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