Renault: HR agencies for employee-customers

Renault made a small revolution at the end of 2011 in the HR organization of its engineering and service undertakings in the Paris area (16,900 employees).  Employees and managers used to complain that local HR representatives weren’t available enough and took too long to answer flowing questions on all types of subjects, or even avoided the task by sending them a generic email or to the intranet.  In the end, this saturation led the new HR manager, Marie-Françoise Damesin, to rethink the HR function focusing on two axes: one for business and one for workers.  That’s when the idea of HR agencies arrived, a sort of inner “help desk,” open to employees from the 8 sites in the region, including the headquarters, at the same time as the carmaker’s early workforce planning agreement on February 4, 2011.  After 18 months, the company evaluates these HR agencies (1) supposed to answer, face to face and with no debarment, to the questions asked by employees and managers in terms of labor rights and organization.  With 73 percent of “happy customers,” the plan’s developers say it’s a success and should set up a 9th agency in 2014.  (Ref.  130477)