Culture and Human relations

Fulfilment at work is a key aspiration. At L’Oréal, our Human Relations teams strive every day to transform our ways of working and managerial culture. By taking care of our employees, their wellbeing and employability, we can count on their commitment and foster our collective performance. These outcomes are reflected in the results of our internal Pulse survey: 79% of employees say they feel engaged and 70% believe they are in a position to succeed in their role. With over 1.3 million applications received in 2023, a decrease in executive turnover, and 100% of employees trained over the past three years, L’Oréal remains an attractive employer.

Protecting and taking care of employees over the long-term

Social innovation has always been part of L’Oréal’s DNA. With our Share & Care programme, which celebrated its tenth anniversary this year, we have raised the bar for employee welfare to the highest standards in over 60 countries by focusing on physical and mental health as well as new ways of working. This has included rolling out new support and prevention measures related to mental health in the workplace and serious illnesses, such as cancer. We also have a dedicated programme for tackling domestic violence. At the same time, we are constantly improving and consolidating benefits such as 14 weeks of fully paid parental leave and a guaranteed living wage indexed to the highest standards across all of our subsidiaries worldwide.
Since 2020, L’Oréal has been implementing a far-reaching workspace renovation plan to improve the day-to-day experience and performance of teams. In 2023, we continued to transform several of our sites, most notably in South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Mexico and the United States. L’Oréal’s new head office for the United Kingdom and Ireland, located in the centre of London, received an “Outstanding” BREEAM rating for its sustainable design.

Nurturing young talent to shape the L’Oréal of tomorrow

The future will be built with and thanks to young talent. Over the years, we have introduced several initiatives to support their employability and access to employment under the L’Oréal for Youth programme. One example is the Seedz management trainee programme, which helps the Group’s future leaders assimilate its unique culture. This inclusive and resolutely international initiative allows them to discover different entities and job categories through a series of short-term assignments. L’Oréal’s apprenticeship programme, which embodies the Group’s forward-looking human relations approach, celebrates its 30^th anniversary this year and continues to expand worldwide. In 10 years, the number of work-study contracts has increased 83%, with more than 1,100 contracts signed in 2023. Through apprenticeships, L’Oréal also advocates and promotes its intergenerational approach to knowledge transfer. This commitment is part of the mindset we aim to cultivate with our L’Oréal for All Generations programme.

For over a century, L’Oréal’s mission has been to bring the best of beauty to all people worldwide: for all types of skin and hair, all genders and ages, all cultures and identities. Diversity, equity and inclusion inform daily considerations to help us build a company that listens to its diverse teams, consumers and communities. Thanks to concrete commitments to these issues for over 20 years now, L’Oréal once again earned recognition in 2023, ranked by Equileap among the world’s best companies for gender equality for the sixth consecutive year, and as the number one French company. The Group was also among the Top 3 in Refinitiv’s Diversity & Inclusion Index and made the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index for the sixth year running.

Measuring our progress

To continue to do more to promote diversity, equity and inclusion, we must be able to measure our progress. That’s why L’Oréal decided to include optional “self-ID” questions in the internal Pulse survey for the first time in 2023, allowing employees to share certain aspects of their identity with us while remaining anonymous. Analysing these answers enables the Group to further its fight against discrimination, assess the effectiveness of its global DE&I initiatives and better understand the diversity of its teams. Sixty-seven percent of employees who had the option to answer the self-ID questions chose to do so. That amounts to more than 47,000 employees throughout the Group.

Training managers to foster inclusion

It is crucial to get managers on board to promote an inclusive climate and use DE&I best practices with their teams. To support managers to fulfil this role, we offer in-person training on inclusive leadership to the management committees at all our business units. Training begins with a self-assessment and is followed by personalised advice and a tailored action plan for each participant. Managers learn how to respond appropriately and develop their potential in an environment where everyone has a valued place at the company.

Our brands are committed to social causes

We aim to contribute positively to society as we put our Purpose and L’Oréal for the Future commitments into action. Our brands are stepping up to support social causes close to their hearts and in line with their values. Twenty-two of them have already chosen their cause, three-quarters of which are related to diversity, equity or inclusion, with a particular focus on women. L’Oréal Paris has launched Stand Up to fight street harassment, Kérastase supports mentoring for and by women with Power Talks, Lancôme is working to combat illiteracy among girls with Write Her Future, and SkinCeuticals supports women reconstructive surgeons in underserved parts of the world.