Vilmorin & Cie - Annual report 2017-2018

ANNUAL REPORT Vilmorin & Cie 112 2017-2018 Social, environmental and societal INFORMATION 4 Improvement of the applicant and employee experience People requesting information about Vilmorin & Cie, active or passive candidates, former and current employees alike, all have “interactions” with the Group. In today's world of work, the experience that results from these interactions has become essential to engage, develop and maintain a long-lasting, constructive and positive relationship between individuals and companies. A good experience as a candidate/employee facilitates the recruitment of individuals, their retention, their commitment, and develops a positive image of the employer brand. Projects were initiated several years ago to improve the experience of candidates and employees by simplifying processes and streamlining HR practices. The implementation in 2010 of the “B-SMART” Human Resources Career and Recruitment Information System has enabled the Group to develop a tool to provide an employee/manager HR portal, and dematerialize the management of the annual appraisal process, recruitment and internal mobility. This tool initially simplified the preparation and completion of annual performance and development reviews, allowing employees and managers to spend more time on content than on form. Through access to a portal, they have been able to retrieve their past appraisals easily, the objectives, their internal CV and other HR information. B-SMART has also made it possible to give greater visibility to internal recruitment offers in order to develop intra-group mobility opportunities. The Group sees multiple opportunities with B-SMART : Support the employer brand with a unique RH portal in the Group’s colors, Help managers to oversee the development of their team by providing them with efficient HR adequate HR tools, Reinforce the employee as “actor of his or her career” by simplifying the implementation of HR processes for career/ recruitment and the provision of HR reference systems, Improve the measurement and analysis of the Group’s HR career/recruitment processes and better monitor employee development using data from B-SMART , Reduce certain repetitive and non-value-added tasks by automating HR actions related to career and recruitment processes. The deployment of B-SMART continued over fiscal year 2017-2018, covering both new entities and new functional areas: The entity Limagrain South America now deploys B-SMART to manage its employees and has begun its first campaign of annual appraisals. The Holding scope used B-SMART to run its bottom-up feedback campaign, which makes it much easier for managers to receive an opinion on their managerial performance from their team. B-SMART ’s management of this process has resulted in a higher participation rate this year. New entities have prepared and launched the dematerialized recruitment authorization process (Limagrain Europe, HM.CLAUSE Spain and HM.CLAUSE Peru). For 2018-2019, the challenge for B-SMART is to continue the international deployment of the functional cover and to reinforce the use of the portal by the employees and managers by making new functions available with regard to training and also staff reviews. More generally, a call for bids has been initiated with several companies (including Limagrain Europe SA and Vilmorin SA) to choose a provider in order to dematerialize production and create pay slips. Organization and Quality of Life at Work The performance and motivation of an employee depends in particular on a satisfactory organization and quality of life at work. Management of this quality of life at work is built up on several pillars: a safe working environment to operate and facilitate professional activities, an organization that allows for the reconciliation of work and private life, and finally, the practice of constructive social dialogue between employees and employers, or staff representatives and employers. Working environment Vilmorin & Cie has made significant investments over the past five years in the premises where employees work. Several major research sites (particularly in France, the United States, Israel and Chile) have been built. Employees at several head offices (Vilmorin & Cie and Limagrain Europe in France, Mikado Kyowa Seed in Japan, Limagrain South America in Brazil, HM.CLAUSE in the United States and in India) have also benefitted from new premises. In all, more than 1,100 employees are working in new or recent premises with facilities that encourage exchanges and a happy atmosphere. Reconciling professional and private life: organization of working times In 2012, and then in 2017, in France, the Group signed a Professional Equality agreement including a specific section on creating a good balance between professional life and private life. In order to accompany the employee better when family-related leave is taken, pre- and post-leave interviews have been set up. Different measures have also been adopted to reorganize working times, with a particular effort made to take into account employees who are going through a difficult family situation. The latest agreement has added new rights, such as 100% salary maintained for employees on paternity leave and the “Donation of rest days” , offering each employee the possibility of supporting another employee who needs time to look after a relative for example – by donating days off. On account of the different geographical locations of Vilmorin & Cie, the effective working times in its subsidiaries can vary, depending on the country, making it difficult to calculate overall working times. On June 30, 2018, out of a total headcount of 6,653, 336 employees were working part time, a total of 5.05% of all the personnel. 4.3. Conducting activities in an ethical, sustainable and effective manner