You can’t switch an employment system off overnight. But you can start building a better one alongside it.

In this episode of The World of Work, Jacob speaks with Dr Peter Smith, Director of the Centre for Disability Employment Research and Practice. Peter works with governments, universities and international agencies in Australia and overseas. Rather than asking “how do we get this person into a job?”, his work asks “why are our employment systems producing the outcomes they are?”

Peter shares his path from support worker to systems researcher. He and Jacob then dig into why current systems fall short and what a better one could look like.

In this episode:

• Why systems that pay for discrete milestones struggle to support employment as a lifelong journey
• Why inclusion and decent work have to be defined by the individual, not the system
• Measuring what a job actually changes in someone’s life: independence, finances, housing and health
• Peter’s Sensory Comfort Mapping Tool, and why finding the right sensory environment can come before finding the job
• Customised employment and finding the “jobs behind the jobs”
• How Australia’s three employment systems could work together as one journey-based system
• Building a new system alongside the old one, piece by piece

Peter closes with what gives him hope: governments and organisations around the world are still searching for better answers rather than settling for “good enough”.

Resources:

• Centre for Disability Employment Research and Practice, which offers online training, free employment toolkits, an annual customised employment conference and its own podcast: https://www.cderp.com.au
• Connect with Dr Peter Smith: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-peter-smith-54a50844/

This conversation is part of Autism Valued’s World of Work series. The series explores neurodivergent employment, workplace reform, and what inclusive work design looks like in practice. Join the conversation through the AV Career Network on LinkedIn.

Jacob speaks with Paul Micallef from Autism From The Inside about emotional intelligence, psychological safety, and the empathy gap between mainstream and neurodivergent culture. Paul is an autistic life coach, speaker, facilitator and trainer with a background in engineering, and a deep passion for helping people understand the human side of autism. Together, Jacob and Paul explore what changes when autism is understood from the inside rather than judged from the outside — covering communication, emotional safety, self-understanding, workplace relationships, and why many workplace misunderstandings are interpretation issues, not capability issues.

Inclusion lets people into the room. Value lets them influence the room. In this episode of The World of Work, Jacob is joined by two of his own Autism Valued teammates — Leslie Clements, General Manager, and Callum Stuart, Community Engagement Lead — for a conversation grounded in both leadership and lived experience. Together they explore what it actually means for autism to be valued rather than merely accepted: the difference between being included in a workplace and being trusted to shape decisions, systems and culture.

This conversation is part of Autism Valued’s World of Work series, exploring neurodivergent employment, workplace reform, and what genuinely inclusive work design looks like in practice.

Adjustments aren’t special treatment — they’re good work design. In this episode of The World of Work, host Jacob sits down with Leslie Clements, General Manager at Autism Valued, to unpack their own working relationship: Leslie as a leader, Jacob as an atypical innovator. Together they explore what happens when workplace adjustments are reframed as the same performance conditions used by executives, founders, athletes and high-performing teams — role clarity, prioritisation, admin support, protected focus, recovery and clear communication.Adjustments do not lower the standard. Done well, they help people reach it.This conversation is part of Autism Valued’s World of Work series, exploring neurodivergent employment, workplace reform, and what genuinely inclusive work design looks like in practice.

Episode 5: What Nobody Tells You About Getting a Job Guests: Sarah Ballard & Jack Palit

Job seeking is hard. For autistic people, it can feel like navigating a system designed to exclude you. Career practitioner Sarah Ballard and Community Admin Manager Jack Palit bring their complementary perspectives — one supporting NDIS clients through complex employment barriers, the other with lived experience in the disability and allied health space — to unpack the unspoken realities of finding work as an autistic person. Practical, warm and full of the kind of advice you won't find in a standard careers guide.

Episode 4: The Hidden Cost of Fitting In at Work Guest: Xavier Gunn

Masking at work has a price — and for many autistic people, that price is steep. Data scientist and disability sector volunteer Xavier Gunn opens up about the toll of hiding who you are in professional environments, and what it really means to work in a place that aligns with your values. A raw and honest conversation about authenticity, burnout, and what workplaces need to change.

Episode 3: You're More Capable Than Your CV Shows Guest: Sandra Thom-Jones

A CV can only tell part of the story — and for many autistic people, it tells very little of it. Proudly autistic academic, advocate and author Sandra Thom-Jones joins host Jacob to explore the gap between what autistic people can do and how they're perceived on paper. Drawing on her own experience as a former Pro Vice-Chancellor and her books Autistics at Work and Autistics in Academia, Sandra makes a powerful case for rethinking how we recognise capability in the workplace.

Episode 2: Rethinking Recruitment Guests: Jennifer Spoor & Lyndel Kennedy

Hiring processes weren't designed with autistic people in mind — but they can be. In this episode, we're joined by two leading researchers from the Olga Tennison Autism Research Centre at La Trobe University. Associate Professor Jennifer Spoor and PhD candidate Lyndel Kennedy share what the evidence tells us about barriers in recruitment for neurodivergent candidates, and what employers can do differently to attract and retain autistic talent. Essential listening for anyone involved in hiring.