ONE TO ONE FOR WORK INCLUSION

A solution by CDO MILANO submitted to Next mission: inclusion

Accompanying services for small businesses to promote the inclusion of disadvantaged people in work

(Pitched: 14/07/2018)

One Page Summary


Compagnia delle Opere (CDO) is an association of small and medium-sized enterprises with about 4,000 members in the province of Milan. The association promotes (through information, consulting and training activities) business management through inclusive and participatory models, focusing on people, their individuality, skills and talent. For several years, CDO has observed the reaction of small enterprises with regard to the Law 68/99 on the employment obligation of disadvantaged persons. Small enterprises see this obligation as a limitation and an impediment to the management of their business, despite the possibility of meeting this obligation by purchasing products and services from social cooperatives for work inclusion, as permitted by Article 14 of Legislative Decree 276/2003. This is because these companies are not accompanied with a personalized approach to their needs.

The solution aims to define and test a model of assistance based on the specific needs of small enterprises. A model that funds on a ONE TO ONE approach to meet the specific needs of small enterprises, a model that allows companies to use art 14 in a conscious and useful way.
The solution provides an analysis of the needs of small enterprises. With this research it will be possible to understand the needs of companies so that it will be possible to structure a ONE TO ONE intervention model that will be tested and will be translated into a service product.

Currently, the use of art 14 is promoted with information and awareness raising activities by the public administration (metropolitan city of Milan), by social cooperatives that want to start supply relationships with SMEs, or by consultants and freelancers. However, the approaches are generic and small enterprises show little interest in the proposals, because they basically fail to translate the implications in their specific reality and in their specific business. The existing proposals, in essence, do not start from the point of view of the small enterprises, but from the point of view of the public administration that wants to solve social problems, or from the point of view of social cooperatives that want to acquire new customers for new employment insertions, finally, from point of view of disadvantaged workers and their families who rightly seek a solution to employment goals.
The proposed solution, instead, wants to overcome this limit and start personalized ONE TO ONE routes for small enterprises for a conscious and useful adoption of art. 14.

As mentioned, the opportunity for a personalized ONE TO ONE model was detected after years of observation of these dynamics by CDO. Recently seminars, workshops on the topic were conducted and targeted consultancy interventions were made for the use of Article 14 with excellent results. Through Social Challenge, it will be possible to translate these experiences into a model, ie standard check-up procedures, identification of advice and support.