the ability of focussing in a strong manner, extreme level of thoroughness and excellent memory mainly related to the repetitive tasks that are considered as monotonous. The participants of the program are able to detect the errors between a huge number of outputs and also notice many patterns that are not visible to others (Sabharwal, 2014).

The main issue that is addressed in the case is the usage and advantages of disability in the organizations of Australia. The approach of the different organizations related to the utilisation of the talent from the non-traditional sources is also a major issue in the case study. The major areas that are addressed in the case study are innovation management, diversity management, accommodating disable employees and the advantages related to disability. The solution to this problem is also discussed in the case study (Syed & Ozbilgin, 2015). The Dandelion program is related to usage of the people belonging to the Autism spectrum in the organization. The main motto of the program is that untapped potential can lead to a terrible waste of talent. This is the sad reality of the people who are a part of this spectrum. The Dandelion program is mainly responsible for including these people on-board so that they can be included in the competitive jobs and this is opening opportunities for these people as well (Wrench, 2014).

The main recommendation that can be given in this case study is that all the global organizations need to implement this program so that the people belonging to the Autism spectrum can be included in the mainstream business environment. This will help in utilising the abilities and potential of these employees. The major effect of this program will be to bring these people in all the operations of the organization and help fight against the different problems related to the society.

References

Barak, M. E. M. (2016). Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. Sage Publications.

Currie, D., Gormley, T., Roche, B., & Teague, P. (2017). The management of workplace conflict: Contrasting pathways in the HRM literature. International Journal of Management Reviews, 19(4), 492-509.

Goffin, K., & Mitchell, R. (2016). Innovation Management: Effective Strategy and Implementation. Palgrave Macmillan.

Goodman, M., & Dingli, S. M. (2017). Creativity and Strategic Innovation Management: Directions for Future Value in Changing Times. Taylor & Francis.

Jain, A., Dediu, V., Zwetsloot, G., & Leka, S. (2017). Workplace Innovation and Wellbeing at Work: A Review of Evidence and Future Research Agenda. In Workplace Innovation (pp. 111-128). Springer, Cham.

Kirton, G., & Greene, A. M. (2015). The dynamics of managing diversity: A critical approach. Routledge.

Linkedin.com. (2018). Retrieved 14 January 2018, from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-hpe-dandelion-program-now-harvard-business-school-fieldhouse

Liu, D., Gong, Y., Zhou, J., & Huang, J. C. (2017). Human resource systems, employee creativity, and firm innovation: The moderating role of firm ownership. Academy of Management Journal, 60(3), 1164-1188.

Mor Barak, M. E. (2015). Inclusion is the key to diversity management, but what is inclusion?. Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance, 39(2), 83-88.

Sabharwal, M. (2014). Is diversity management sufficient? Organizational inclusion to further performance. Public Personnel Management, 43(2), 197-217.

Syed, J., & Ozbilgin, M. (Eds.). (2015). Managing diversity and inclusion: an international perspective. Sage.

Wrench, J. (2014). Diversity management. Routledge International Handbook of Diversity Studies, 254.