1 October 2021
Saur, the French company specialising in water and waste treatment, was handed an annual prize for human resources innovation on 23 September, after it abolished probation periods for new hires. The measure comes at a time of notable growth at the company, which has significant needs on the recruitment front. Six months on from the move, Saur is positive on the almost 700 hires it has made, to take its workforce in France to over 12,000, and says that the number of departures during what would have ordinarily been...
1 February 2021
The food delivery platform Just Eat is to recruit at least 4,500 delivery staff in France by the end of this year, according to newspaper reports in the country. Just Eat confirms that it has commenced its recruitment drive, with some 350 employees hired in Paris on open-ended contracts, with weekly working time of between 10 and 35 hours. “Among the people hired there are many students and micro-entrepreneurs. There are also career development opportunities, whether it is to become a ‘captain’ to...
15 June 2020
On 9 June, the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) published its third study since 2007. It is based on more than 4,000 interviews and details the average cost of dual training by region, size and business sector. In addition to a comparison between the periods 2007, 2012/13 and 2017/18, the study offers a fairly high degree of accuracy on the type of costs incurred by an apprenticeship, as well as on the average gain generated by apprentices depending on the number of years of training....
9 April 2020
Managers are rolling up their sleeves and getting their hands dirty. That’s the message being sent out by several supermarket chains. Loblaw, Empire, Longo, and the Canadian subsidiary of WalMart, have all asked head office managers to take the lift down to the shop floors and support their core employees. In this time of Covid-19 related crisis and fear, Anthony Longo, the general manager of the Longo’s deli chain in Ontario, wants to tell its 5,000 employees that they are not alone. He too is taking...
24 March 2020
During this Covid-19 pandemic, two business sectors are bucking a general downtrend with extremely strong growth, namely the supermarket and distribution sectors. With demand levels already high, both are multiplying their job offers, and with the free movement of people now hampered, their hiring methods have also had to adapt and the hiring pool has also altered as other businesses abruptly lay off workers. While in order to attract workers, the supermarket chains are boosting bonuses, they aren’t so quick to...
6 March 2020
Santander is introducing a global minimum standard for parental leave in every market in which it operates, with mothers granted at least 14 weeks of paid leave and the father or secondary parent granted at least 4 weeks. Paternity or secondary parental leave can be taken in a single period or in two periods of two weeks until the child is one year old. The rule is applicable for the 196,000 people employed by the bank across the 10 countries in which it operates. The change results in an increase in maternity...
18 February 2020
On 13 February the French construction materials company launched its “CARE by Saint-Gobain” social protection program that will provide specific minimum cover for all the Group’s more than 180,000 employees worldwide and their families. This program will cover medical support for the families and access to care, providing minimum cover for health costs, leave for the arrival of a child in the home and for death by providing the family with financial aid.
6 February 2020
The Franco-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CFACI) and the French branches of four large German chemicals groups (BAYER, BASF, Merck and Boehringer) have teamed up to create a joint training scheme for maintenance engineers, through which they can earn a BTS, a French vocational qualification. The scheme will involve digital training as well as several weeks spent in Germany, with trainees earning a double French and German certification. The initiative was unveiled on 20 January but the content of the...
6 February 2020
Employees at the pharmaceutical company’s French subsidiary are set to receive an extra two weeks of paid parental leave above and beyond the standard minimum duration as required in the pharmaceutical company’s global policy that was issued in March 2019 (cf. article No. 11048), and that fixes a minimum of 14 weeks of paid parental leave irrespective of employment contract (permanent or fixed term), career length, and marital status, and is available to those welcoming the arrival of a child (childbirth and...
5 February 2020
An opinion piece published in the 05 February edition of the daily economics publication Les Echos (here) indicates that 105 companies (primarily in the tech, organic, and sustainable development sectors, and for a large part SMEs) have committed to putting second parent leave arrangements in place. French legislation currently recognizes only 11 days of paternity leave (that is partially paid by the social security system). These 105 companies are highlighting their willingness and intention to ‘lead by example...
