Integrating and retaining people with disabilities

The subsidiaries demonstrate their commitment to integrating and retaining people with disabilities in a number of ways, aligned with each country’s specific characteristics, such as:

  • the direct hiring of 154 people with disabilities, in a large number of subsidiaries. For example, the Belgian subsidiary has established a partnership with a dedicated job training center;
  • the design and/or upgrading of workplaces to make them accessible to people with disabilities;
  • a dedicated team set up for Edenred France with identified internal correspondents, who are responsible for developing partnerships with recruitment organizations and sheltered workshops, creating a purchasing policy, ensuring the continued employment of employees recognized as having disabilities, and organizing employee information and awareness sessions on disability issues;
  • the plan to retain disabled Edenred France employees by upgrading their workstations with hearing devices, ZoomText magnifiers for the visually impaired, and a number of other ergonomic adjustments;
  • the plan to support corporate clients, employee users, partner merchants and other stakeholders in France, with the introduction of an innovative system for making all Group solutions accessible to the hearing impaired;
  • training for Edenred France salespeople in the subsidiary’s disability policy;
  • communication and educational initiatives for Edenred France employees focused on digital accessibility, for example through the update of the customer relationship platform to make it accessible to people who are deaf and hard of hearing.

Edenred France’s signing of a fourth collective agreement in favor of the integration and retention of employees with disabilities reflects its determination to pursue and perpetuate a proactive and ambitious disability policy in favor of the hiring, integration and long-term career development of people with disabilities.

Within this agreement, five priority areas of action have been identified to continue the rollout of the approach:

  • develop the hiring effort by using the appropriate tools and technologies and by mobilizing recruitment stakeholders;
  • improve conditions allowing the integration, retention, and career and skills development of employees with disabilities;
  • participate in better professional training for people with disabilities by guaranteeing equal treatment in terms of training;
  • raise awareness among all of the Company’s stakeholders, especially the managerial line, in order to obtain a better grasp of needs;
  • promote the contractual use of companies from the protected and adapted environment.

The subsidiary also chairs the Hangagés non-profit. In addition, Edenred’s disability policy earned it the first prize in the Lauriers de la Prévention awards organized by SEST (Service aux entreprises pour la santé au travail) in 2019.

 

5.2.1.3 Labor and human rights

At Edenred, social dialogue comes in different forms, such as negotiation and consultation procedures, as well as the simple exchange of information between employee representatives and management. All of the social advances achieved since July 2010 demonstrate the importance of social dialogue as a key success factor. Representative bodies have been set up in most Edenred subsidiaries (except small units), providing a crucial foundation for the social dialogue process. Three levels of social dialogue are in place within the Group.

Fostering social dialogue

At the national level

The Group believes in the importance of developing constructive and innovative social dialogue. In all, 65% of employees work in subsidiaries with employee representative bodies and 58% are currently covered by a collective agreement.

In 2021, 62 such agreements were signed in host countries on a wide variety of issues, including wages, profit sharing, intergenerational agreements, working hours and workplace health and safety. Three such agreements focus specifically on health and safety.

France

Because Edenred France and corporate headquarters employees work so closely together, executive management and employee representatives have agreed on the need for a Group Works Council on the basis of the works councils in place within each subsidiary. Its role is to address all of the issues pertaining to the Group’s operations, its financial, business and labor situation, and its strategic vision and objectives. In 2020, the agreement establishing the Group Works Council was renewed and extended to ProwebCE. The Group Works Council’s role is not the same as that of the works councils of the Edenred France and ProwebCE subsidiaries, or of corporate headquarters, which have their own specific objectives and resources.

At the European level

Employee representation at the local level varies from country to country. As the Group is convinced that quality dialogue at the European level will help develop a shared sense of belonging, a European Works Council was created in 2014. Its mission is to address all cross-border issues (i.e., concerning at least two countries) in an even-handed spirit of discussion and dialogue.

Following the transformation of Edenred SA into a European company (Edenred SE), a Special Negotiating Group (participants elected in all countries concerned by the EWC) met three times to renegotiate the EWC Agreement, and elections were held to elect a new EWC, which met once in 2021.