Reinventing the employee experience: a key challenge for HR
13/4/2018
Rémi Zunino
Rémi Zunino

Reinventing the employee experience: a key challenge for HR

How can we reinvent the employee experience in order to strengthen the attractiveness and retention of talent within large groups? It was to obtain answers to this question that some thirty HRDs, Talent Managers and Training Managers attended the "Craft Your Job" launch event on 13 March. Combining Design Thinking andExecutive Coaching to re-enchant the employee experience and strengthen the commitment of talents, such is the objective of this new support co-constructed by Talentis and InProcess. After a presentation of the offer, the guests could benefit from the testimony of Catherine Mabileau, Senior Vice President, HR for Western Europe at L'Oréal and Cécile Mortureux, Employee Experience Manager, EMEA HQ at Ubisoft, on the measures implemented by these two major groups to reinvent the employee experience.

An offer that responds to a major challenge for large groups: the attractiveness, development and retention of talent.

As Catherine Mabileau, Senior Vice President, HR for Western Europe at L'Oréal, pointed out during her speech: "The major challenge for large groups is to find ways of attracting and retaining the best talent. At L'Oréal, we have had a real in-depth reflection to create the conditions for people to perform, undertake, contribute, and at the same time receive recognition". Cécile Mortureux, Employee Experience Manager, EMEA HQ at Ubisoft, agrees: "Ubisoft was one of the first major groups to create functions specifically dedicated to optimising the employee experience. This changeover was born from a simple observation: we are a very consumer-centric company, so why not apply the methods we use to satisfy our customers?

reinventing the employee experience

Cécile Mabileau, Senior Vice President, HR for Western Europe at L'Oréal, and Cécile Mortureux, Employee Experience Manager, EMEA HQ at UBISOFT EMEA, spoke about the importance of enhancing the employee experience in large groups. "Our customers in the direction of the internal? If we don't meet the expectations of our employees on a daily basis, then they won't stay. This "symmetry of attention", which pushes companies to consider their employees in the same way as the end customer, is the first reason that pushed Talentis and InProcess to create the "Craft Your Job" coaching. Indeed, the existence of a strong link between the satisfaction of employees on a daily basis, their commitment, and customer satisfaction is no longer in question. What motivates employees today is the possibility to live the same experience as they do in their personal and professional lives: more autonomy, more fluidity, and therefore less hierarchical and administrative processes.

Craft Your Job: Design Thinking and Executive Coaching for the employee experience.

The second idea behind the creation of Craft Your Job is to move from a "change management" approach to a rapid and permanent innovation approach in the field of Human Resources: investing in HR innovation as much as for the clients. This is what was done at L'Oréal, as Cécile Mabileau points out: "We decided to work in particular on the experience of HR teams during 'country visits' by carrying out a complete mapping of the process to find out how to optimise it. This was a slightly disconcerting experience because it required a complete change of attitude. It was no longer a question of directly applying a ready-made solution in top-down mode, but of working together, in Design Thinking mode, on ways of improving this HR experience. These innovations, which create a radical change in the posture of the company's historical "knowers" (managers, executives, etc.), make it necessary for them to be accompanied by Executive Coaches. In fact, whereas in the past people entered the company in their "little shoes" and did what they were told to do, today's young generations are much more open-minded, and it often happens that the new "entrants" are at the same time the new "knowers". Hence the need to spread a culture of parity within companies. This brings with it new challenges related to leadership, posture and roles. Issues that must be worked on with Talentis Executive Coaches.

On-boarding at Ubisoft, an example of a redesigned employee experience.

Cécile Mortureux, Employee Experience Manager, EMEA HQ at Ubisoft shared with us the work that has been done at Ubisoft to think about how to optimise an employee's first year in the company. Explanation: "The first year of an employee is critical for several reasons. It determines whether they want to stay or leave, but also the tools they need to succeed, etc. Our preparatory work consisted of identifying the different stages of this famous first year (HR meeting points in particular). We noticed that a crucial point was missing at 6 months. Since then, we have set up an additional milestone at 6 months and I must say that the employees are very happy with this famous milestone. They like to share with the HR teams and thus be more involved in their own development. This point is very beneficial because it allows us to detect earlier on any lack of commitment or, on the contrary, hidden skills that could lead to specific developments within the company. By accompanying them in preparing their own future, we have given employees even more confidence, we have strengthened their empowerment."

The benefits of Design Thinking: employees and managers who are the "designers" of their own changes in working methods.

Catherine Mabileau, Senior Vice President, HR for Western Europe at L'Oréal: "It is essential not to focus solely on the employee but rather to work on the triptych of manager, employee and HR. The idea is to empower the employee, but also the manager. If we want the manager to become a talent developer, we have to give him the keys. This is why Talentis and InProcess have co-constructed a programme whose particularity is that it can be applied at all levels (employees, managers, HR managers, etc.). All of this is done by using "reflective" coaching: permanent feedback, work on postures, etc. The objective is to have employees work on directly applicable solutions in order to quickly arrive at concrete and experimentable prototypes. Cécile Mortureux, Employee Experience Manager, EMEA HQ at Ubisoft, has already experimented with this working method within her organisation: "We applied similar methods to those used by Craft Your Job during a reflection two years ago on a problem concerning work/life balance. We administered a questionnaire to employees and shared the results with them for feedback. This made it possible to identify specific moments that they wanted to work on, then to create "task forces" to propose solutions to the problem, followed by the mock-up phase to test these solutions. Giving employees the tools and having them accompanied by Executive Coaches to reinvent their own employee experience are the objectives of Craft Your Job.

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