Unleashing Talent at the Workplace
who of you
has a job and who of you
sometimes complains about his job
the bad coffee from the machine
boring office space a colleague that
didn’t do what you asked for
or the boss that is pushing you for a
deadline
or maybe complaining customer
everybody is sometimes fed up with his
work
right now imagine that
just like vincent you don’t have a job
that you don’t have the opportunity
to develop yourself that you don’t have
colleagues
to complain about that you’ve been told
over and over again
that you just don’t fit in
that you don’t have the ability and the
opportunity
to develop yourself as an individual as
a professional
to earn your own money to realize your
dreams
that is why you have a job isn’t it
so why is having work so important
anyway
for you for vincent for me
for all of us here work
actually plays a crucial role in our
lives i mean
most of us spend a great deal of our
life working
and it’s with good reason that the
question what do you do for a living
is probably one of the most asked
questions at an at a party as an
introduction
of a conversation
work gives people self-esteem
sense of direction and purpose makes
people feel useful
the opportunity to become part of a
group
or maybe even a community
would you be able to do without all
these things
especially when you can work and when
you want to work
i know i couldn’t
unfortunately for a lot of people like
vincent
it’s not easy to find a job
where they can put their talents to work
october 2014 i became an entrepreneur
after having worked as a banker for over
15 years
but not just an entrepreneur i became
social entrepreneur i shifted
from a profit focus to a human focus
started doing what i think is truly
important
to create a workplace
where talents are unleashed and can
flourish
six months earlier i was having lunch
with one of my former banking clients
paul
and paul told me about this
extraordinary company that he founded in
2007
a social enterprise where the primary
goal
is to unleash the talent of people that
don’t fit in
and his story really touched me and
inspired me
and i decided that i wanted to become a
part
of what he was doing together
we embarked on an extraordinary journey
to prove
that it’s possible to run
a profitable company by unleashing
the talent of people that don’t fit in
today i would like to share with you
some of the lessons that i learned
during this
extraordinary journey
on one of my first days in my new
company i met
vincent one of my new colleagues
and vincent told me that he had numero
had had numerous jobs
before working at our company however
never longer than one year
again and again after a year his
contract would be terminated
and he would be told he didn’t really
fit in
after about 30 job interviews
vincent applied at our company he
entered the room
and thought this will probably end up in
a disaster again
to his own surprise he was offered a job
his immediate response was it’s not a
good idea to hire me
usually doesn’t work out that’s not
really a good
wrap up of a job interview is it right
it took so convincing vincent started
that
company developed himself his talent was
found
discovered ten years later
he’s still working at the company and is
a highly valued employee
i asked vincent why did it work this
time
i didn’t need much time for him to
answer my question
he said because the workplace
has been crafted around me and not
the other way around they actually
listen to what i need to be able to do
my job
it’s clear what is expected of me help
is offered when needed
and on top of that i get to learn and
push my boundaries
in other words they actually listen to
what i need to be able to do my job
i thought about what he just told me
and couldn’t help myself isn’t this
something that should be normal
that each employer should offer to his
employees
that someone is allowed to feel him or
herself at the workplace
be able to develop his self
that a manager is actually interested to
find out what your talent is
to unleash that to help you
vincent continued to explain what the
effects were of this approach to him as
an individual
and he told me i have grown tremendously
as an individual where in the beginning
i was shy i’m now much more outgoing
and on top of that i’ve pushed my
boundaries so much further than i’d ever
thought possible
wow i thought all this
after having made some simple
adjustments
to his workplace
ten years ago i was in a totally
different workplace
as said working as a banker and at that
time
as a marketing manager
at the time i was afraid
afraid that my talent
would not be recognized anymore
in march 2010
i was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis
ms my world fell apart
i didn’t know what my future would look
like
since the disease is incurable
and the course totally unpredictable
one of the first questions i remember
that popped up in my head
will i still be able to work will i
still be able
to generate my own income to to realize
my own dreams
one of my biggest fears was the label
that i expected people to give me
ms patient unfit to work
it actually took quite some time for me
to accept this new situation
and to recognize my own talent
to recognize what i needed to be able
to do what i’m good at what my workplace
had to look like
and that’s one of the major reasons i
decided to become a social entrepreneur
so back to our company
in our company we only employ people
that are loyal
passionate about their work and always
aim for 110
results now that sounds like the
ideal employees right
so what if i told you that 70
of the people that work in our company
has autism
and due to their autism they have high
analytical skills
strong eye for detail and are able to
stay focused over long time
periods of time
the jobs they do as content editors data
analysts
or auditors for digital accessibilities
all require the unique skill set that
they possess
so apart from the fact that they have
very useful skills for the jobs that
they do why hire people with autism you
might ask
because we found out that a staggering
54
of the population that can work with
autism
is unemployed 54 percent one
out of two
it frustrated me that such a big group
is unemployed while the unemployment
rate
in the netherlands is currently about
four percent
even after covet 19. what also
frustrated me
is that so many people like vincent were
not seen that their talent was not
recognized
because they were different and
that their talent was not put to use
the exact same thing i
had been afraid of in 2010
after being diagnosed with ms
i strongly believe
that we can unleash talent at the
workplace
by looking and asking each individual
discovering what their unique talent is
listening to them what they need from
their workplace to be able to do what
they’re good at
make the necessary adjustments
and craft the workplace around the
individual and not
the other way around as we do so many
times
we and a dozen other social enterprises
have already proven that it is possible
to run
a profitable company by employing people
with autism or other groups
we’ve been even been nominated as a
gazelle fast growing company in 2019
which is of course a huge compliment for
me as entrepreneur and for our team
the fact is however that you will
understand that we
are not going to solve this huge
unemployment ratio this problem
alone
albert einstein once said
if you judge a fish by its ability to
climb a tree
it will live its whole life believing
that it’s stupid
i see the effects of our approach on a
daily basis and i see what it means to
vincent and his colleagues
together we can ensure
that so many more people will find
meaningful jobs
if we recognize
their talent and craft the workplace
around them
let’s start asking people what they need
to be able to do what they’re good at
thank you very much
you