“Do business practices support individual development?”

“Concretely, Sycomore Asset Management aims to assess whether corporate practices truly support individual development and well-being through several lenses: purpose and corporate culture, employee autonomy, career development (including skills, training, promotion, and internal mobility), working environment and relationships, work-life balance, and finally, fairness through diversity and compensation,” explains Claire Mouchotte, ESG Analyst at Sycomore Asset Management

Key Drivers of Attractiveness and Retention

When considering a decision to exit a given region, companies must be prepared to address several key questions:
“How will this decision be communicated to employees and their representatives? Are there spaces for dialogue to explore potential solutions and support mechanisms? In terms of skills, have retraining programs been implemented? More broadly, what proactive steps were taken before deciding to cut jobs?” outlines Claire Mouchotte.

Conversely, she highlights several critical issues when entering a new territory:
“There are key drivers of attractiveness and retention: corporate culture, social and environmental engagement, and sometimes a need to reshape the public perception of the sector or specific roles. It is also important to offer competitive compensation, flexibility, good working conditions, and to pay particular attention to training programs, including apprenticeships and work-study formats.”

Skills shortages, in particular, can pose a significant barrier to growth for listed European companies.
“One in two European companies considers the skills shortage to be one of the most pressing challenges to address. It can weigh on performance and investment capacity. Upskilling employees is essential to enable a successful transition to new ways of working,” says Claire Mouchotte.

Transitions Involve Major Skills Challenges

The discussions held during the second workshop of the working group highlighted specific skills needs within companies, such as integrating new technologies, digitalization, maintaining automated equipment, and managing digital workflows.
“Business model transformation—driven by the ecological and energy transitions, such as the shift from combustion to electric engines in the automotive industry—also involves significant skill-related challenges,” adds Mouchotte.

Mapping Competencies to Anticipate Needs

In this context, “companies can carry out skills mapping to identify gaps between current employee qualifications—both within the company and locally—and the skillsets required for their short-, medium-, or long-term development. This enables the design of effective training, retention, and recruitment plans, and may help reduce the need for workforce mobility,” she explains.

This approach must be locally grounded and collaborative, built through partnerships within the local economic and social fabric, to ensure that the entire employment basin benefits from the investments made.

Assessing Human Capital Management: Key Indicators

Analyzing how companies manage human capital naturally relies on the use of key performance indicators. Claire Mouchotte identifies a few: the percentage of employees trained, the average number of training hours per employee per year, and qualitative data, such as the distinction between mandatory and upskilling training, internal mobility and promotion practices, employee feedback and satisfaction, and the existence of employee shareholding or other value-sharing mechanisms that align employees with the company’s long-term vision.

Content written by Florent Berthat.