Best cases
Demonstrating fairness: Projects from the Hermes world
Integrating refugees in the labour market
Hermes Germany and Hermes Fulfilment are offering targeted jobs for refugees to enable them to enter the German labour market. For example, at the logistics centre in Bad Rappenau, Hermes Germany employs around 40 refugees, in Haldensleben at Hermes Fulfilment just under 30. To ensure that integration is successful, Hermes is supporting them by offering language courses and sponsorship programmes, for example. In recognition of its commitment, Hermes Fulfilment was awarded the Integration Prize 2016 from the state of Saxony-Anhalt.
Bangladesh: Hermes-OTTO International is committed to helping street children
Maer Achol has been working for street children since 2001. The project’s social workers, roam the streets of Dhaka, trying to encourage homeless kids to want to change their lives and to accept the support of the project. Maer Achol offers them accommodation, food and training. In this way, many former street children manage to find a path back into society and make a contribution to the future of their country.
H-OI has been supporting Maer Achol since 2016. Through the personal commitment of office manager Mikael Grard and his staff in Dhaka, the project receives support in a variety of ways - be it with donations in kind such as health packages for the children, or with the voluntary maintenance of Maer Achol's Facebook page.
H-OI CEO Michael Dumke was in Dhaka in 2017 and presented a donation of 45 urgently needed mattresses. “It was very important to us to find a project we could identify with where we can not only donate money, but offer support in various ways directly on site," he says. “We do support the project with donations, mostly donations in kind, but at the same time individual employees are also involved providing sponsorships or helping with job placements.”
For example, H-OI was able to give 20-year-old Ridoy a start to his career as an internal quality inspector in a textile factory. Ridoy joined Maer Achol in 2006 at the age of nine. Although it was not possible to find our where he came from, thanks to the support of the project, he successfully completed his school-leaving exams.
Hamburg Pride: Hermes flies the flag for diversity
Equal rights for all: Hermes is committed to diversity and to the equal treatment of homosexuals, bisexuals and transsexuals. Having signed up to the Diversity Charter in 2006, Hermes is now confidently demonstrating its commitment in public.
As part of the ‘Hamburg flies the flag’ campaign during Pride Week, the rainbow flag was hoisted outside Hermes headquarters in Hamburg in 2016 and 2017 as a sign of solidarity and support. In addition, accompanying activities for the employees took place in the company, encouraging them to think of the topic of diversity in an interactive way.
In 2017, the Otto Group, as a partner of the Hamburg Pride campaign, even provided a truck for the Christopher Street Day parade in Hamburg for the first time and set another clear sign of equality under the motto "Diversity... I like it".
