Török László

CEO

Grundfos Manufacturing Ltd.

We can be fair – it does not necessarily mean we provide equal opportunities. Those disadvantaged on the job market may not be even able to use the possibilities employers may think to be fair ones. That´s the reason our responsibility in giving access to integrated employment and rehabilitation is critical. Our employees with reduced work capacity do give added value to the company – they may be disadvantaged from employment perspective, however, during their actual work, they are our full team members. Consequently, it´s worth approaching diversity with flexible attitude and measures, because a company could only benefit from it – that´s what the Disability-friendly Workplace Award winner Grundfos believes.

Flexibility as a solution to equal opportunities

Industry: Industry

Date: 2010-2014

Employment


Solutions of the macro-sustainability challenges

Improve the inclusive employment of disadvantaged people according to their share of the population, especially that of young people and minorities through the whole value chain

Further targets:

What´s the solution?

Grundfos, leading manufacturer of pumps, is committed to employ people with reduced capacity to work ever since its foundation. We have a unique model, which strives to motivate our differently abled employees with a flexible approach and provides internal development and career opportunities for them, as well. We also try to carry out fair treatment in all human resources management areas (recruitment and selection, training, career management, etc.), and use our existing tools and solutions to compensate their disadvantaged situation, in order to give them real chances on the job market. As part of our social responsibility strategy, we continuously look for possibilities to promote rehabilitation employment in integrated work environment.

Business connection

Employing people with reduced capacity to work has many positive effects on our daily operations. On one hand, it plays an important role in maintaining our inclusive and flexible corporate culture. On the other hand, with their value-creating activity they largely contribute to the successful performance indicators of the company. Our aim is to further employ and provide possibilities for the members of this target group.

Throughout the implementation of the employment model, we established an active cooperation between production departments, HR department and facility management. We could also build strong relationships with other employers, NGO´s and governmental organizations: even today, we still organise factory visits, present our rehabilitation employment model in conferences and support each other´s work.

Results

Currently we employ more than a hundred colleagues, mainly as operators. In addition, in the course of the past few years we have been working on adjusting some white-collar positions (four) in order to enable employees with reduced work capacity to fill them.

Important indicators of the company results include employee satisfaction and the number of job applications handed in.

Among our differently abled colleagues employee satisfaction and loyalty is high which can be easily connected to the huge number of possibilities provided for them. In the Aon Hewitt Best Employers Program in 2013, the rehabilitation team members showed higher levels of engagement than the company average on the respective engagement indices.

Both the institutional relations and the satisfied employees helped Grundfos become a prestigious company in the region among jobseekers with disabilities. A nice proof of it is the extensive amount of job applications we have received during 2015. The number of direct applications to our rehabilitation department reached 50% of the total number of applications.