By Jeimmy Paola Sierra |
La Ceja (Colombia) (EFE) , migrants and minorities in a plant that breathes diversity and inclusion.
In La Ceja, a municipality in the department of Antioquia (northwest), where 33% of the hectares of flower production in Colombia are located, job opportunities spring up for young people and adults who, due to their condition, have been marginalized and excluded by society.
Since 2017, Flores Isabelita, a Colombian company dedicated to the production and marketing of flower bouquets destined for the United States market, began an inclusion program that “broke” social stigmas and discrimination at work.
“We bet on diversity until inclusion ceases to be inclusion because we are all diverse,” said the company’s manager, Juan Carlos Osorno.
This bouquet-manufacturing plant, which receives flowers from regional farms in Antioquia and the Bogotá savannah, not only fills the parade of 30 types of flowers it manages with color, in more than 300 varieties, but also the philosophy that is palpable in every corner and in the messages that the workers wear on their uniforms with phrases like “differences enrich us and respect unites us”.
Posy of opportunities
After a selection process, four years ago, 27 workers with lack, diminution or loss of hearing capacity joined the company in a kind of pilot that, due to its success, confirmed that “everyone deserves a growth opportunity, and not only not only at a work level, but also at a personal level,” Karen Sarmiento, director of human resources at Flores Isabelita, told EFE.
He explained that gradually people with cognitive disabilities, migrants, members of the LGTBIQ+ community, Afro-descendants, mothers head of household and victims of the conflict joined. Therefore, they had to make adjustments in each of the processes, in the infrastructure and in the communication and leadership models. In addition to relying on professionals such as physiotherapists, educators and specialists in special education.
In this Colombian bouquet store, which for the Mother’s Day season, its highest productivity peak, has 1,100 employees in two locations.
37% of its collaborators are part of the inclusion lines, which began to function with “quite fear” due to the issue of productivity and adaptation. But they ended up being “pleasantly surprised” with their results and level of engagement.
“We do not send just any bouquet to the United States. It has added value, it has inclusion, it has diversity, it has love, and that makes our bouquets different,” Sarmiento commented.
Different personnel
For the past three years, chrysanthemums, astromelias, pink carnations, hydrangeas and lilies, among other varieties, have passed through the hands of Karina Ríos. She treats them delicately while working at the packing station, where they and their colleagues put the finishing touches on the more than three million bouquets exported on 15 planes to brighten up the coming weekend for mothers in the United States.
“I work with hearing and deaf people. I really like the experience I have gained here and I love the flowers,” Karina, 33, expressed in sign language.
The same joy is projected by Emanuel Pérez, a 19-year-old with cognitive disabilities, who spent a year in a seedbed preparing for his “first serious job”, in which he learned to operate various machines and currently assembles the caps to protect the flowers. and paste the barcodes.
“They have been very patient with me because it is very difficult for a person like me to locate certain things and follow certain instructions,” Pérez told EFE.
Flores Isabelita, belonging to the Falcon Farms group, has received national recognition for its social responsibility program. But according to Osorno, the greatest pride is not in hiring diverse personnel, but in “impacting communities, impacting families, and impacting society.”