More opportunities for people with disabilities: a breath of fresh air in the Oberland workshops
Created: 10/13/2022, 4:55 p.m
Part of the new Oberland Werkstätten team: (from left) Wolfgang Reibl, Birgit Schreyer, Veronika Dammüller and Dana Verwohlt.
© Hans Lippert
The Oberland workshops want to offer employees more opportunities on the open job market.
A new team is now bringing ambitious ideas to the company.
Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen/Geretsried – In the future, the Oberland workshops want to offer their employees more job options and more chances of finding a job on the free labor market.
"In this way we counteract the accusation that is often voiced that employment in our workshops does not lead to inclusion," explained Managing Director Oliver Gosolits on Wednesday at a press conference at the Geretsried location.
More opportunities for people with disabilities: a breath of fresh air in the Oberland workshops
Some restructuring within the company is associated with the ambitious goal.
In the district of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen there are workshops in Gaißach and Geretsried, each with its own departments such as laundry, wood and metal processing or assembly.
Instead of two managers, there will be a regional management in the future.
The jobs are to become more permeable for the employees, and the division into northern and southern districts is to be eliminated.
This is already evident from the fact that the new regional manager, Dana Verwohlt, and the new area manager, Wolfgang Reibl, will have offices in Geretsried and Gaißach.
Inclusion in the Oberland: Companies in the district should be more involved
In addition - and this is the decisive step towards inclusion - according to Gosolits, the Oberland workshops want to actively approach businesses and companies in the district in order to find a job for people with intellectual disabilities.
This applies to workshop employees, school leavers and employees in the newly founded "Oberland Impuls" branch in Geretsried, where people with mental illnesses will be employed from the end of this year.
At least on a daily basis, the clientele of the Oberland workshops should be employed on the general job market.
Read the latest news from Geretsried here.
The lack of skilled workers plays into their hands: people with disabilities have a lot of potential
The current shortage of skilled workers plays into the workshops' hands.
Simpler activities that only cost the skilled workers time can be taken on by people with disabilities.
"We are well networked, for example in the Oberland Economic Forum," says Gosolits, confident that there is a suitable job "out there waiting for more people than before".
The managing director emphasizes that both the companies and the new employees will be accompanied by experts during the integration process.
If it doesn't work out, the return to the supervised facility always remains as security.
also read
She looked after Hubert & Staller and the surfing wave: a prominent town hall employee has resigned
At knifepoint: Wolfratshauser (23) robbed at Harras
"Not easy" is the inclusion in the free labor market
The cooperation with an external job has been working for years with the pharmaceutical company Roche in Penzberg.
Here, too, employees from Gaißach are to be included in the future.
The placement on the so-called first labor market, concedes Oliver Gosolits, has not been easy in recent years.
Since 2015, just ten people have made the leap from the workshops.
The managing director sees inclusion in the area of work as a long-term task for the next five to ten years.
Contradiction in the workforce - manager has resigned
The realignment and restructuring not only met with approval from the workforce.
As reported by our newspaper, the long-time operations manager - first in Geretsried, then in Gaißach - Carolin König left the workshops for this reason.
When asked, Gosolits admits that other employees have also left – not only because of the changes, but also because of them.
However, the more common reason for terminations is that younger people in particular cannot afford the rents in the district and therefore migrate to other regions.
New team brings a breath of fresh air
The new team consists of Dana Verwohlt, who is in charge of the regional management for Geretsried and Gaißach, the three department heads responsible for production, Wolfgang Reibl, Thomas Weidmann and Matthias Schmidhuber, Veronika Dammmüller, who is responsible for the rehabilitation service, and Birgit Schreyer, who is responsible for accompanies people in their search for the right workspace for them.
Contact person for communication and public relations is Ursula Heigl.
TANJA LUHR
By the way: everything from the region is also available in our regular Wolfratshausen-Geretsried newsletter.
