Background

Many employment guides to help people on the Autism Spectrum choose a career focus on strengths, challenges and career preferences, but an important factor in choosing the right career for you is your work values. Work values can be classified into intrinsic values and extrinsic values. Intrinsic values relate to the actual tasks you will be performing in a job. Things like whether your job involves helping others, whether it requires you to work in teams or alone, or allows you to be creative. Extrinsic values are about what you get out of the job, for instance, financial gain, prestige or stability.

Why is this relevant?

You may want to be an administrator, an electrician or a solicitor. Whichever job you would like to do in the future, it is important that you decide what are the things you value in a job, as you can do that job in very different environments. For instance, you may be an administrator working for a charity that helps others (e.g., Autism Hampshire), or in a big corporation with prestige (e.g., IBM), your administrator role may require working closely with others or working alone in a records office; it may involve working in a noisy office environment or in a quiet space; involve tasks that allow you to have great autonomy or be closely supervised.

Working long-term for an organisation or in a job that does not meet your work values can lead to high levels of dissatisfaction, stress and frustration, so it is important that you decide what is important for you. This is by no means an easy task as it requires careful thinking. Below we have an activity to help you get started.

Practical tips

You may want to consider completing this exercise to identify your work values, or the values of the person you support.

• Reflect on whether the following work related values are important for you:

Helping society, helping others, working alone, working with others, teamwork, friendly environment, opportunity to grow and learn, feel a sense of belonging, being supported, strong work ethics, honesty, financial gain, feeling a sense of achievement, being in a competitive environment, being respected, working in an organisation that promotes fairness, varied work, structure, routine, prestige, artistic expression, creativity, independence, recognition, security/stability, being able to apply specialist knowledge, open communication, sensory aspects of the work environment, autonomy, challenge, fun, self-motivation, flexible working hours.

• Circle the values that you feel would be most important to you in your work. If necessary, add to the list any values missing that would be important to you (e.g., working in the right sensory environment).
• Select the eight values that are most important to you.
• Now reflect on what possible careers, organisations and jobs would meet your selected work values. It may help to write them down into sentences. As an example, if you have chosen Fun: "A job which involves working in a relaxed place where people enjoy themselves while being productive" or if you have chosen Structure: "Having clearly defined work tasks so that I know what is expected of me."
• Life experiences can change what is important to you at any given time. Revisit this exercise at least once a year to determine if your values have changed.

Questions to think about

• What are the most important things in a job for you? Is it financial gain enough or you would like doing a job that will contribute to helping society? Or is it more important to work in an organisation that will be understanding and supportive?
• Would you like a job that requires to do routine tasks or would you like a job that brings something different everyday and allows you to be creative?
• Would you like to work alone or with others?
• Would you like fixed hours or shift work, a full-time or a part-time job?
• Would you like a job that challenges you or would you like a job that you know how to do well.
• Would you like to learn from a job or would you rather apply what you have learned?
• Is independence on the job important or do you rather be closely supervised?

Additional information and links

The following link offer a list of occupations to fit values around six categories, namely, Achievement, Independence, Recognition, Relationships, Support and Working conditions. List of occupations.

Acknowledgements

The values assessment exercise was adapted from Lantz, C., Croucher, K., & Duncan, A. (2012) Psychology student employability guide and the University of Kent Careers Service.

You may want to read after

• Work experience
• Identifying strengths, preferences and training needs
• Shaping career choices