ILUNION
Building a better world with everyone included
Challenge
When social purpose is at the heart of your business model, how can you ensure you keep improving?
When your businesses span everything from textile care to running hotels, from sustainability through to business consultancy, how can you ensure that the same culture of collaboration, customer-focus and a desire to embrace diversity and inclusion, runs through every person who works there?
Hard enough for any organisation, but how about when 40% of your 40,000 employees also have a disability themselves?
“The focus on innovation and continuous improvement has allowed all of our companies to quickly adapt to the needs of the market and our client.”
Alejandro Oñoro, CEO of ILUNION
Solution
By any measure, ILUNION is a success story. Ten years ago, the company set out to show that another way of doing business is possible. ILUNION wanted to combine purpose with profit.
Since then the company has generated more than €1,000M in revenue, supported tens of thousands of employees, and improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
ILUNION’s hotels (which are all designed equally for accessibility and style) were the first Spanish company to receive the Ethics Award from the UN World Tourism Organisation for their work in accessibility, and the first hotel brand to be awarded the EFQM 600+ European Seal of Excellence. (Alongside ILUNION’s recycling, HQ and laundry divisions as well).
Using the EFQM model has been one of the fundamental pillars in ILUNION’s continued successes. The model has helped focus all of the disparate parts of the Group on their shared goals.
It has helped ILUNION align around their four pillars of People, Excellence, Transformation and Sustainability.
It has helped drive continuous improvement – ranging from providing a clear structure to manage transformation and change, through to developing an honest 360 degree view of customers’ needs and expectations, and then exceeding them.
“The focus on innovation and continuous improvement has allowed ILUNION and all of our companies ranging from recycling through to care for seniors to quickly adapt to the needs of the market and our clients,” says Alejandro Oñoro, CEO of ILUNION.’
“We would definitely recommend that other companies use the model. We have 10 EFQM certified companies, and we plan to expand with more.”
“The model provides a structured framework to continually evaluate and improve all aspects of the organisation, from leadership to key results. It allows us to integrate sustainability into our strategy and foster a culture of creativity and innovation. A culture which is essential for our transformation into an outstanding organisation.”