Translations

CLEANING BIO sweeps aside employment-related prejudice

2. Human Rights

Diversity, equal opportunity, and fighting discrimination

Sector Services

Year 2013

Country France

Transmitter

Context

CLEANING BIO, a cleaning company, is located within a business sector where absenteeism and staff turnover are high. It has an unconventional hiring policy which assumes that a company can only work if its employees reflect the French population.

Objectives

CLEANING BIO has therefore decided to recruit single women, disabled people, foreigners and/or people over fifty. The only mandatory criteria are a desire to work and to reintegrate into society.

APPROACH

As soon as it was created, the company decided to give disabled people a chance. Today, they represent 10% of the 150 employees and 35% are over fifty. All aid received is entirely reinvested into the adaptation of workstations and training.

Then, CLEANING BIO broadened its policy to include foreign people because diversity is also ethnical. Today, diversity represents one fifth of the workforce.

Another particularity of the company is that it wishes to put self-fulfillment at the service of performance. Thus, it does not resort to interim periods or fixed-term contracts – though it is standard practice in this sector. It considers that no-one can be motivated with this type of contract. All employees are therefore on a permanent contract. It also implements a major support policy for people who have trouble with the daily management of their finances. Agreements have just been signed with two banks so that those people will be able to obtain a loan at an attractive interest rate. Besides, the company facilitates access to microcredits and meetings with a lawyer in the event of litigation.

Award-winning Best Practice at the Citizen Action Prize in 2006 and updated in 2013 for its evolution.

CONTRIBUTION TO COMPANY PERFORMANCE

The motivation of the employees is noticeable to customers
A 30% increase in the turnover in 2005 thanks to the policy of diversity. Turnover for 2011 = 3,000,000 euros
Absenteeism is compensated by substitute employees recruited on permanent contracts who rotate, during the year, on different sites

Benefits

The recognition and the respect of the employee is at the heart of the company's strategy
Diversity is multiple: disabled people represent 10% of the employees and foreign people, 20 %
ISO 26000 certified in March 2011