An employer's perspective on inclusive recruitment
An employer's perspective on inclusive recruitment
The Inclusive Labour Market Alliance (ILMA) held a webinar on 16 November 2021 featuring a series of presentations from employers across Europe. The aim was to:
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hear about how companies have made inclusive recruitment work for them
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become inspired on how to start inclusive recruitment in your own organisation
Chair
Laura Jones (Secretary General, European Platform for Rehabilitation)
Opening statement
Jaleh Bradea (Director of Inclusion & Equal Opportunities, Vivendi Group)
Presentations
DPD Group
Steve Mills (Director of IT)
DPD Group spoke about their Inspire programme that offers work experience and recruits disabled people through supported internships, apprenticeships and regular placement. They are also working with partners to produce employability resources for schools/colleges and have integrated job coaches into their Human Resources Department. The company uses different routes to mainstream recruitment to diversify their processes and engage with a pool of untapped talent. Listeners learned about the potential of people with disabilities by giving them a chance to showcase their skills and be measured against their talents, rather than perceived differences.
GXO
Neil Blackledge (General Manager) & Cathy Balding (Senior HR Business Partner and Diversity & Inclusion Lead)
GXO employs 94,000 people worldwide and have a UK initiative to employ people with Down's Syndrome. They now employ 18 disabled people across their logistics business and have also integrated job coaches into their Human Resources Department. They have developed manager’s guidance, videos and training for the onsite team to ensure they give the best support and experience to their colleagues and tailor roles around individual needs rather than have a role that someone needs to fit into.
Randstad France Group
Ms Aline Crépin (Director of Soocial Innovation and Public Affairs)
The Randstad France Group and FASTROAD (adapted business) launched "Kliff by Randstad", the first temp network dedicated to people with disabilities in France. Teams of recruitment professionals from Randstad, trained in supporting people with disabilities, have joined the Kliff team. They bring their know-how in identifying candidates, a certified quality of service, digital tools that simplify the lives of temporary workers and companies, and actions to prevent occupational risks. FASTROAD brings all its experience in the recruitment and management of career paths for employees with disabilities. This combination of approaches, unique to "Kliff by Randstad", enables effective professional reintegration. In addition, the "Kliff par Randstad" network relies on the commercial strength and territorial coverage of the Randstadgroup, as well as on the presence of FASTROAD branches in the largest cities in France.
Microsoft France
Philippe Trotin (Directeur Inclusion et Accessibilité Numérique)
JobNow is a solution developed on Hololens 2 to help persons having autistic troubles to train themselves on career recruitment interviews. The user will be facing a virtual recruiter that will ask him questions and the AI-based system will analyze the answers provided as well as the eye movement of the candidate to check if he/she is looking at the virtual recruiter or not. The system will then provide recommendations that could help the candidate to progress in future interviews.
Last year, Microsoft launched a programme at their Artificial Intelligence school for 12 autistic students with their partner Simplon.co. The 7 months of learning is followed by one year of internship to get a job.
CSAL/Big Mat
Mr Alberto Guggino (General Manager, Big Mat)
Consorzio Sociale Abele Lavoro (CSAL) and the Big Mat company have worked together since 2020 to provide a route into the construction industry. They use internships as part of a warehouseman training course for people with disabilities. The presentation will describe how long-term unemployed, disabled people were supported into the construction industry.
The partnership offers 200 hours of internship, supported by the company tutor and work colleagues, to learn the job role. Each internship has an individual training plan to support candidates. CSAL’s project tutor monitors the programme to ensure the skills and knowledge, including soft and relational skills, are consolidated and acquired by the person during the internship. At the end of the training course there is the opportunity to turn the placement directly into a permanent contract.
About ILMA
The Inclusive Labour Market Alliance (ILMA) is a pan-European alliance of six associations: