Executive body gender balance policy
With women making up 63% of its workforce at 31 December 2023, the Lagardère group has strong female representation and having a balanced representation of men and women in senior management positions is one of its priority commitments.
In this context, the Group has signed up to the UN’s Women Empowerment Principles and to the StOpE initiative which aims to combat casual sexism in the workplace.
In line with this commitment and with the recommendations of the Afep-Medef Code to which the Company adheres, General Management has adopted a diversity policy for the Group’s executive bodies, which is regularly reviewed by the Board of Directors and its Appointments, Remuneration and CSR Committee.
Since the proportion of women executives of the Group reached 51% in 2020, General Management had decided to focus its efforts going forward on a smaller scope that is more representative of the Group’s top executives in 2021. This scope chosen takes into account the Group’s specific characteristics, notably its significant decentralised structure and international exposure and corresponds to: (i) members of the Group’s Executive Committee and their direct reports, (ii) members of the enlarged executive and management committees of Lagardère Publishing, Lagardère Travel Retail and Lagardère News, (iii) the management teams of independent entities for Lagardère Travel Retail and (iv) senior executives in France for Lagardère Publishing.
Within this new scope of just over 350 people (42% women representation at end-2020), in early 2021, General Management had set a target of women making up 45% of the population by the end of 2024. This will be achieved through several action plans, including:
- actively seeking appropriate gender balance when recruiting for managerial positions, up to the short-list phase,
- preparing succession plans as part of talent reviews with a greater emphasis on gender balance,
- promoting work-life balance, including parenting,
- focusing on equal opportunity in remuneration, training and career development policies,
- providing training and awareness-raising on diversity issues and on unconscious bias for all those involved in the recruitment process,
- raising the awareness of all employees to casual sexism in the workplace through self-assessment and training campaigns,
- incorporating gender balance targets within the CSR criteria used to determine components of short- and long-term variable remuneration for the members of the Executive Committee and senior executives of the Group,
- rolling out measures via the LL Network, in particular the internal mentoring program.
Each year steering committees comprising the Human Resources and CSR Directors of the operating divisions and the Corporate division review the implementation of these action plans along with the changes brought about. The Human Resources Committee is responsible for supervising action plans for the full Lagardère group scope, under the authority of the Secretary General of the Lagardère group, who is also a member of the Executive Committee.
These action plans proved a success in 2023, since although the proportion of women as a percentage of the Group’s overall workforce fell slightly in the year (63% versus 64% in 2022), it nevertheless remained at 60% for the manager population (7,415 people) and continued to rise significantly in top executive roles (381 people), up to 46% in 2023, thereby exceeding the objective set.
The presence of women in the Group’s executive bodies also further increased in 2023, since:
- following the appointment of Maxime Saada on 29 November 2023, the Group’s Executive Committee now comprises three women and four men, a ratio of 43% representation of women;
- the proportion of women on Lagardère Travel Retail’s Management Committee continued to increase, up to 33% in 2023 (compared to 31% in 2022 and 18% in 2020);
- women account for the majority of Hachette Livre’s International Executive Committee members (77%, i.e., seven women for two men in 2023) and the French Executive Committee is also predominantly female (58% in 2023);
- the proportion of women on Lagardère News’ Executive Committee was 40% in 2023, after falling to 33% in 2022.
Gender Equality Index
The weighted gender equality index is 89,8/100 for the 2023 data. This weighted index was calculated using the scores obtained by the 17 Group companies subject to this obligation (published on their websites), which represent a workforce of 4,783 employees.
Lagardère Ressources (a company that manages all of the Group’s central resources and has 81 employees) obtained a score of 86/100 for the year 2024 for the 2023 data.
- Indicator relating to the pay gap: 31 out of 40
- Indicator relating to the gap in the rate of individual increases: 35 out of 35
- Indicator relating to employees having received an increase on their return from maternity leave: 15 out of 15
- Indicator on the number of employees of the under-represented gender in the top 10 highest paid: 5 out of 10