How Spero Careers Canada is Redefining Inclusive Employment
August 21, 2025
Inclusive employment is evolving, and leaders like Elizabeth Plouffe and her team at Spero Careers Canada are helping drive that progress. With support from the collaborative environment at TechPlace, Spero is breaking barriers for neurodivergent individuals across industries through coaching programs and technology. By co-designing solutions grounded in real-world experience and data, Spero is reshaping the future of work to create opportunities where inclusion drives success for individuals, parents, service providers and employers.
Key Sections
- From Frustration to Innovation
- Inclusion Starts Within
- NANAWorks: A Platform Designed for Real Impact
- Expanding Reach Across Canada
- TechPlace’s Role in Supporting Growth
- Challenging Outdated Perceptions
- The Future of Inclusive Employment
From Frustration to Innovation
Elizabeth Plouffe’s journey to founding Spero Canada began with a personal mission: to build better employment supports for her son, who is autistic with dyslexia and ADHD. Frustrated by the lack of services that met his needs, she developed solutions to empower service providers, parents, and employers to better support neurodivergent individuals on their employment journey.
Inspired by her husband’s success in the skilled trades, despite being dyslexic, Elizabeth expanded Spero’s focus to include industries often overlooked in employment inclusion efforts, such as manufacturing and trades. As opportunities in this area grew, she connected with neurodivergent professionals thriving in these fields, and the team expanded alongside them. Today, through their not-for-profit SocialliiASD, Spero works with the government to connect with and educate employers across Canada.
Inclusion Starts Within
At Spero, inclusion begins with intentional hiring and collaboration. The team actively recruits from neurodivergent talent pool, ensuring every product, tool, and program is shaped by the people it’s meant to serve.
What sets Spero apart is its co-design approach. Solutions aren’t built in isolation; they’re created with those who use them. This results in practical, effective tools for service providers navigating outdated systems, parents assisting adult children with executive function challenges, individuals navigating job searching, and employers building more inclusive workplaces.
NANAWorks: A Platform Designed for Real Impact
Recognizing that traditional employment supports often fail to meet neurodivergent needs, Spero developed NANAWorks, a platform that began as a way for job seekers to connect with employment services and has since grown into a powerful communication hub. By reducing paperwork and improving coordination between service providers and participants, it streamlines processes and strengthens employment outcomes.
Created in close collaboration with neurodivergent individuals, service providers, and parents, the co-design process uncovered what worked, what didn’t, and how to address real-world barriers with tailored technology. The result is a data-informed, user-driven platform that enhances employment programs, empowers independence, and is now evolving to help parents support their neurodivergent kids in developing executive function skills.
Expanding Reach Across Canada
Since launching NANAWorks, Spero has rapidly expanded its reach and established itself as a national leader in neurodivergent-focused employment support. A key milestone has been integrating the platform with the EmploymentWorks program, enabling seamless connections between job seekers and employment specialists nationwide.
The company has also hosted multiple EmploymentWorks cohorts at TechPlace, piloting a hybrid model that blends in-person and online coaching to deliver measurable outcomes for long-term employment.
TechPlace’s Role in Supporting Growth
“Joining the TechPlace LaunchPad program has been instrumental in Spero’s growth” says Elizabeth Plouffe. “Just having our office door open was extremely valuable on many occasions. For somebody who is community minded, belonging to TechPlace has been great for support, inspiration and building a strong network.”
Having previously worked with HalTech (now Innovation Factory), both as an employee and client, Elizabeth knew where to turn for support when launching Spero. TechPlace’s welcoming environment offers not just resources, but opportunities for collaboration, helping the company build momentum while staying rooted in its community-driven mission.
Challenging Outdated Perceptions
For Spero Canada, success goes beyond business growth. It is about building a collaborative, value-driven company with inclusive solutions that help people thrive. The company rejects the notion that inclusion is about charity, instead emphasizing that neurodivergent individuals are skilled, capable employees who bring meaningful value to the workplace. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are core to building strong, high-performing teams, and inclusive workplaces benefit everyone by elevating performance, creativity, and resilience across entire organizations.
The Future of Inclusive Employment
Looking ahead, Spero Canada is focused on scaling NANAWorks, refining their technology, protecting the platform’s unique intellectual property, and creating a dedicated neurodivergent coaching team to ensure support is delivered by those who understand diverse ways of thinking, communicating, and learning.
As the conversations around inclusive employment gain momentum, Spero is committed to helping employers move beyond performative policies toward meaningful, sustained action. With continued support from TechPlace and the broader innovation ecosystem, Spero is positioned to expand its impact across Canada and beyond.
The future of work demands solutions that are inclusive by design. Spero’s community-driven approach shows how technology, lived experience, and collaboration can create a more equitable future for all.