The Corona crisis hits the aviation sector hard. Seven months after the start of the crisis, Brussels Airlines' staff are still partially temporarily unemployed. Given the forecast that the recovery of market demand for flight tickets will take a longer time, the system of temporary unemployment will still have to be applied for some time to come. In order to further limit the financial and social impact of this long period of inactivity on its employees, Brussels Airlines has entered into a partnership with Randstad. The aim of the partnership is to help employees who want to go back to work find a temporary job.
The Coronavirus crisis continues to cause low demand in the travel industry. Consequently, a large part of the Brussels Airlines employees is still temporarily unemployed and will continue to be so for a longer period, as recovery of the sector is not expected soon. In the meantime, Brussels Airlines wants to offer its employees the opportunity to look for another temporary job until they can resume their tasks at Brussels Airlines. Therefore a partnership was made with Randstad, the largest staffing company in the country. It is the first time that such a partnership is made between a company and a staffing company. Randstad will professionally guide Brussels Airlines staff towards a temporary job in another industry. This way, Brussels Airlines wants to take its responsibility towards its staff and towards society in terms of lowering unemployment cost. The temporary employment that Randstad has on offer includes jobs in industries like retail, telecom and the food and logistics sectors.
Concretely this means that the RVA/ONEM benefit for temporary unemployment is replaced by a salary from the new employer. As a responsible employer, Brussels Airlines has decided to continue to pay out the company premium that it applies since March.
“We are going through turbulent times and many of our colleagues have not been able to resume their normal working regime since March. This crisis has put a large financial burden on them, but also the psychosocial effects cannot be underestimated. We were looking for a way to bridge this difficult period caused by the temporary unemployment. Thanks to the partnership with Randstad, we can offer a temporary job to those who wish to work again. We hope this can help to alleviate the burden while we wait for the relaunch of the tourism industry.”Bert Van Rompaey, Head of Human Resources and Change Management at Brussels Airlines
Randstad is very proud to participate in such an innovative labor market project with a great impact on society. We will do everything to make this a success. We hope to learn a lot from this project so that we can turn it into a system that can be used on a broader basis. If the project is a big success, we will have a game changer.Jeroen Janssen, Business Manager Randstad airport
A 2-week pilot project has started to recruit the cabin and cockpit crew community. In a second phase, as of 15 October, the system will be rolled out to the entire Brussels Airlines community.
