Award recognizes Kriss’ leadership in transforming traditional recruitment and management practices
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TORONTO – (February 26, 2021) Specialisterne Canada is pleased to announce that CEO, Alan Kriss has received a 2021 Globe and Mail Report on Business Changemakers award. Changemakers is a new initiative, showcasing 50 innovative leaders who are transforming business today. The Globe and Mail’s editorial team selected winners based on their emerging ideas, accomplishments and impact. Kriss will be profiled in the March 2021 issue of the Report on Business magazine, and online at tgam.ca/changemakers.
Kriss co-founded Specialisterne Canada in 2013 to enable meaningful employment opportunities for people on the autism spectrum and for others in the neurodivergent community. Specialisterne Canada works primarily with employers – including many of Canada’s best-known banks, technology companies, large consulting firms, and multi-nationals – to use innovative methodologies to hire talented and capable employees who are often overlooked through regular hiring practices. Once employers experience Specialisterne Canada’s alternative hiring methodologies, they often enlist the organization to help them improve hiring practices in general and to make their workplaces more inclusive and productive – not just for neurodivergent people, but for everyone.
Through his work at Specialisterne Kriss has learned that better, more reliable practices are available to any business interested in improving its talent management capabilities. Such methods allow employers to be better and more equitable in selecting the best candidates for jobs, to increase diversity, become more innovative and productive. It also broadens the pool of candidates, which is particularly important at a time when Canada is experiencing a growing talent shortage.
“We are trying to be a lantern for propagating improved methods for recruiting, onboarding and managing people,” says Kriss. “We have a unique perspective because we work with outliers who have the skills to be successful in many jobs, and many of the solutions that make things work, do so universally.”
“It’s about more than getting people jobs,” Kriss continues. “We aim to promote a sustainable transformation in the employment market ensuring equal opportunity for each person to start and build a career, to make a meaningful contribution, ultimately making Canada more competitive in the world economy.”
“As the Canadian economy recovers from the pandemic, many people are seeking ways to make business more sustainable, inclusive, innovative and fair,” says James Cowan, editor of Report on Business magazine. “The 50 Changemakers on our inaugural list serve as inspiration and instruction for any business leader seeking to effect meaningful change.”
About Specialisterne Canada
Specialisterne is an internationally recognized leader in harnessing talents of individuals on the autism spectrum, or with similar neurodiversities, providing businesses with talented employees and providing recruits with the opportunity to sustain meaningful employment. Through a proven method of recruitment, onboarding and management practices, Specialisterne helps businesses access this underemployed talent pool, a community rich in individuals with tremendous skills and unique perspectives. Originally founded in Denmark in 2004, Specialisterne – Danish for The Specialists – has operations in 14 countries worldwide. Specialisterne Canada was established in 2013.
About Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is Canada’s foremost news media company, leading the national discussion and causing policy change through brave and independent journalism since 1844. With our award-winning coverage of business, politics and national affairs, The Globe and Mail newspaper reaches 5.9 million readers every week in our print or digital formats, and Report on Business magazine reaches 2.1 million readers in print and digital every issue. Our investment in innovative data science means that as the world continues to change, so does The Globe. The Globe and Mail is owned by Woodbridge, the investment arm of the Thomson family.
For further information, please contact:
Erin Hines, Manager, Employer Engagement
Specialisterne Canada
erin.hines@specialisterne.com