Priority 1: placing people at the heart of the Group’s strategy
LL Network annual day, June 2019 (Paris, France).
As human resources are its greatest asset, the Lagardère group is committed to the social aspect of CSR – while also giving its divisions a high level of autonomy in their HR management – in two areas: promoting diversity and gender balance, and attracting and retaining talented staff.
Promoting diversity, which the Group translates as equal opportunity, is applied in three areas:
- fighting stereotypes with regular training programmes organised for managers and diagnostics of recruitment procedure;
- promoting gender balance, in which the LL Network is an operational driver;
- raising awareness about disability via initiatives organised by the Group’s various disability bodies.
2019 was an eventful year for all Lagardère group entities. For example, Hachette Livre signed a partnership agreement in France with the charity Nos Quartiers ont des Talents and has already identified around 50 internal patrons, while also stepping up its commitment as part of its programme to promote diversity in the United Kingdom (Changing the Story). With regard to disability, the division also made a commitment to the Manifesto for the inclusion of disabled people in economic life and signed the ABC Charter (Accessible Books Consortium Charter), which promotes natively accessible publishing intended for people with reading difficulties.
Attracting and retaining talented staff is an increasingly crucial matter at a time when the Group – like all big companies – has been shaken up by the younger generations joining it. There are three ways to respond to the expectations of these employees, who are increasingly looking for meaning and new methods of working:
- skills development with training programmes organised for all business lines in all divisions;
- stimulating innovation, which allows teams to try out more disruptive ways of doing things and be more creative;
- supporting commitment, offering employees the possibility to invest in causes dear to them.
A growing number of actions were seen in these areas in 2019. These were in terms of training with the extension of the forum intended for new joiners at Hachette Livre or the development of the academy for high potential managers at Lagardère Travel Retail, and in terms of innovation with initiatives launched by the Group’s two innovation networks (Hachette Innovation Program and Innovation Booster at Lagardère Travel Retail).
Key figure
239 high potential managers trained by Lagardère Travel Retail Academy since it was created.