Are companies ready to welcome women?

Giving women their rightful place is a good thing. Helping them to integrate is even better. In all the big companies, systems have been introduced to help women managers emerge, and to support them as they take on new responsibilities. But the organisation still needs to be a more inclusive environment.

Every action begins with a reaction. “When I first joined Renault Group (in 2019 – Ed.), I was shocked by the sheer number of men at the first Top Managers seminar I went to. If you didn’t count the women in HR and communications, the staff were virtually all male,” says Béatrice Chavanel, now the group’s VP Diversity & Inclusion. For Canadian Joanne Kennedy, the shock came when she got to France. “We had a very good woman president and woman vice-president of the women’s network, both women, but they couldn’t get the attention of senior management,” says the current Chief of Staff at Sanofi R&D. ”Fortunately, it’s a very different story nowadays.”

In recent years, this awareness has spread to investors. Most big companies have introduced comprehensive action plans and, this time, the means to implement them. They are sometimes based on “four pillars”, as with the Renault Group and Pernod-Ricard, or are known as “Internal Social Pacts”, as with Adecco, and often start by righting injustice. “We’ve worked on better data qualification. With internal mobility, we told our teams that their promotion list must represent the percentage of women on their team. With that alone, we improved women’s promotion in the company by 5 points between 2022 and 2023.” Everywhere, fair talent management is central to concerns. With the Adecco Group, succession plans now require parity and VP Talent Christine Croibier “very quickly tackled” the subject of harmonised salaries. “I got part of the NAO (mandatory annual negotiation – Ed.) envelope to be earmarked for readjustment. “Over the past four years, a budget of 0.2% of the payroll has been allocated to this purpose.”

“GIVING THEM THE CONFIDENCE THEY LACK”

Remedying injustice also means a clearer understanding of why not enough women are hired. When she was Global Head of Digital Operations at Sanofi, Joanne Kennedy worked with the company’s Women in Tech network to develop a “screening” tool dedicated to reviewing job descriptions. “We realised that sexist language was being used.” The wording of the offers was biased, attracting mainly male applicants. “So we took steps to ensure that all our job descriptions and interviews take this aspect into account.” Others, like Florence Dupré, Global Healthcare Officer at La Poste Groupe, “militate” in favour of “de-gendering” positions. Competency frameworks are used to “describe a job with an emphasis on the competencies expected rather than the qualifications or experience required.” This “enables women to f inally see themselves doing a job that didn’t seem suitable for them on the face of it.”

But can there suddenly be more room for women without making really sure that they find their place? Try talking to company managers about “feminisation”, and they’ll say “D&I”, with an “I” for Inclusion. “Eight years ago, the proportion of female general managers at Hilton Worldwide in China was around 10%,” says Lily Lu, Regional HR Director. So we said to women, “Come on, come and join us!” It was only later that we realised we needed to support them, create favourable working conditions and give them the confidence they sometimes lacked.”

Confidence. That’s a word that comes up a lot. Imposter syndrome affects many women who achieve positions of responsibility for the first time. Cécile Lefèvre, Executive Vice President in charge of HR, CSR and Transformation at the Groupe Pasteur Mutualité, mentions the case of a “young woman who was an executive assistant and who had real potential. “We supported her and helped her make progress. She is now in charge of a business division. But even today, she still finds it hard to feel legitimate. A man wouldn’t give it a second thought.”

“PROVIDING A SAFE, INCLUSIVE WORKING ENVIRONMENT FOR EVERYONE”

Big companies provide training, mentoring and coaching. Women are often supervised by women, to make it easier for them to express themselves Catherine Petit benefited from this at Moët-Hennessy, where her coaching covered personal marketing, ambition, communication and networking.

Despite over 20 years’ experience as a CEO in international companies, Florence Douroux-Chatellier also works on her confidence to this day. During her coaching at Microsoft, she was surprised to work on her posture, which sometimes betrays latent feelings of being an imposter.

In the summer of 2021, Christine Croibier created an internal “gender diversity” network to “bring the subject to the table.” From the outset, she was keen to have a “business sponsor” to ensure that she could achieve her ambitions. “Every six weeks, an operational committee meets with ambassadors from each of the group’s BUs. We have staged several round tables and this year we pinpointed five concrete actions for our members to take.” From talks in schools addressing unconscious biases to skills sponsorship to “get involved with associations focused on women’s employment.” Men are welcome to join in. The next level in integrating women is awareness-raising. “In male-dominated environments, it’s not enough just to hire women; policies to combat discrimination must be deployed at the same time. Our goal is to provide a safe, inclusive working environment for everyone,” says Béatrice Chavanel. Renault Group is poised to roll out a mandatory training course “called Inclusive Management”. The idea “is for managers to come away with tips for achieving an immediate impact on the way they lead their teams.”

Delphine Henry couldn’t have put it better. “At Engie, we distributed a handbook on inclusion, but that’s not how we got the information across. It needs a detailed explanation.” Some companies use their own culture to do this. Moët-Hennessy puts the spotlight on the Veuve Clicquot. “She was widowed at 27,” says Catherine Petit. “She took over her husband’s business and made our champagne company what it is today.” Meanwhile, Florence Douroux-Chatellier has chosen to showcase women of today: “In the absence of a manager, I included two young female customer service team leaders in our weekly steering committee meeting. Some people were really shocked and said “are you sure they ought to be here?” I said “yes.” It was vital for the company to benefit from their experience of the customer approach outside the established management positions, and increase their say in the matter. I’m all about talent and skill and rebalancing power. Some women need exposure.” On the other side of the world, Lily Lu sums it up in eight words: “diversity is a fact; inclusion is a choice.”

So we said to women, ‘Come on, come and join us!’ It was only later that we realised we needed to support them.

Lily Lu, Hilton Worldwide