1. health and fitness
2. women's health

Our Staff are
Stunning
February 2015 - No. 4
EDITORIAL
By Olivier Hérout, Executive Vice President of GDF SUEZ Energy Services in charge of Human Resources
Too often, disability is still considered to be a taboo subject in business. And since it is invisible in 80% of cases, how do
we draw attention to something which can’t be seen?
I invite you to check out Time’s Up! Handy’s, a bold and original idea dreamed up by two HR managers from Cofely Ineo
and Cofely Axima, which has now been introduced across all of the business line’s entities in France. The success of this
disability awareness-raising tool is showing no signs of slowing down: nearly 600 boxes have been distributed since it was
launched.
I hope you enjoy learning more about it, and don’t forget to return next month for issue number 5 of the “Our employees
are talented” series, which will focus on how more women are taking up roles on site.
Time’s Up! Handy’s
HR making things happen
Inspired by the well-known board game Time’s Up!, where the aim is to guess the identity of famous figures using clues or
mimes, the “special disability” version conceived by HR managers from Cofely Axima and Cofely Ineo has become a key
awareness-raising tool within the business line. We take a look at an initiative which has proved to be entertaining,
interactive and successful.
“The involvement of the Management Committee and
commitment of department heads were essential”
How did the initiative come about?
When the game box was presented to me, I immediately thought that it
would be a useful tool for raising awareness among the fifty or so
employees at the Grand Ouest Agency. The Management Committee
was on board straight away. Together, we considered the best way of
introducing the game, and the discussions even enabled us to anticipate
obstacles before they arose!
And what about the launch itself?
To reach the maximum number of employees, we started with a five-day
“competition” format, during the lunch break. The pretext of lunch, which
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we wanted to have prepared by an ESAT , was the perfect opportunity to
explain the context and highlight our disability agreement and the action
taken by the organisation.
In addition, we are lucky to be on a site where an interactive garden has been created in the green spaces
maintained by disabled staff. This offered an opportunity to use a concrete example to illustrate the multitude
of possibilities for helping disabled people into work, and to capture the attention of employees by linking the
initiative to something they are familiar with. Each day, two different departments got together. The winning
team received a symbolic prize (humorous mugs created by Cofely Services for Disabled Persons
Employment Week). The level of enthusiasm was much higher than I expected!
A remarkable number of people took part, primarily thanks to the commitment of the department heads who
raised the subject with their teams and sent out the invitations personally. Without their involvement, we could
not have achieved the same results.
Lucie Lafourcade, HR Manager for Cofely
Services’ Grand Ouest Agency, sums up
the strengths of Time’s Up! Handy’s.
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ESAT: établissement et service d’aide par le travail (an organisation which offers disabled people a job and medical, social and
educational support)
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And what were the results?
We put disability policy at the heart of our activities in
2014, and the results speak for themselves: 3 RQTH
(Reconnaissance de la Qualité de Travailleur
Handicapé – Recognition of Disabled Worker Status)
cases are currently being processed.
Winning the confidence of employees so that they
feel able to take the step of declaring their disability is
a huge victory in itself!
Proud to have taken part in the game and won! Their prize: mugs
created by Cofely Services for Disabled Persons Employment
Employ
Week
Over to our employees
“Being disabled doesn’t mean you’re stupid”
Coming to take part in the Time’s Up Handy’s game, Olivier felt immediately
engaged. He knows all about disability. His father suffered from multiple
sclerosis, with inflammation of the spinal cord: he would have plenty to say about
the hell of living with the disease. With pride in his eyes and his voice, Olivier
describes a model father. He was a heating engineer who found himself
confined to home for two years due to
t his illness and went back to school,
obtained a vocational diploma and began a new career.
“Even with a disability, you can achieve a lot,” the young man notes, citing
Einstein and his dyslexia as an example. “Being disabled doesn’t mean you’re
stupid, you’re still capable...” While genuinely enjoying trying to guess the names
of the celebrities written on the cards, Olivier was more than happy to take the
time between two rounds of Time’s Up! Handy’s to share his experience: “I
talked and people listened to me.” Describing a cheerful atmosphere, which
invited confidences, he sums up: “Thanks to the game, other people, not just
me, were able to understand that being disabled doesn’t mean that you’re no
use.”
Olivier Ringot, maintenance
technician at Cofely Axima
“As a staff representative, I’m very committed!”
How did you hear about Time’s Up! Handy’s?
Through my activities on the works council. I often talk to Sébastien Guerel, our
HR Manager, including about putting in place measures relating to disability. When
he told me about Time’s Up! Handy’s, I was immediately struck by the fun aspect of
it. And as a staff representative, I’m very committed to getting involved in raising
awareness in this way.
Philippe Parpaite, central
security
officer
at
Inéo Défense, responsible for
accident prevention and a
member of the works council
What did you to do to prepare for the launch of Time’s Up! Handy’s at
Inéo Défense?
Every Tuesday, our works council organises a relaxing break on site. This
Th was an
ideal opportunity to introduce the game. Since we have already conducted a
number of awareness-raising
awareness raising activities on the topic of disability, our colleagues
weren’t left with the impression that Time’s Up! Handy’s had come out of nowhere.
It has now become a regular thing. I’m pleased to note that our younger employees
particularly like the game. They put together teams and set themselves challenges.
What was your understanding of Cofely Ineo’s disability policy before this came along?
We’re lucky to have an HR Manager who is very engaged on this subject. That’s a huge driving force.
If you had to describe Time’s Up! Handy’s, what would be the key words for you?
Using an entertaining approach to deal with a serious subject is a great concept.
concept. My congratulations to those
who came up with this brilliant idea!
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“The mechanics of the game offer a very effective way to
educate people”
I was aware of the classic Time’s Up! game, which I have played with friends.
This new version surprised me, though: for example, I didn’t know that Brigitte
Bardot suffered from amblyopia, a lack of visual acuity, or that allergies and
chronic diabetes were considered types of disability.
Through playing and then leading the games, I realised that disability is much
more common than is generally thought. The mechanics of the game offer a
very effective way to educate people and start a dialogue: you find out that a
famous person suffers from a particular condition, you express surprise that you
never knew that and, immediately, you start to transfer that to the work
environment. What if one of your colleagues suffered from the same condition?
The most striking moment of this awareness-raising initiative came when
Didier Roy, the former gymnast who was left quadriplegic after an accident,
came to talk about his battle to rebuild himself and learn to live with his
disability. Like everyone else there, I was particularly moved by the story of this
man, who is now a writer and works through a microphone linked to his
computer... All of a sudden, disability took shape, became something concrete.
The strength of this guy made an impression on all of us. His most recent book,
Acharnements sans merci (Merciless Fury), a detective novel, was presented as
a prize to the winners of the tournament.
Games make things less daunting. Their impact is much greater than that of a
formal presentation, an abstract talk or a leaflet attached to pay slips. Since the
Time’s Up! Handy’s initiative, whenever the issue of disability comes up
internally, you can see that people are better informed.
Baptiste
Bénezet,
Agency
Director at Cofely Axima
One game, several messages: reminder of the key points.
• In 80% of cases, disability is invisible.
• Disability does not necessarily mean a wheelchair (only 3% of cases).
• In the corporate world, any condition which affects a person’s work is considered to be a disability: an
impaired sense of smell for someone who works in the catering industry, an allergy to metals in the case
of a dental technician.
• Disabilities are evaluated in relation to a situation: the Little Mermaid is disabled on land but perfectly at
ease in water!
• HR managers are the first points of contact within the company for employees dealing with a disability
issue.
Writings:
– Energy Services Business Line Human Resources Department – February 2015
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