Implement a HR transformation project in an industrial and international context

A key player in the aeronautics industry, the group Latécoère uses Zest, an HR software, to meet one of the objectives of the company’s transformation plan, deploying it internationally from day one.

The “Ambition 2025” project was launched in 2021 to give a new direction to the group Latécoère, in the dual context of a post-pandemic and post-downsizing plan. Its ambition is to profoundly transform the company on two key dimensions: improve plant performance and accelerate external growth, simultaneously involving all employees, both in France and abroad, in this new dynamic.

A simultaneous launch in 14 countries

From day one, the project group decided to launch the engagement survey simultaneously in 14 countries in order to establish the group’s international dimension (a company of French origin) and to have sufficient data to analyse and compare the results between the different countries responding to the survey. The responsiveness of the project teams on both sides enabled the project to be launched in a record time: in February 2022, the preparation and kick-off workshops took place and enabled the first pilots to be launched in March. In April, the survey was rolled out globally to 5,000 employees in 14 countries and in 9 different languages.

The quantitative results were uneven and revealed great disparities in employee engagement across the various group entities. Beyond these purely quantitative aspects and the quality of the analyses provided, the project has enabled all stakeholders to get involved in the project: the Executive Committee, the HR community across the 14 countries of the Group, top managers, managers, employees and social partners. They were mobilised in a short period of time to explain the interest of the approach and to convince everyone to contribute to the project.

The project is a success for the HR department because it is the first time in the group’s history that a large-scale project has been launched from day one across all entities. The joint management of the project by the HR teams at HQ and the HR teams at the local level highlights Latécoère’s ability to work in a collaborative and agile way at the global level.

An audience predominantly located in factories

One of the specificities of the project is that 45% of the respondents are employees located in the group’s factories without access to a computer or a professional email address. Moreover, one of the two pilot projects launched prior to the global project in a plant in Mexico made it possible to test these constraints.
To ensure maximum participation amongst these “disconnected” populations, an extensive communication campaign was launched, with specific support guides and the provision of computers directly in the plants.

Thanks to this method, the overall participation rate reached 69.2%, with no significant differences in participation between field and office populations.

Extensive and location-specific analyses

The Smart Org in Zest allows you to map your organisation in detail, reproducing the different departments and geographical locations. The advantage is to obtain granular analysis and to give managers access to the results of their own team. The integration of the complexity of Latécoère’s organisation with departments, branches and services in the analysis reports is a key element facilitating a greater depth of the analysis.

In addition to the standard analyses directly available in the tool, the customised analyses produced by Zest’s Lab (a team of experts in psychometrics and organisational psychology) have highlighted more specific phenomena, such as the variation in the level of employee engagement according to seniority, age or management level.

The next steps in the project are the launch of pulse surveys to monitor engagement and the implementation of specific action plans to improve the engagement score and instil a new corporate culture in a sustainable way within the group.