Case Study: Managing Autistic Employees as an Autistic Manager
Samuel Anderson: Program Manager - Digital Engineering
Harrison Mobbs: Lead Data Analyst
NeuroWork: Can you both give an overview of your diagnosis journey?
Harrison Mobbs:
Initially, I was quite young when I was diagnosed. It was with Asperger's Syndrome at the time. It would've been around when I was eight years old. I was a very rowdy little boy in class. So, my parents decided to pull me in and spoke with a pediatrician and a couple of occupational therapists to help give me some accommodations around schooling. Eventually, I found my comfort zone and worked throughout most of my school life just fine.
I had a pretty good tight-knit community with the basketball that I played and throughout high school. It really wasn't an issue for me at all. When I moved out of my home in Cairns to Brisbane and started to study independently, I noticed some things began to slip up. Everything just became more challenging than it was previously.
That's when I once again went back and started to ask some questions and got myself in front of a psychiatrist. Then, they gave me a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) as well. That was quite a shock to me because I was initially studying to be a pilot. But the medication they gave me would disqualify me from passing the medicals that I needed. I had to start from square one again.
Samuel Anderson:
My family has a history of autism and ADHD. It took me until my third year at uni to realise I couldn’t keep up, and I dropped out. I managed to see a psychiatrist at the time, and he said, "No, you definitely have ADHD and autism." So since then (2018), I've been working on getting the right plan for me, seeing what works, and building from there.
NeuroWork: Could you give an overview of when you started at ASA and how you've progressed to the position that you've reached today?
Harrison Mobbs:
I started at ASA in July 2022. I had no previous experience with geospatial or digital engineering. In my first month or so, it was a dream come true. Previously, I worked in pharmacy retail and had many casual jobs with customer-facing roles. I had to adapt to people's demands and needs in an environment where you're the last person they want to speak to. That was my worst nightmare, but I was forced to do it.
However, in the ASA office environment, I was doing technical work that was easy to understand, and everyone was bouncing ideas back and forth and working together to meet a common objective rather than trying to manage the day-to-day customer interactions.
The difference from that has been great. Since I started, I’ve become more comfortable with what I was doing, gaining confidence in the skills that I was developing. And through that, I could share many of the skills I'd been learning with others. I could focus on areas, look at processes, and identify areas we could improve.
I went from a Junior Data Analyst to a Data Analyst fairly quickly. Through that, I expanded my responsibilities and started looking more at managing the workload and dividing that amongst the team.
We started branching into different types of work, more under the digital engineering space, doing Building Information Modelling (BIM), which has been quite cool. The work went from a traditional 2D environment to a complex 3D space. I was really excited about that because I had that underlying drive and interest. I was more than keen to take that up, and eventually, the opportunity came around to start a program around digital engineering. That’s when I got a promotion to become a Lead Data Analyst.
Today, I'm responsible for managing eight people and a variety of projects.
Samuel Anderson:
I started at ASA in early 2020 when COVID-19 kicked off. I got an opportunity and was part of the pilot. At the time, a few others and I worked from home on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) project pilots.
I've always liked the completionist aspect of working. So, if you can finish something and say, "Hey, I made this," that's where I've gotten much of my drive. I prefer finishing something to, "You're going to do this, and it's never going to be finished, but you're going to keep going at it."
Finally, we could go into our office in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane. At that stage, there were only five or six people, including Geoff Smith, our CEO. After that, I slowly started moving away from the GIS projects. ASA was focused on geospatial work initially, but I got an opportunity to start a team working in the telecommunications sector, doing drafting and design work. And from that opportunity, I grew that team to around 25 people over two years.
That project led us to other opportunities in digital engineering. By 2023, we had considerably expanded our digital engineering capabilities, completing work at different stages and disciplines for wind farms, roads, rail, bridges, and water treatment plants. Thanks to this, I became the Digital Engineering Program Manager. Initially, I loved the gamified aspect of the work, but what I found I enjoyed more was helping people come out of horrible situations and committing to growing hand in hand with the work as I did. Being able to help lift them up while making it something that they can use to market themselves as they move into industry as well.
We've had team members who have come off unemployment benefits and work full time because they just enjoyed the work or even moved out of home, just like I did. This has been especially rewarding.
NeuroWork: How long have you both been working together, and how would you describe your working relationship with each other?
Harrison Mobbs:
We’ve been working together since I started (July 2022). Right from the get-go, I felt comfortable opening up and sharing how everything was going. And from there, it wouldn't take long until we were not only professionally compatible but great friends outside of work too. I find that with many people at ASA, there is a broad range of backgrounds, but because most people are neurodivergent, everyone has very similar experiences. Those experiences enable you to relate with one another quite well, and you can draw comparisons in whatever things you've done in the past and how you can share the same feelings around what has happened. You can connect on a different level than you would in a more neurotypical workplace.
And from there, you have all these common interests that generally overlap, and it's really fun just to have a yarn with whoever is on the team. More than likely, they're happy to pick it up and continue, and I think that's what happens between Sam and me. We've shared many common interests, which have grown from there. Even outside work, we'll catch up over some Formula 1 races, sit down, and have a little watch party. If we don't, we talk about it the next day. And so, it's great, and I'm happy to be a part of it.
Samuel Anderson:
The way it's been described to me is that many of the people at ASA have either been long-term unemployed or otherwise in short-term casual work. They have never had the comfortable and secure feeling that they do at ASA.
At ASA, you know that everyone has stuff they're dealing with, so everyone gets on with it rather than feeling like they're imposters or fighting against each other. Everyone accepts how they feel and how others will feel because of their own challenges. Knowing that everyone's facing challenges means you can get on top of yours and progress from there. I think that given that many people come into ASA at low points in their lives, this can mean that they grow fast because they finally get the opportunity that they've been looking for.
NeuroWork: What are your tips for autistic people who aspire to playing a senior role in their careers?
Harrison Mobbs:
Developing confidence in your abilities can be tricky sometimes, especially when you look at the larger picture, where you might not have social skills like those around you. It's not working yourself into burnout, trying to pick up those social abilities and trying to maintain them, but capturing what you're good at already.
It might be maintaining a portfolio of your achievements so that later on, you can reflect and develop that confidence in yourself and your abilities. When it comes time for a performance review or an opportunity to interview for another role, you can always refer to your achievements and maintain confidence in your abilities and work.
I know that, previously, I always doubted whether I was actually that good or if I was where I thought I was. I think a lot of that's just because I might not perform as well socially compared to my neurotypical peers. But I know they'd probably be better at sugarcoating what they do than I am. And so because of that, drawing comparisons to other people isn't the best thing to do for your confidence. It's drawing comparisons to the work you have achieved and documented and taking it along the way. And when the time comes, you can prove yourself confidently, rather than relying on all your parasocial skills to try and convey that to others.
Samuel Anderson:
I think a lot of what helped me the most has been around structure. The way that I like to think of it is that having time to commit early in your career to get to a place where you feel comfortable to grow is incredibly beneficial, whether it be routine or gaining trust with someone at the company that you can then rely upon at a later stage. If you have a foundation you can build upon, it's more about reorganizing furniture and less about building the furniture from scratch to then organizing, if you get what I mean. You've got a structure that you can rely upon if something doesn't go well, and that means that when things start going well, you build upon that rather than having to start over every time.
NeuroWork:What are your top tips for individual managers who are managing an autistic employee?
Harrison Mobbs:
I used to struggle with social anxiety and trying to focus on people's perceptions of me and my behavior. Through a bit of therapy, I've flipped that in a sense to not only identify what people may be feeling and whether it was because I did something, but flip it in the sense that you can try and identify if they're struggling with a task, don't look motivated, or don't seem to be in the right head space, it's focusing on whether you can do anything to support them and try and get them back on track.
It's utilising a wide range of approaches and tailoring it to the person, which is the best way to do it. I’ll write up some documentation for processes and workflows that we need to use on projects, and of course, what I'm going to write isn't going to be the most interpretable thing for everyone. So, it could be asking for a wide range of inputs on getting someone else to read through it, see if they can make any suggestions, and whether they have anything they might want to add, which is critical because not one shoe fits all. It's taking that approach to many different situations where you have to problem solve, ask for input from others, and see what works for them.
Samuel Anderson:
A lot of it is building trust, and it might be more than if you’re managing neurotypical people. Neurodivergent people, especially autistic individuals and those with ADHD, will have special interests. Connecting with them around their special interests is a great way to build that trust and learn a great deal about interesting niche topics, but once you've developed that mutual trust, you will find them more capable, loyal, and generally more accurate.
It's something that once there is that two-way trust, then the relationship thrives. So, start talking to them and listen to their interests. It might be something similar to Harry and me, where we have common special interests like Formula 1 and aviation. All efforts towards a mutual understanding will only make connecting and growing things easier. In the long term, these team members that you invested in will pay you back by being very loyal, fast and accurate people once they're thriving. So why not put the time into it?
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