Mission Handicap : a positive assessment

A year after signing the framework agreement for the employment of the disabled, the PPR group has very largely completed the first phase of its objectives. At the halfway stage towards fulfilling its commitments, Mission Handicap is striding forward to success.

A year before, PPR had set itself the task of creating Mission Handicap, an inter-company, multidisciplinary working group to define the Group policy for and commitments to employing the disabled staff. Its policy hinges on four major thrusts: communicating about disability to dispel people’s preconceptions; initiatives for providing jobs for the disabled; job-maintenance schemes for the disabled; and increased recourse to the protected sector. The objective is to achieve a 6% rate for employment of disabled staff in France by the end of 2008, compared with 3.2% in 2004.

A year ago already
On 1 March 2005, the signing of a master agreement marked the start of a two-year partnership (until 28 February 2007) with the AGEFIPH, the French non-profit association managing the disabled persons’ employment fund, to include Printemps, Redcats, Fnac and Conforama. The aim is to recruit 160 people into the Group (60 in 2005/2006 and 100 in 2006/2007), and to bring to fulfilment Mission Handicap’s different action plans.

A year later, the time has come to take stock: PPR can proudly point to its recruitment of 79 people, 19 more than planned. All these new entrants were engaged on a permanent contract, a fixed-term contract for more than six months or a first-time skills-enhancing contract for more than ten months, under the agreement made with AGEFIPH. In the recruitment league table, Conforama leads the field with 36 points, followed by Fnac (22), Redcats (16), Printemps (4) and the PPR headquarters (1).

Beyond all expectations
Overleaping the bounds of its recruitment commitment, the Group achieved even more hirings: 75 disabled staff were given the opportunity to enjoy a short period of genuine professional experience. Results such as these are the outcome of a large-scale, nationwide communication drive. 50 000 copies were printed of the Mission Handicap brochure, setting out the PPR Chairman’s commitment statement and the policy thrusts for the employment of disabled staff; large numbers of briefings and awareness-training meetings were held; CD-ROM training media were sent out to almost 750 managers; posters were distributed drawing attention to the existence of a hotline. All this testified to a genuine willingness to act and a commitment that drew people out of their isolation: 75 group staff revealed their disabled-worker status to their managers. The message printed on the cover of the Mission Handicap brochure says it in a nutshell: “Sharing experience, creating opportunities”. This is now the open secret of all the PPR companies: opening oneself to others can reveal hidden strengths.