For Immediate Release
April 10, 2023
Contact: Brad Cohen
M. (847) 807-1784
See How Aspiritech and Aon Highlight Neurodiverse Workforce Benefits
Chicago, IL – In honor of Autism Acceptance Month, Aspiritech, a world-class QA testing company that empowers individuals on the autism spectrum, and Aon plc (NYSE: AON), a leading global professional services firm, today published a video case study about the contributions of Aspiritech’s employees to a programming upgrade for one of Aon’s client platforms in the retirement space.
At Aon, there is a strong dedication to promoting inclusion and diversity, which leads to improved insights, advice, and outcomes for clients, the firm, and the communities it serves. Aon has benefitted from its work with Aspiritech, a social enterprise company that trains and employs individuals with autism to provide quality assurance testing and data services to more than 30 companies. “We are very proud of our work with Aspiritech,” said Aon CEO Greg Case. “We know that businesses thrive when the communities they serve and the people they employ also flourish. By pairing Aspiritech employees with clients and projects that match their strengths and talents, Aspiritech is not only building a vibrant community – they are creating a world-class business model.”
The Project
Aon was enhancing its delivery of pension plan benefits by transitioning to a new platform called DBCalc. DBCalc came with a 175-page detailed instruction manual to explain every aspect of pension calculations. With dozens of mergers and acquisitions in the banking industry over the past decades, the guide included calculations for main banks, multiple banks, past banks, retirement ages, etc. Aspiritech’s analysts had to go through each line of the instruction manual and translate it from written directions into a formula.
Aspiritech’s assignment was to come up with a proof — similar to the way one checks their answer in Algebra class – to confirm the data was correct in the new system. “We are talking about people’s livelihoods here,” explained Brad Burton, QA Lead for Aspiritech, “so it’s critically important that each and every account is correct.”
Aspiritech programmed each line of the instruction manual into a formula in Excel and plugged in each client’s data from DBCalc to ensure it returned the same result as the prior pension calculator system. With four people on the Aspiritech team, the project ran from March to September 2022.
Once Aspiritech completed the assignment, they created a summary of all of the output to allow Aon to efficiently compare the data to DBCalc and provided the tools for Aon to import clients’ data and conduct its own quality assurance testing.
Venus Jackson, a leader in Aon’s Wealth Solutions, remarked, “I’m blown away. Aspiritech did a phenomenal job interpreting pension plan provisions and supporting the coder and team throughout the system testing process.”
Aspiritech also tested YPR, a platform that employees of Aon’s clients use to log in and view their pension accounts. Aspiritech then audited the YPR application for WCAG 2.1 accessibility compliance to ensure those with disabilities can seamlessly use the portal.
Working with Aspiritech is an important aspect of Aon’s inclusion and diversity strategy and the firm is committed to providing opportunities to neurodiverse individuals. Through Aspiritech, Aon gains access to a wider range of perspectives and experiences and a dedicated team that thinks outside the box.
Quality Assurance, Accessibility & Data Services
Aspiritech provides quality assurance testing, accessibility testing, and data services for apps, websites, software developers, and hardware manufacturers. The organization also offers data entry, data management, data integrity, and security testing. Based in Evanston, IL, Aspiritech has over 120 employees, 90% of whom are on the autism spectrum.
Social Enterprise, Mission-Driven Business
Aspiritech is a social enterprise with a mission to provide meaningful employment for adults on the autism spectrum who are too frequently unemployed or underemployed. “We strive to create an environment where autistic team members can flourish,” CEO Tara May said. “Then our team delivers incredible results for clients such as Aon. It’s a model that results in a win for everyone.”
