“For us, hiring people with disabilities is at the heart of our organisation. Ultimately, the deciding factor in hiring people with disabilities was the human factor.”

“We specialise in developing special vehicles and bespoke pieces for the security and armed forces sectors. We work with a social enterprise, an employment centre specialising in finding solutions to business needs by integrating professional services. They support us in our recruitment processes for hiring people with disabilities. Together, we create job profiles and adapt them to job vacancies within our company. They then train jobseekers with disabilities in the tasks required for the role. They do this for all companies. This approach is useful and pragmatic, and covers all the necessary bases.”

“Our first employee with a disability used a wheelchair, so we only needed to provide a special keyboard and adapt his office chair. Thanks to subsidies and aids, this was an easy task and not so different from the general arrangements we make for the other workers. To help him move between floors, his colleagues push his wheelchair around the building. They take turns, so he is always accompanied.”

“All workers receive a training course adapted to their future tasks. The advantage of working with this social economy corporation is that they already select and train our disabled employees. This initial selection and training acts as a filter, ensuring that these future employees are capable of performing the job and that their profiles match the tasks.”

“We always try to treat our employees with a disability as any other worker, and I must say, I gained experience throughout all these years. We are now much better at integrating these workers into our company. This does not necessarily imply a big change to the usual process; mostly, it involves making slight changes to behaviour. These changes can be extremely subtle and may include ‘easing’ a worker’s schedule or providing a special keyboard, for example.”

“Our employees with a disability are involved in a number of areas. For example, they are responsible for placing products in the warehouse, receiving parcels in the logistics area and driving forklifts. There are also more technical tasks, such as carrying out small electrical repairs or assemblies. Our company specialises in the construction of armoured vans, so one of these employees’ tasks is to assemble parts of the vans. In this case, advances in machinery are helping a lot, and the use of mechanical guns compensates for physical disadvantages.”

“Something interesting happened some time after we had hired more employees with a disability. Some of my staff came to me and admitted that they had disabilities too. Previously, they had not wanted to reveal their condition for fear of being excluded or fired. Now, however, they felt safe being open about it. Currently, our work environment is characterised by an atmosphere of naturalness and collaboration.”

“All our employees work in groups. Each group is led by a group leader who manages the activity of all the workers. Employees with disabilities are treated like any other workers, and any obstacles they face will be overcome with the greatest of willingness. In my opinion, it’s a matter of will. As a company, we are all in this together and willing to support new employees with our ‘human’ resources.”

“The arrival of these workers at our company has improved the work environment and fostered a collaborative atmosphere among all our employees. Most of them do not require any adaptations, and they are welcomed as equals. Their ‘hidden disadvantages’ do not prevent them from performing their tasks. Integrating people with disabilities into our workforce has led to higher levels of morality, respect and admiration among our employees. We have also noticed that it diminishes individuality for the sake of group work and collaboration. We will certainly continue doing it!”

“We have close ties with the Spanish Foundation for Cooperation and Social Inclusion of People with Disabilities. Thanks to this collaboration, we won the ‘Award for the Labour Inclusion of People with Disabilities’ in 2020.”