GEODIS contributes to workplace integration through Tremplin program

On 5 July 2016, Marie-Christine LOMBARD, Chief Executive Officer of GEODIS, hosted the prize-giving ceremony for the first participants in Tremplin (from the French for ‘springboard’), a program launched by GEODIS in 2015 to promote reintegration through employment.

As part of this ceremony, organized at the head office of GEODIS in Levallois-Perret, GEODIS site directors presented eight interns of between 23 and 48 years in age, with their professional certificates as packers-forklift drivers (order pickers, warehouse workers) and their CACES safe-driving diploma. This certificate reflects their ability to drive handling equipment, particularly forklift, in warehouses.

As part of the Tremplin program, GEODIS selected ten trainees - unqualified young people or long-term unemployed - to take part in the first session, which began in the Paris region in January 2016 and is scheduled to finish in August. For the recruitment phase, GEODIS worked with its partners GEL Groupe and the national employment agency (Pôle Emploi) and, for the training period, with AFTRAL (learning and training in transport and logistics).

Following a recruitment process that placed the emphasis on ability and motivation, the ten participants followed six weeks of training to receive their vocational diplomas as packers-forklift drivers and CACES 1, 3, 5 certificates. They then joined one of six GEODIS pilot sites for a period of five months where, supervised by tutors, they continued their training and familiarized themselves with their working environment. At each of these volunteer sites, GEODIS put in place reinforced integration processes that involved, for example, preparing and training the employees supporting these interns, along with coaching and special follow-up of employees re-entering the workplace or entering it for the first time.

Following this program, GEODIS will offer each trainee a permanent contract in its workforce or with its partner GEL.

Speaking at the ceremony, Marie-Christine LOMBARD said: “GEODIS is pursuing an active approach based on corporate and social responsibility through a commitment to fight against exclusion and to promote diversity and equal opportunity. I believe strongly that our role as a company is to show ourselves to be exemplary in this respect. So I am delighted at the success of this first class”. 

The Tremplin program will start a second class in September in the Rhone-Alps region of south-eastern France. For this new session, the program will gain a strand concerning integration in everyday life outside the company. The aim is to support trainees in addressing the difficulties that could impact or harm their new professional activity.

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