Our Value Chain

" OUR GROWTH IS SUSTAINABLE AND RESPECTS OUR ECOSYSTEM."

Each employee, whatever his or her function, can exchange ideas with his or her peers in inter-subsidiary working groups. This is particularly true in the area of management, where sharing good practices is a very effective method for encouraging everyone to progress and ensuring overall cohesion. However, there is no ‘Group HR Director’. Within each of the Group’s subsidiaries, the CEO - in close collaboration with the administrative department - and the local managers must assume full responsibility for their teams. It all starts with recruitment, a tricky art that we practice with humility and simplicity.

In the end, we believe that collective decisions are the safest. Along individual career paths, we strive to allow each person to develop his or her talents, according to his or her merits and abilities. We cultivate the virtues of exemplarity, transparency, respect and a fair share of the profits of our work.

" THE FUTURE VALUE OF THE GROUP IS IN THE HANDS OF ITS MANAGERS AND STAFF, THIS IS WHY WE STRIVE TO HELP OUR HUMAN RESOURCES GROW. "

Giving meaning to what everyone does. We attach importance to length of service amongst our employees. Preserving the motivation of our employees is therefore essential, since they stay with us in our subsidiaries for an average of 10 years. This involves thinking about the tasks entrusted to them, their development and the meaning given to each person’s contribution.

Choosing to keep close to our employees. Our management teams are clearly responsible for the quality of the social climate that prevails in the subsidiaries and we encourage benevolence, friendliness, simplicity and calm.

A very short chain of command. Our compressed hierarchical structure, limited to four levels, favours proximity between the managers and all employees.

Testimony of one of our employees during the Covid crisis. "Communication from our management was always very fluid throughout the period, because our organisation chart is pretty flat and we’re naturally close to our bosses. The crisis was well-managed, the whole team was committed to customer satisfaction and reacted unfailingly to keep up with demand."* However, this proximity is no longer sufficient today to collect all the ideas, remarks, suggestions and gripes of the women and men who work in each of our subsidiaries. Since 2017, we have submitted a quality-of-life-at-work survey questionnaire to our employees every three years. They have clearly taken to this new means of expression, as 94% of them responded in 2017 and 93% in 2021. The surveys give rise to action plans in the subsidiaries in order to address the remarks made via the anonymous questionnaire. In this way, we believe we have a committed, competent, efficient and generally loyal workforce. When a departure seems inevitable, we strive to be fair, dignified and maintain good relations with those who leave us. The importance of exemplarity and transparency. All of this allows us – requires us even – to be highly demanding at every level of the company, for the greater benefit of all. Transparency of salaries in our subsidiaries is an effective means of preserving equal pay regardless of gender, religious conviction, political opinion, social or ethnic origin, sexual orientation or identity, disability, family status, nationality, surname or physical appearance. With the acquisition of 9 companies and one business since 2015, our challenge is to open up to other corporate cultures while gradually spreading our core values. These values must endure and constitute the cement of the Group.

*Quote from the testimony of Jacques Schiele. Sectoriel employee (Letter to shareholders n°100 of January 2021)