all new tonight a charlotte-based company is leading the country and hiring those who are neuro Divergent essentially folks whose brains work differently than most yeah Wells Fargo has hired hundreds of applicants who might otherwise have struggled to find jobs WCNC charlott Michelle Bowden shows us how the program is seeking Solutions then paying off for both the workers and well spgo the bank says this isn't about charity in fact they say it is a win-win because they're able tap into a top-not
ch talent pool when I came here I was 27 I had a master's degree I was a published author and I had never held down a full-time job for more than about a month Alex liberman admits he was living with his parents with not much on the horizon when he got his job at Wells Fargo 3 years ago it feels good to have a future after a while I didn't see myself doing anything and this gave me a chance to build something for myself to build a Way Forward to help other people build their Futures too and it's
a privilege I never thought I would get liberman who is autistic and has ADHD is a tech consultant at the company part of the Wells Fargo neurodiversity program that launched in 2020 it's a really a talent play it's not charity it is gaining access to an incredibly deep richly diverse highly skilled talent pool Steven deani runs the program that has so far placed almost 300 workers at Wells Fargo in everything from tech jobs to data anal analytics roles finance and more we see the return on inv
estment and I say that a little reluctantly because I because I often say you shouldn't need a business case to do the right thing but there is a business case we are closing skills gaps and employee satisfaction particularly for those who have participated or are impacted by the program is through the roof D Stefani says one of the keys is making sure the interview process isn't a stumbling block letting people be themselves Vivian W is a software engineer who is autistic and says that was a ch
allenge at previous jobs where she was often told to change the way she interacted with people but things like that have happened throughout my life whether in the interview process or actually at work do you think maybe they just didn't understand that you were a little bit different absolutely I agree with that because I was different because I wasn't like them because I wasn't alistic and I didn't follow what we call social protocols and all the scripts that you do or it sounds like you feel
more comfortable in your own skin here and that they actually value your skill set oh absolutely yes they do because we're here to do work and we're here to make things better and I'm empowered to do all those things without letting those social protocols get in the way we are all people we think differently than most but we don't have any more or less inherent value than anyone else in a program that acknowledges that and accommodates that we have a chance to contribute in ways that people gene
rally don't think that we can and the Wells Fargo team running the neurodiverse program says they're actually sharing their best practices with other companies in hopes that other companies will follow their lead reporting in uptown Charlotte Michelle Bowden WCNC Charlotte and now part of our effort with our seeking Solutions brand is to highlight the companies and individuals and groups making a difference and giving a voice to those who might not always be heard so if you know a group or maybe
a person who's doing just that we want to hear about them and get the ball rolling towards those Solutions we can't say it enough a lot of our great stories come from you at home so send us an email to news tips at wcnc.com you'd see your story on our air
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