Women at work: ELLE gets involved!

Women’s efforts to balance their work and personal lives have always been a main concern for Elle magazine. To promote women’s work, Elle has launched Elle Active.

Elle Active is a blog dedicated to women’s view of the working world, a training programme organized in collaboration with the Essec business school and a full-day forum dedicated to women’s work.

Two years after the Estates General assembly on women’s issues, Elle has succeeded in its goal of bringing together company heads, trade union representatives, human resources directors, representatives of feminist organizations, authors of best-selling books, young graduates, Elle readers, psychoanalysts and sociologists to discuss the promotion of women’s work.

The goal was to generate concrete ideas for ways to close the gap between female executives and women in poverty, finally achieve equal pay, reach a better balance between work and personal life, put a stop to self-censorship and encourage women to assert themselves in the workplace.

Elle Active Day, a forum held on 7 March at the Maison de la Chimie with support from L’Oréal Paris, was a true success. Over 400 people came together to hear experts speak, learn about pro-female companies, understand networking and pick up tips during the speed-coaching workshop.

In the words of Valérie Toranian, Elle’s managing editor: “Women’s work and women’s independence has always been a central focus for the magazine. The challenge of reconciling working life and private life is a key concern of our society. With Elle Active, Elle is investing in a concrete project that makes it possible to share experiences and find ways to improve time management within companies.”

In the words of Franck Espiasse-Cabau, publisher of Lagardère Active’s Women’s division: “Elle Active has once again proven the success of the diversification approach: starting with an editorial topic on women’s work, the brand was able to bring experts and readers together in a genuine discussion on women’s place in the working world.”

• You will find more news on women’s work on the Elle Active blog. Be sure to also attend next year’s forum!