- Renault is inaugurating its Handi@Renault company social network today, July 5, 2012.
- Renault is also renewing its partnership with the French disabled sports federation, FFH, stepping up a collaborative venture that began 15 years ago.
- To celebrate that renewal, Renault is organizing a symbolic meeting between the French wheelchair rugby team and players from the French national rugby team at the Technocentre in Guyancourt.
- Also on July 5, 2012, Renault is organizing special workshops to raise the disability awareness of the 10,000 employees at the Technocentre.
Through the partnership, Renault provides the FFH with financial support and vehicles. In exchange, the Group benefits from the presence of athletes at a series of events and professional training courses on disability, organized by the national disabled sports training center, CNFH. “For Renault, the partnership is an opportunity to reassert its commitment to people with disabilities and its support for the sporting world, whose values of solidarity, performance, team spirit and openness it shares,” says Claire Martin, Director of Corporate Social Responsibility.
The partnerships formed by Renault with the French rugby federation, FFR, and the FFH also promote the values of dialogue, enthusiasm and closeness that the company extends to its customers and to its staff. “This is why it was logical for Renault to link up the renewal of the FFH partnership with French rugby, through workshops on the basics of wheelchair rugby, a sport that will feature at the upcoming Paralympic Games,” says FFH Chairman Gérard Masson. “This is an excellent opportunity to showcase this still too unknown sport.”
The workshop day is the result of Renault’s long-standing commitment to the social and professional integration of people with disabilities, a commitment that concerns its customers, suppliers and partners.
Renault Tech has for over 25 years been designing, producing and selling converted vehicles for people with disabilities. The European leader in the field, Renault Tech annually manufactures more than 1,000 vehicles for people with reduced mobility on three production lines at its Heudebouville site. Renault Tech produces driving aids to help people with disabilities find a mobility solution that enhances their independence.
Disability is a core focus of the human resources policy led by Renault since 1995, the year it signed its 1st Agreement. Together with all the trade unions, the company has now signed the 5th Agreement, setting objectives on integration (notably at service sites and in engineering functions), on awareness raising through special events and training, and on accessibility for the disabled. Beyond these objectives, the Group leads a number of initiatives internally on adapting employee workstations, fostering disabled applicant sourcing, encouraging employees to openly declare their disability, proposing project sponsoring, and signing partnerships (for example, with the FFH, Arpejeh, Jaccede and Pas à Pas).
To enhance these efforts, Renault is inaugurating the Handi@Renault social network. “The idea is to change the attitudes of employees and managers on disabilities and encourage them to dialogue on best practices, in short, to innovate in their approach to disabilities,” say Gérard Leclerq and Stephen Norman, co-leaders of the Handi@Renault steering committee. The partnership with the FFH will lead to more awareness-raising actions for all employees and disability training courses for managers and also serve as a main theme for the network, for example in the shape of regular news from the French Paralympics team.
