Professional equality and combating sexism in action
In 2020, the Lagardère group continued to count a very large majority of women among its employees, making up 65% of the total workforce, 57% of managers and 51% of executives. Although it pays particular attention to the balanced representation of men and women among its managers and in positions of responsibility – which in 2021 will be reflected by the addition of a dedicated indicator in the Group’s CSR scorecard – the Lagardère group has long taken various measures for all its employees, such as:
- training and raising the awareness of all those involved in recruitment in the importance of diversity and biases relating to stereotypes;
- regular management communications on diversity;
- the efforts of the LL Network, in particular its internal mentoring programme;
- monitoring of the employee equality policy;
- preparation of succession plans factoring in a better gender balance as part of the talent review process.
This commitment to professional equality is also underpinned by the Group’s adhesion to the UN’s Women’s Empowerment Principles on an international scale and the #StOpE initiative against everyday sexism in the workplace in France. It is within the framework of this commitment that Lagardère continued with its efforts to raise awareness and train employees throughout 2020 in France, extending to its “company and employee sexism correspondents” the training taken by all human resources managers in 2019. With the support of Laurent Depond, professional equality expert and trainer, Lagardère also devised an interactive tool to raise awareness among all its employees. Hachette Livre France also set up a web application for employees to raise awareness in partnership with start-up Meandyoutoo.
Excerpts from interactive tool to raise awareness about combating sexism designed by Lagardère and Laurent Depond.
Hachette UK was one of the “Top 50 Employers for Women” in UK daily newspaper The Times in 2020 and 2021.