Bartels thrives on opportunity offered by McKinley Plowman

THE dedication 19-year-old Matt Bartels has for his job is impressive; often, he’s too busy preparing and scanning documents to talk. He arrives at work early, leaves late, and has to be encouraged to take lunch and coffee breaks.

But he’s pleased to share news that this month marks his first anniversary at accounting and financial planning firm McKinley Plowman: “And I want to stay as long as possible,” he says.

Mr Bartels has Asperger’s, a form of autism most commonly characterised by difficulties with social interaction. 

Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show the majority of people with autism face challenges securing work; in 2009 only 34 per cent were employed, compared to the 54 per cent employment rate of people who had a ‘disability’ and 83 per cent for the entire working population.

But McKinley Plowman director Murray McKinley said placing Mr Bartels in the part-time role to scan paper documents into an electronic database had proven to be more cost-effective and productive than appointing a general administrator to do the work.

“Our (administrative) team would do it for an hour, or maybe two if I could get it out of them … but it was too repetitive and there was not enough variety in the work for them,” Mr McKinley said.

Instead, the business agreed to take on Mr Bartels through the Autism Association of WA’s AIM Employment program, which works with about 160 people with autism.

An evaluation of Mr Bartels’ productivity found his output per hour was 80 per cent of other workers, but Mr McKinley estimates his overall productivity would be 200 per cent.

“We have to teach him the process of doing the work, but once he gets going his productivity is huge and his error rate is non-existent,” Mr McKinley said.

“He comes in early and we had to get him into the habit of taking breaks – otherwise he would just keep working. Other workers would probably get bored and wander off.

 “I think there are a lot of businesses out there that would benefit from employing someone like Matt – people with autism are a resource that is being under-utilised.” 

Employers were missing out due to a lack of awareness, according to Autism Association of WA executive manager Russell Thomas.

“If they know someone with autism we usually get a positive response, but if people don’t know anything about it then the employer finds it difficult to see how they could fit into the workplace,” Mr Thomas said.

He said the number of people being diagnosed with autism was increasing, and more people with the condition were looking for work.