Carrefour has long been committed to helping the disabled and providing them with support. Employment for the disabled week – which began on Monday and continues up until Sunday 24 November – is an opportunity to take stock of the initiatives that the Group has already implemented and to refocus on the issue.
With more than 5000 disabled employees in France and 10,000 across the whole Group, Carrefour is one of the leading employers of disabled people in the retail sector. The Group is therefore primarily preoccupied with the issue of how disabled workers are accepted into working environments and then integrated.
It is for this reason that Carrefour's disability strategy was developed back in 1999 (and renewed for a three-year period in 2011), with its three key commitments to recruit employees with disabilities, integrate them into the workforce under the best possible conditions and – most importantly – help maintain them in employment, in particular by adapting their workstations. Equal opportunities as far as training programmes and professional equality are also guaranteed. Carrefour can also provide employees with more personal support, such as financial aid with hearing aids or help in having their cars specially adapted.
Carrefour's disability strategy also features a network of strategy representatives whose role is to relay the disability policy to each and every store. Every day in France, some 1100 employees act as intermediaries between the company and its disabled employees – as well as being their special representatives. Carrefour's commitment extends to all of the countries in which the Group operates. In Poland, for example, training programmes are delivered to employees designed to help them work more effectively with their disabled colleagues. And in Brazil a "What I do includes everybody" programme has been introduced, designed to promote equal treatment for everybody in the company.
