You cannot build inclusion by squeezing people into jobs never designed for them

Law, ethics and project boundaries · 28 May 2026

A conversation with a large organisation began with a question: could it reduce its PFRON mandate without real work, managerial responsibility or any change to its processes? It was an honest question. In many companies, headcount matters more than cost. InnoThink's answer is no. That is a judgment about risk, not a moral lecture.

Key points

• Employment that exists only on paper creates legal, reputational and operational risk, while turning a person into an adjustment in a spreadsheet.
• “What vacancies do we have?” is too narrow. Ask which processes can be described, taught, measured and managed.
• Without a business owner, manager, KPIs and support, employment becomes an experiment paid for by everyone, starting with the employee.

What this means for a company

The PFRON mandate can start the conversation, but it cannot be the foundation of the project. Work is the foundation: who needs it, how it will be performed, to what standard and under whose management. If a client wants only a better employment indicator without a real process, that is a reason for us to decline the project. We say so in the first meeting, not the tenth. For the board and compliance, the boundary is clear: a responsible model turns cost into work. A paper-only model turns a person into an instrument of optimisation and savings into risk that somebody will eventually have to explain.

Originally published 28 May 2026.

Further reading

• Business Model
• PFRON in practice