9 June 2012 at 10:00 CET – The Hague / Utrecht – Over the next two years, PostNL Parcels will offer jobs for 1,200 people distant from the labour market. This was agreed by PostNL and Locus. In 2014 approximately 550 people from sheltered employment and almost 650 people on welfare will be working on sorting machines in one of the eighteen sorting and distribution centers of PostNL Parcels.
PostNL and Locus have agreed on a sustainable partnership between the local social employment organisations, social services and the sorting and distribution centers. Locus enters into national cooperation agreements with councils, social employment organisations and private parties to help people distant from the labour market into work. The partnership concerns a group secondment by the social employment organisation. This means that the social employment organisation is responsible for the recruitment, training, scheduling and guidance of the employees.
Gerrit Mastenbroek, General Director at PostNL Parcels: “Our experience of working with people distant from the labour market is very positive and we would like to offer them an opportunity. We have been using social employment organisations as suppliers for over eight years. They provide extremely motivated, loyal and skilled workers. Guiding employees distant from the labour market requires expertise we do not have. We want to put employees who are distant from the labour market to work in our new depots. We have started with the first group secondment together with the local social employment organisation in our pilot depot in Utrecht.”
Hanne Overbeek, managing director of Locus: “We have developed a national methodology for cooperation with local social employment organisations on the basis of our experiences in the pilot location in Utrecht, which has already been applied in four new depots. We now also intend to apply this methodology – anticipating on the Dutch legislation “werken naar vermogen” – on people on welfare. This requires collaboration between the social employment agency, social services and the depots of PostNL. Den Bosch and Hengelo are the first depots of PostNL which employ people on welfare. The national partnership will allow us to share best practices and ensure that the guidance and support of the employees meet the wishes of PostNL Parcels. By providing proper support to your employees, you let businesses take corporate social responsibility.”
About Locus
Locus exists 1 year. Locus is the result of an initiative of Divosa (the association of social welfare directors) and Cedris (the umbrella organization for sheltered employment organisations), and has been running for a year. Locus brings together national businesses, sheltered employment organisations and councils, promoting the development of partnerships. These partnerships, involving national and local interests are empowered to set up cooperation agreements based on best practices.
About PostNL
PostNL processes 8.7 billion addressed postal items (including 106 million parcels) each year and delivers to addresses in the Benelux, Germany, the UK and Italy. PostNL’s main business is mail, parcels and e-commerce. The company also provides services in the area of data and document management, direct marketing and fulfilment. PostNL employs some 65,500 people. In 2011 the company generated a turnover of nearly 4.3 billion euros.
