Switch Up is positioned on the market for welcoming and integrating newcomers to a territory via a collaborative platform of services that connects the future new inhabitant with a local Ambassador trained in relation to this moment in life. The start-up is expanding its offer to meet the new employment challenges and is helping companies in difficulty to facilitate the return to employment of employees through geographical mobility.
According to a report published by the DARES, the number of social plans is alarming. No fewer than 530 redundancy plans were initiated between
1 March and 11 October this year.
The health crisis that is affecting everyone is forcing companies to rethink their strategies to avoid closing their doors. Behind this figure, more than 72,500 employees are concerned and are being considered for redundancy (more than three times the number of last year). According to the Ministry of Labour, "the figures are at their highest", which is cause for alarm and the need to find new concrete solutions.
While a job protection plan is compulsory beyond 10 redundancies in a company with more than 50 employees, collective redundancies are also very present in SMEs. In companies with less than 10 employees, more than 3,000 people have been or are about to be made redundant.
The players in the field of professional transition are unanimous: training and skills assessments play an important role in the support measures, but geographical mobility is given little attention. However, there is real room for manoeuvre since, according to the latest Pôle Emploi study, "Finding a job in a territory close to home" is not a priority for nearly four out of five jobseekers. The lack of support for geographical mobility explains why it concerns on average only 5% of employees who accept mobility following a job loss in order to find a new job or resume training.
In addition to training," adds David Beaurepaire, Managing Director of HelloWork, "geographical mobility is also an obstacle to the proper functioning of the labour market. But this raises broader issues, particularly access to housing, which is a very long-term project.
Thus, allowing employees to benefit from support when they leave by facilitating their mobility would make it possible to reduce the unemployment rate in France by 2.5 points (estimated by INSEE at more than 2.7 million people in the 3rd quarter of 2020), as highlighted in the study on the geographical mobility of workers by the Inspection Générale des Finances.
*https://www.pole-emploi.org/files/live/sites/peorg/files/documents/Statistiques-etanalyses/E%26S/ES_51_mobilite_des_DE_freins_et_leviers.pdf
* https://www.la-croix.com/Economie/Social/Le-chomage-bas-2008-reste-points-noirs-2020-02-13-1201078134
* "Calculating mismatch indicators in a world of high unemployment", Etienne Wasmer, November 2015.
https://www.modernisation.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/epp/epp_mobilite-travailleurs_rapport.pdf
Switch Up invests in supporting employees affected by these job-saving plans by facilitating their geographical mobility and thus encouraging their return to employment. To this end, Switch Up provides firms specialising in professional transitions, as well as companies, with its capacity
to implement a collaborative platform to assist their clients in geographical mobility.
The aim is to improve the support for their change of workplace. The employee and his/her family can then benefit from departure assistance in connection with the firm in charge of the professional transition but also from existing mobility aids at local, national or European level. Through the collaborative platform, the employee and his family can exchange with local Ambassadors trained and approved by Switch Up to discuss their future place of living and thus remove the obstacles, difficulties or anxieties that mobility can generate for the whole family.
When employment or training is found, he/she can benefit from personalised assistance covering each person in the family in the areas of housing, schooling, integration, administrative procedures and employment of the accompanying spouse.
This crisis situation reminds us that accompanying employees throughout their career (from their arrival to their departure) is essential and is an integral part of the image of the company but also of the territories. With this new solution, Switch Up is an innovative player in the relationship between Employment, Territory and Innovation!
The collaborative platform deployed by Switch Up creates added value for the selected local residents who join the community of ambassadors of the territory. They are then trained and paid to welcome future newcomers. They thus contribute to the attractiveness of their territory. The companies concerned by the PES respond in an innovative and human way to their obligation to revitalise the territory in conjunction with the institutions and local authorities.
