An ecological systems model of employee experience in industry-led autism employment programmes

We asked 33 autistic adults from two industry-led employment programmes about their experiences in the programmes. These are programmes started by companies to recruit and support autistic people in work. We also asked about their workplace supports, relationships and how they thought the programme had impacted their life. Understanding the experiences of people in these industry-led employment programmes is important as the information can help to improve the programmes and participants' experiences. After reviewing the interviews, we found five themes that best described the employee's experience: (1) working involves multiple job tasks that evolve as the employment context changes; (2) relationships in the workplace are diverse and are influenced by the type of work participants do and the work environment; (3) workplace needs change as the autistic employees learn to navigate their work environment; (4) autistic employees develop a professional identity in the workplace as they master work and feel more integrated in the workplace; and (5) recommendations for the development of supportive workplace environments for autistic people. We explored the way that aspects of the two employment programmes (e.g. training) and factors outside the programme changed with time and contributed to the participant's experience. We developed a new model to capture individual and workplace factors that contribute to the experience of autistic people who participate in industry employment programmes.