“Transforming the company to meet employees’ new expectations: increased flexibility, collaboration and protection”

L’Oréal’s vision has always been centred around people, be they our consumers or employees. Building upon these strong roots, the role of Human Relations is to nurture the company’s human capital – the men and women of L’Oréal who are at the heart of our innovation as well as our number one growth driver.

Our Human Relations policy has always been for one and for all: on the one hand, we recruit and nurture talents and the Group’s future executives through very personalised trajectories, and on the other, we strive to build a solid group with an inclusive, collaborative and protective environment and a strong corporate culture.

In addition, we are responsible for helping the company evolve and for supporting employees through the process. Human Relations now plays this change management role on a continuous basis in a world where the workplace is constantly changing, where the economic context is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA), and where the digital revolution is changing professions and ways of working.

We are witnessing the emergence of a new approach to careers: employees expect greater flexibility and are willing to try out different careers but are still asking for a high level of social protection. This emerging status quo has created new challenges for L’Oréal and for Human Relations, which needs to adapt to these new evolutions and provide employees the necessary support. L’Oréal’s strength lies precisely in this ability to evolve and meet the dual expectations of flexibility and protection.

Co-developing new ways of working

The first challenge is to develop new ways of working that meet employee expectations. Our Simplicity transformation programme x, launched 18 months ago, has enabled us to outline new managerial practices that foster responsibility and trust, and to develop a more agile, collaborative culture. Alongside these transformations, we rolled out the global training programme Lead & Enable, from which 3,700 managers have already benefitted in 2017. Supporting employees also means offering new, more flexible work schedules that are more conducive to work-life balance and to providing better quality of life at work. This is one of the major goals of our Share & Care programme, which aims to provide our employees worldwide with the best possible working conditions and social guarantees.

Developing skills

The second challenge is to ensure all our employees are highly skilled in their respective fields to keep pace with the way professions are evolving. We consider it our responsibility to guarantee their employability. This means continuously adapting skill sets and preparing for the future. For example, over the last two years, we have developed the digital skills of over 15,500 employees. We have also expanded our online training catalogue to include 2,000 MOOCs x from prestigious universities.