myAbility

Inclusion projects successfully planned and implemented with InLoox:

myAbility beneftis from greater transparency and thus can reliably manage even complex tasks

Michael Aumann, CEO of myAbility, first came into contact with the idea of a social consultancy in 2013 in his then position as a consultant at Accenture. At that time, the intention was to develop a concept together with myAbility founder Gregor Demblin on how to successfully bring together professionally talented people with disabilities with commercial enterprises. The big goal behind this was to get companies to rethink. Away from the idea that people with disabilities should be happy to have a job at all, and toward the realization that they not only do good work, but also enrich a company in many ways.

Connecting people

When the concept was finalized, Aumann and Demblin were already so closely connected that the consultant joined myAbility and took over as managing director. Michael Aumann: "I was motivated by the idea of contributing a part to ensuring that 15 million people who have some form of disability, be it physical or mental, in the DACH region alone are given the right to equal opportunities. I wanted to bring this idea to companies via the consulting level."

Today, there are three approaches to realizing the matching between the companies and the 'talents`, as they are called at myAbility: the job platform, the myAbility Talent® program, and the consulting concept. Since these areas are highly interconnected, it is all the more important to maintain an overview. Which is not at all easy, since the company is constantly evolving and expanding. Aumann explains: "From my previous consulting work, I knew how helpful it is to implement complex interrelationships or projects with appropriate tools and to control them using Gantt charts. Nothing as big as MS Project, but a small pragmatic tool. That's why I started looking for a solution." The requirement profile: the solution should be effective and user-oriented. Intuitive to use, meaning no specialist knowledge is required, and scalable so that it can be easily expanded in use as it grows."

Collaboration, project management software & more

During his research, Aumann came across the IT donation portal "Stifter-helfen", which brings non-profit organizations and business enterprises together to support non-profits with IT donations, special conditions and services. There he found the project management solution InLoox, which appealed to him and which he tested right away. Then, when the next big projects came up, he took that as an opportunity to introduce InLoox to myAbility in 2018. "The basic training we did in parallel with the introduction of the software was very helpful. Here, we learned so many tips, tricks and shortcuts that make everyday project work much easier," says Katharina Schweiger, Head of Talent Program. Especially when it came to integrating external people, the added value could be seen quickly: "We have a dynamic, creative young team that comes from a wide variety of industries. InLoox is an excellent way to incorporate all of them, and the tool provides good guidance for implementing the variety of tasks and projects from our talent program."

It´s a match!

The myAbility Talent® program covers a predefined period of nine months, during which potential talents, i.e. students with disabilities who have special skills, are first identified so that they can then be coached and prepared for the world of work. In parallel, the search for potential employers - companies that create accessible work opportunities and are looking for a new employee - runs. Finally, myAbility organizes a meeting to get to know each other. Aumann reports, "40 to 50 percent of the talents we connect receive a concrete offer afterwards. With about 28 participating students and a maximum of 10 companies per round, that's a good rate." 

"You can imagine that this matching process consists of many small project steps. We have mapped all of them in InLoox, " Schweiger says.  Because the tool has schedules, shows dependencies, and maps who does what and when, everyone is always well informed. The head of the talent program is particularly enthusiastic about the Gantt chart, which makes it much easier for her to manage employees and their tasks in different project phases. They, in turn, mostly work according to the Kanban method or use the mind mapping features. Procedures they are already familiar with from their apprenticeships or studies.

On track for growth

With InLoox, myAbility feels well prepared for the next steps. The company currently has 25 employees in Vienna. It has also been active in Germany for two years and wants to expand its activities here. Just recently, the company took over the German market leader Capjob and is now the largest job platform for people with disabilities in German-speaking countries. For this reason, the company welcomes the fact that employees who do not have their own licence can also be integrated into InLoox. Schweiger emphasizes, "It is of course very practical to be able to assign tasks to these colleagues and thus involve them in the implementation of such projects."

So far, myAbility has not only used this option in the context of the talent program, but above all in the conception and implementation of the inclusion calculator. The calculator is intended to enable companies in the future to independently calculate which financial advantages result from inclusion projects. "Here, we also work together with a funding body, and it is helpful that we can visualize and document everything with InLoox, as well as involve external parties," the managing director sums up.

Thanks to the standardized processes, the higher project quality and the scalability of the solution, he sees himself in an excellent position to further advance the vision of a barrier-free, equal opportunity society.