Like 90% of Spanish businesses, your company is an SME and, as such, suffers the consequences of the crisis much more directly. But it is not all bad news, and in this post we are going to show how the LISMI (Law on the Social Integration of People with Disabilities) could be the opportunity you have been waiting for.
Until now, most people with disabilities who worked did so in large corporations. But the time has come for SMEs to take action and use LISMI as an ally to position themselves in the market while providing significant social value. Let us remember that LISMI requires companies with more than 50 employees to have people with disabilities make up 2% of their workforce.
Today, mechanisms already exist to enable an SME to comply with LISMI through different avenues. The issue is finding the formula that best suits an organization’s characteristics. Every company can find in LISMI the opportunity its business needs by employing people with disabilities and, when this is not possible, through a foundation or association, a special employment center, or even by hiring a self-employed worker with a disability. All the options we have discussed can help your SME become more responsible and comply with legislation, which greatly benefits it because it will avoid the corresponding penalties and be able to participate in public tenders. More importantly, it will gain the human value that comes from working with the disability community, which I am convinced helps improve the organization’s results.
Where can you turn?
One example is Alares Empleo ETT, a temporary employment agency specializing in the selection, hiring, and workplace integration of people with disabilities. For many SMEs, it is extremely useful to have the support of professionals familiar with universal accessibility and employment—areas that, until now, have been largely unfamiliar to most companies. On the one hand, your SME complies with LISMI, and on the other, you find people who can add significant value to your human capital.
But if special circumstances within your company prevent the direct hiring of people with disabilities, special employment centers were created precisely for these situations. Through them, you can contract products or services, such as training, management, and even work-life balance programs for employees. In the case of Alares Social CEE, it is possible to offer customer loyalty programs through social marketing. As you can see, these services have the advantage of being managed by people with disabilities. In this way, you can even increase your compliance rate with the Law, which will be beneficial in public tenders and, of course, increase your company’s productivity and strengthen its external image.
Donations and LISMI
As someone well acquainted with SMEs, after many years working in HR, I know that for an SME, all of this can often be genuinely complicated. That is why I will continue offering some pointers: donations or sponsorships related to disability and employment. Foundations and associations work to integrate people with disabilities into the labor market, enhancing their employability through training. In this way, they improve their quality of life and the well-being they so deserve. It is important to understand that these nonprofit organizations can carry out their activities thanks to donations, making this a very important way to help ensure that people with disabilities become part of our society.
As you can see, there are many possibilities an SME can find through LISMI. In fact, we are convinced that it is an ally capable of providing added value that many companies are unable to find in these particularly challenging times.
Photo @Robert S. Donovan, distributed under a Creative Commons BY-2.0 license
Source: contunegocio.es
