On the 12th of December 2023, D-WISE members visited three of ONCE Social Group’s WISEs in Madrid: ILUNION Industrial Laundry Vallecas, ILUNION Contact Center, and Hotel ILUNION Atrium.

At ILUNION Industrial Laundry Vallecas, the members of the Network could see first-hand the processes that take place in this Industrial Laundry, in which more than 70% of the employees have a disability. This plant was established 30 years ago and cleans between 18 and 20 thousand kgs of laundry every day for 50 clients from the hotel sector.

Afterwards, at the visit of one of ILUNION’s Contact Centers, members learned that ILUNION employs more than 4,500 people in its 11 centers all around Spain, and with the prospect of opening one of them in Lisbon. In this visit, members could see workstations of people receiving calls for entities in the public sector, as well as private companies. Moreover, it was also possible to see how the workstations were adapted for people with different disabilities. Additionally, it was underlined how the performance of employees with and without disabilities was evaluated the same way, since the workplaces are fully adapted to the employees’ accessibility needs.

It is worth mentioning, in both the Industrial Laundry and the Contact Center, the role of the support units: multidisciplinary teams whose role is to support employees with disabilities in the workplace.

Finally, the D-WISE members visited one of ILUNION’s hotels, ILUNION Atrium – where they were actually staying – and visited one of the universally accessible rooms, while learning about the hotel chain business model, built upon employment creation for persons with disabilities, client satisfaction, and accessibility.