A socially inclusive employer

The Groupe BPCE and its companies encourage the active engagement of more than 100,000 employees by creating appropriate conditions to ensure their personal growth and the quality of their working life. The changes affecting our professional and technological environments are immense but we are using them as opportunities to invest in the long term.

Promoting the quality of working life

Groupe BPCE promotes the engagement of its 100,000 employees in achieving its strategic objectives by 2030. Hybrid work, digitalization, artificial intelligence are all areas where we support the evolution of our professions by investing in team training and by paying attention to quality of working life (QWL). Concrete actions are being implemented to facilitate work-life balance, maintain the physical, mental and social well-being of our employees, and to ensure a high-quality work environment.

Groupe BPCE is also committed to diversity, equity and inclusion at all stages of its employees’ professional lives, including: recruitment, promotion, career opportunities and development, parenthood, and support at the end of their careers. We strive to create a conducive work environment that allows each one’s talents to shine.

  •  A healthy work/life balance

With the signature by the Group’s different companies of the charter of 15 Commitments for a Work/Life Balance, we recognized how critically important it is for employees to strike a healthy balance between their private and professional lives to ensure the quality of their workplace experience and to improve the company’s performance. Clear commitments have been made with regard to our employees’ ability to disconnect from work, to organize their schedules, and to optimize time spent in meetings or in managing their e-mails.

Parenting responsibilities also concern three quarters of the employees working for our Group. We are taking concrete action in this area, notably by offering part-time work opportunities for both men and women, providing training on career development after a long leave of absence, and organizing specific HR interviews before and after maternity or adoption leave.

The Group supports those of our employees who are also caregivers by organizing awareness-raising initiatives for management and teams, by publishing information guidebooks, and providing access to platforms offering services and greater flexibility in working schedules. This approach won official recognition in the form of the first ‘Companies & Caregiving Employees’ prize in 2021.

  • Hybrid work, a new reality

The organization of work has evolved significantly under the impetus of various factors. We are responding to these challenges by combining remote working with in-person attendance and offering a more flexible and dynamic working environment, made possible by the development of digital tools and the many possibilities for interaction and collaborative work they provide. In this, we are actively pursuing the four key objectives of economic efficiency, reduction of our environmental footprint, employee well-being, and customer satisfaction. We have set ourselves the goal of strengthening our innovative capacity with a view, in particular, of shaping the future of work by imagining new organizational structures.

  • Supporting all our employees

In the context of the profound changes affecting the banking industry as expressed in the new ways of organizing work, it is essential to provide each employee with appropriate support. We are taking a number of measures in this area with, notably, the Human Impact Assessment (HIA). This mechanism provides employees with an opportunity to express their own points of view and enables us to identify the consequences of ongoing transformations on the working community. Thanks to this global insight into impacts, we can adapt our change management plans and, if necessary, adjust the pace and direction of the transformation.

The professional integration of young people is another major social issue. Our Group is fully aware of its responsibility in this area and is making a concrete commitment in different ways with work-study programs, internships, and the financing of studies.

More than 4,000 young people on work-study programs

Health & safety: two priorities

All our companies assess occupational risks, target appropriate prevention actions and the solutions to be adopted. Each company has a Social & Economic Committee along with a Health, Safety & Working Conditions Commission. One of our more significant commitments is the fact that we take account of cancer and chronic illnesses in our HR policies. So far, 24 of our companies have signed the charter drawn up by the Cancer@work association that, for the past ten years or more, has been working with its member companies to help people with cancer to remain in their jobs and to change the way people think about the condition.

We have been involved in sport for many years and are convinced of the importance of practicing sport for good health. We also encourage our employees to exercise by taking part in sports events organized within the Group, notably those coordinated by the Groupe BPCE Sports, an association with 3,500 members.

Promoting gender diversity in all Group companies… and beyond

A source of economic efficiency and sustainable performance, professional equality between women and men is one of the challenges of our strategic plan. We are taking a number of actions affecting the very nature of our structures such as making the principles of gender equality an integral part of all HR processes, ensuring strict parity in all senior management training programs, and supporting women in the management of their careers.

Fifteen of our companies have been awarded the AFNOR Professional Equality label, a distinction that makes it possible to guarantee third-party verification of the effectiveness of the processes implemented. The signing of the Gender Equality Charter, a document laying out ten priorities for our Group’s different companies, further strengthens this commitment. A total of 28 women’s networks are also actively promoting gender equality and submitting proposals.

As we want to foster a respectful working environment for both women and men by enforcing zero tolerance for sexism, we have joined the #StOpE initiative, a collective of a hundred or so companies, associations and schools committed to the fight against ‘everyday’ sexism in the workplace.

Under French Act No. 2018-15 dated September 5, 2018, for the ‘Freedom to choose one’s professional future,’ companies with the required workforce draw up indicators to determine their level of commitment to professional equality between women and men. The ambition of the Group as a whole and by its principal companies in this area is given tangible expression in a score of 92 out of 100 in 2023. This index takes account of five differently weighted scores: the gender pay gap (score: 37 out of 40), salary increases (20 out of 20), promotions (15 out of 15), salary increases upon return from maternity leave (15 out of 15), and the distribution of men and women in the ten highest pay levels (5 out of 10).

Score of 92 out of 100 group gender equality index

Ten years after the adoption of the Copé-Zimmermann law that paved the way to gender equality in the boardrooms of large companies, the so-called Rixain law dated December 24, 2021 tightens the requirement to have women appointed to senior executive positions and as members of senior management bodies. Companies with more than 1,000 employees are now required to have at least 30% of their positions in senior management and on their executive bodies held by women by March 2026, a proportion rising to 40% by March 2029.

Thanks to Groupe BPCE’s commitment to gender diversity, we obtained in late 2023 a consolidated view of the scope of the companies concerned that satisfies the first threshold well ahead of the March 2026 deadline, i.e.:

  • Senior executives: 35% women – 65% men
  • Management bodies: 37% women – 63% men

Promoting the employment of people with disabilities

Our Group is committed on a daily basis to integrating disabled people into the workplace in the best possible conditions, reconciling the constraints related to their disability and their professional situation, and enabling them to enjoy the same career prospects as other employees.

Building on the wealth of all our differences, we prioritize skills in our recruitment processes and in decisions related to professional advancement. This approach is our way of satisfying our sense of social responsibility, a matter of ensuring high performance, and a necessary and legitimate sign of solidarity when a person’s disability complicates the normal pursuit of their working life.

Inclusion through employment
  • 4,440
  • 6%
  • 9.6 million euros