Financial services firm increases diversity and improves productivity with CAI Neurodiverse Solutions
Challenge
An American multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in New York City was committed to increasing the diversity of its workforce and specifically wanted to boost the number of neurodivergent individuals on its teams. Understanding that a neurodiverse workforce drives innovation, competitive advantage, and organizational effectiveness, the firm developed a neurodiversity employment program, but it needed help recruiting, training, and integrating these individuals into the wide variety of distinct cultures across the organization.
Solution
With the help of CAI Neurodiverse Solutions, the firm identified a pilot project that would include an experienced quality assurance team testing lead and four neurodivergent individuals. The team would be assigned to test a web-based, client-facing application that processed mortgage originations. The testing included manual continuous execution of approximately 200 test cases in an agile environment with daily code updates.
CAI used its specially structured recruiting and interviewing process to find four qualified local candidates who then completed 100 hours of client compliance and application training to prepare for the technical aspects of the work. Once hired by CAI, the individuals received significant onboarding support, on-the-job training, and cultural integration guidance.
CAI supported the firm by managing the project on an ongoing basis, directly supervising the team members and ensuring deliverables were met. As a part of the engagement, the managers and employees of the relevant financial services teams received neurodiversity awareness training to help the new hires integrate smoothly into the work environment.
Results
After just three months, the new CAI Neurodiverse Solutions quality assurance testing team met or exceeded the metrics of their neurotypical peers with two or more years of experience. After six months, the financial services firm decided to add 18 more quality assurance and testing team members to the same mortgage group and more in other geographic locations later that year. The very next year, the firm continued to expand the program by adding team members in access management, security, user acceptance testing, and software development.
