Judy Reilly, director of UConn’s Center for Neurodiversity & Employment Innovation. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nSince partnering with UConn\u2019s center, Wells Fargo has hired five recent UConn graduates through its Neurodiversity Program, including Nomi Fletcher \u201922 (BUS), who majored in management information systems at UConn and now works for Wells Fargo as an engineering associate.<\/p>\n
For Fletcher, who learned about the company\u2019s Neurodiversity Program from Reilly and the center, the interview process at Wells Fargo was vastly different from the traditional interview they were used to encountering.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was about a week long, and each day, dozens of us candidates would sit on a call and participate in activities and learn more about Wells Fargo,\u201d Fletcher says. \u201cI liked that I wasn\u2019t just being assessed on how well I could perform under pressure in an interview. Along with the final interviews on the last day, there was a coding assessment that helped me show my ability to think through problems and build practical solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n
That difference is entirely by design, explains DeStefani, and part of a more considerate and accommodating skills-based hiring model that\u2019s meant to be accessible, \u201cwe don’t just offer generic accommodations or bolt on supports that do not actually meet applicant needs.\u201d<\/p>\n
A support structure that goes beyond the interview\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nAccessibility doesn\u2019t end at the interview, either. Once hired, employees in the program are provided with unique supports, like one-to-one coaching and buddies that can help them transition to their new roles \u2013 and help them to be successful within the company. Managers who participate in the employment program are selected carefully, and coaches and managers go through neurodiversity training and education created and delivered by UConn\u2019s center.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost important is the support structure, so buddy programs and career coaches and skills development capabilities,\u201d says DeStefani. \u201cOne of the keys to our success is the fact that we have a fitness-based selection criteria to approve the hiring managers that participate in the program. We want folks who are committed to being great people managers, developing their already outstanding emotional intelligence and their ability to practice empathy, and have them lean into the community and develop these individuals on their career paths.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Fletcher, that support has come from a manager and a team they\u2019ve found is willing to answer questions and be clear about expectations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI also work flexible hours and have accommodations for screen reading and captioning on calls,\u201d Fletcher says. \u201cFlexible hours help me a lot because my energy levels fluctuate, and it\u2019s nice to be able to work at times where I\u2019m feeling at my best. Screen reading and captioning helps me be able to process what is being said to me, and what I\u2019m reading, and gives me a fair chance to be able to understand everything around me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wells Fargo\u2019s culture is one that Fletcher has found welcoming.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like that the people I work with are down-to-earth and willing to explain what they do,\u201d they say. \u201cI\u2019m surrounded by tons of smart and capable people who want to work together to make the best product possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that, too, is by design, DeStefani notes, because of the many ways in which Wells Fargo values diversity as a business enabler.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe often think about the elements of diversity being diversity of your segment, or your experience, or your background, and diversity of the mind is another common consideration,\u201d he says. \u201cThrough leverage and access to this community, through those more considerate skills-based accommodating practices, we’ve tapped into a pool of talent that thinks about things differently. They process information and the world differently, and we often hear about the ongoing search for out-of-the-box thinkers, or creative problem solvers, or just someone to think about things differently.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n The people I work with are down-to-earth and willing to explain what they do. I\u2019m surrounded by tons of smart and capable people who want to work together to make the best product possible. — Nomi Fletcher '22<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote><\/span><\/p>\n\u201cWe feel, and we’ve confirmed, that we have tapped into a large talent pool that offers skills and capabilities and brings a tremendous amount of value to the table.\u201d<\/p>\n
Putting UConn research to work<\/strong><\/p>\nAnother part of the partnership between UConn\u2019s center and Wells Fargo is the access it provides to academic research in the topic of neuro-inclusive employment. There is a substantial gap when it comes to evidence-based knowledge about what works and does not work when companies want to include more neurodivergent employees in their organizations.<\/p>\n
Wells Fargo\u2019s sizeable program and length of experience provides researchers with access to data that can inform those best practices. The company is the first to take part in a 12-month study that the center launched in coordination with researchers at the UConn School of Business.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re putting research behind this,\u201d explains Reilly, \u201cand we\u2019re aggregating the best practices around what it takes to be an employer who\u2019s doing this really, really well. What are those dimensions of excellence?\u201d<\/p>\n
The study is focused on the employment experience of individuals hired through Wells Fargo\u2019s Neurodiversity Program \u2013 the getting and the keeping of the job \u2013 and is set to launch in early 2024. Researchers are interested in working with additional companies to increase the sample of neurodivergent individuals and accumulate broader data about their employment experiences.<\/p>\n
The overall goal is to launch a public Neurodiversity Inclusion Index that potential jobseekers can use to evaluate work environments that will meet their needs and that potential employers interested in working with neurodivergent candidates can use to evaluate if their hiring and retention processes are meeting those research-backed dimensions of excellence.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of talk about the need for this kind of an index,\u201d Reilly says, \u201cand as a university, we have this unique opportunity to be the creator of an index, versus a for-profit company doing it or an individual company doing it. Our partnership with Wells Fargo provides a singularly unique opportunity for a school to contribute to the body of knowledge that is needed in this area, and we are so thankful to Wells Fargo for their partnership and impact in this space.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
For more information about the Center for Neurodiversity & Employment Innovation \u2013 a signature program of Werth Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation \u2013 visit werth.institute.uconn.edu<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘We have tapped into a large talent pool that offers skills and capabilities and brings a tremendous amount of value to the table’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":211750,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,2471,1862,2461,99,2235,2306,2227],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2168],"class_list":["post-211529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-economic-development","category-busn","category-staff","category-student-life","category-today-homepage","category-uconn-voices","category-uconn-edu-homepage"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-10 07:55:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211529"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":211846,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211529\/revisions\/211846"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/211750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211529"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=211529"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=211529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Judy](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Reilly_230411a038-300x199.jpg\")