ILUNION

Sharing our hope

Monday 12 June 2017, by Cristina Andrushko

1 inspired

A. The main facts about the activities of the company.

ILUNION is a merger of the group ONCE and its foundation in order to improve the business and make it much stronger. Their brand includes hope, unity and solidarity. The firm and its foundation is a corporation with a social mission which provides inclusion of people with disabilities in its labor force in a way they can have a balance between profits and social values. It currently has 6 divisions which provide integral services, health and social care, hotels, leisure and marketing services and it is a leader in industrial laundry, contact centers, etc, incorporating employees with disabilities in all its chain value.
The fact of being socially responsible and generating quality employment for disabled people is the most important value of this firm.

B. The Ethical challenges this company is addressing.

The existence of this kind of firms reveal that there are still people caring of the disabled youngers and that they motivate themselves to keep looking for a job and don’t give up.

This company tries to face the following ethical challenges:
First of all, giving the opportunity to disabled people to be part of the society. Not only by being part of the labor force but also by improving their social life and making them feel completely included and welcomed, without any discrimination.
Moreover, they try to make them feel as free as possible. Removing any limit given to their rights. in the end, Ilunion wants to contribute to the self-sufficiency of these people. Making them to develop and being able to organise their own lives, from the economical point of view but also from the self-sufficiency one.
Ilunion also tries to sensitize population, showing that these people are as capable as anyone else to be responsible for their work and developing it in the best way they can.
To conclude, Ilunion produces a multiplier effect because it induces other companies to work the way Ilunion works (with this type of company culture and values) and also it motivates young disabled to look for a job and make them feel capable to carry it out.

C. What makes you believe this company is really ethical and why you trust it?

We believe that this company is ethical and trustful because since our childhood we have heard a lot about it and also its advertising campaigns transmit us hope, motivation and enthusiasm so we feel this firm very close to us and we think it is one of the best examples to prove that there are companies which really care about their employees and to show that firms can perform their activity without having to choose between profits and ethics.

Society is made such way that the disabled people are being excluded from the labor system and also their social life is being affected by some health problems which they cannot change. However, they try to pursue a personal and labor development, they also want to be useful and productive in a company and to feel successful but some firms prefer looking to the other side and not taking this into account. One of the reasons why we were inspired by this company was that almost half of its employees have any kind of disability; the fact to be pointed out is that the firm is not hiring these workers to achieve tax advantages but it is doing for pure ethical reasons. Otherwise, they would have hired only the minimum percentage needed to take the tax advantage, but they are recruiting much more than needed.

Another reason to trust is that they have their own plan of equality which Ilunion is carrying out. Some of the principles are to promote women leadership, contracting women almost half of the workers and a neutral retribution policy.
Their code of ethics is very strong and embraces eleven values: communication, solidarity, fairness, trust, humility, respect, professionalism, responsibility, confidentiality, honesty and commitment especially applied to directors and other supervisors.
Ilunion also has a good supplier relationship management which commits them to reduce the environmental impact of their activity by controlling the quantity of waste they generate and also minimizing the use of the resources. Moreover, they prioritize contracts with companies which employ labor with disabilities, which makes the firm even stronger in this point.

Finally, it has some special employment centres which are a great source of employment for disabled people and those centers includes more than 70% of these people. The main objective of this center is to provide work productivity and efficiency and to ensure paid employment to workers with disabilities.

D.The possible challenges facing the company in the future and how you think this company may improve.

It is important to mention that this firm has very few challenges because it is positive for both the economy and the people with disability. Apart from being profitable the firm is including social values on it. However, nowadays there are many different technologies which can do the same job as a human such as some services. New technologies can be a challenge for those firms which are used to work only with human workforce. To fight this current challenges the firm is trying to invest more in technologies not to substitute the human workforce but to help them and to make their job easier and in a more efficient way. Also, the firm is being increasingly more diversified because it is continually adding new business lines. By this way the company can ensure its future continuity.
Some strategies that can be done to improve the firm could include the internationalization of their activities or continue to perform eco-friendly activities in such an honest and efficient way. Also, we believe that marketing is a powerful tool to let the world know about your business and be inspired by your activity. Thus, we think that it would be an efficient idea to invest in advertisement by, for instance, sponsoring events that follow their code of ethics.

Bibliography

http://www.ilunion.com/en/know-us/mission-vision-and-values
http://www.ilunion.com/en/people/human-resources-policies
http://www.ilunion.com/es/comunicacion/actualidad/03022017/el-confidencial-y-kpmg-galardonan-ilunion-en-los-iii-premios-las
http://www.ilunion.com/en/get-know-us
http://www.ilunion.com/en/corporate-reputation
http://www.ilunion.com/en/divisions

Location: Madrid (Spain)

Sector: Accommodation and food service activities, Administrative and support service activities, Human health and social work activities, Other service activities

Official website: http://www.ilunion.com

Nbr. visits: 1013

Nbr. inspires: 1