The context: a complex industrial, multi-site reality
4,000 employees spread across more than 60 entities in 22 countries. A dense, multi-site industrial organization with a largely frontline workforce: operators, technicians, logistics and maintenance teams, organized in small groups of 15 to 20 people under a workshop supervisor. These teams spend their day on a production line, in a workshop or out in the field. Not behind a screen.
In this context, digital access is neither constant nor a given. Not every employee has a personal computer, a work email address or the time to complete a long, complex questionnaire. At EXEL Industries, listening could not be designed as a standard HR program built for highly connected office staff. It had to fit the real constraints of the shop floor, industrial rhythms and the habits of operational teams. It had to adapt to the realities on the ground, not the other way around.
The starting signal was clear. Participation plateaued at 72% overall and at 55% among blue-collar workers. The group’s largest population was also its least engaged. This is not a gap that closes with one more email reminder or another internal communication campaign.
The global context adds to the urgency. According to the Gallup 2026 report, global engagement has fallen back to 20%, its lowest level since 2020. In France, the figure drops to 8%, the lowest in the world. Disengagement now costs close to 9% of global GDP in lost productivity. In an industrial setting, this has very tangible consequences: more safety incidents, more quality defects, higher unwanted turnover and weaker managerial execution.
Zest’s BaromEX benchmark confirms this structural tension. In French industry, employer recommendation averages -9.8 across the BaromEX panel. This is already a constrained level, yet it still exceeds the all-sector average of -17.1. In other words, industry outperforms the rest of the French economy while remaining in a zone where every point gained is a concrete operational advantage in the war for talent.
A deliberate choice: 20 questions, 5 minutes, not one more
A tool that employees don’t complete delivers no value. Neither does a tool that managers don’t understand. Philippe Besançon, Group HR Director, therefore made a clear decision: 20 factual, direct questions, equally clear to a sales director and a line assembler. Five minutes maximum, no more.
This is not a concession to simplicity. It reflects a strong conviction about what makes a listening program work over time. The clarity of the questionnaire and the visibility of the actions that follow go hand in hand. One does not work without the other.
Zest data confirms this mechanism. Communication and decision-making show a correlation of 0.94. When employees see their responses trigger concrete decisions, they participate more. Above all, they come back and respond again the following year.
The progress speaks for itself. Participation rose sharply within a year, with a particularly strong increase among blue-collar workers (+14 points), historically the hardest group to engage in this type of program. A barometer that was too long, too digital or too HR-centric would never have achieved this level of buy-in on the ground.
What gets people to respond is seeing that things actually happen afterwards.
Philippe Besançon, Group HR Director, EXEL Industries
Blue-collar vs. white-collar: what the social climate barometer really reveals
This is one of the most counterintuitive lessons from the EXEL Industries case. In a structured industrial environment, blue-collar workers are sometimes better listened to than white-collar staff. Even so, white-collar results can still be higher than those of their blue-collar colleagues.
Frontline rituals play a key role: morning briefings, workshop discussions, safety meetings and informal conversations with the team leader. These moments create a form of continuous listening that some office-based populations do not always have.
The barometer makes this gap visible and measurable. Blue-collar results improve faster than white-collar results once these workers are given a tool suited to their daily reality. Managers, for their part, show noticeably higher participation than non-managers.
This is no coincidence. Managers who truly take ownership of the program, share results with their teams and drive concrete action plans naturally generate more engagement within their scope.
Gallup 2026 documents this exact phenomenon on a global scale. Since 2022, manager engagement has dropped 9 points to 22% worldwide. In the best-performing organizations, the figure reaches 79%. The gap between these two levels represents a considerable performance lever.
At EXEL Industries, the trend runs counter to the global picture. Managers are active players in the program, not mere communication relays.
Another strong signal: the EXEL Industries barometer scores above the French industry panel average (according to Zest’s BaromEX), which itself sits above the national average. In a sector and a country where every engagement point requires significant structural effort, this gap says a great deal about the strength of the group’s management model.
Taking action: where it all comes together
A global score tells you nothing. What matters is what it hides.
The Gallup benchmark is a useful reminder. In Western European countries (UK, France, Germany), employees consistently give lower ratings than in markets such as Poland, Ukraine or India. This does not reflect a difference in lived experience. It is a cultural difference in rating behavior, well documented and stable over time. An HR Director who reads results without this lens is comparing figures that are not comparable.
This is where the EXEL Industries program shows its true value. In these notoriously demanding European markets, EXEL Industries consistently outperforms the Gallup benchmark on the proportion of ambassadors. The result is all the more significant because every point gained in these contexts is harder to earn than elsewhere.
Reading these gaps country by country, spotting weak signals and making different trade-offs based on local realities: this is exactly what an effective listening program should deliver. The goal is not a reassuring group score or an overly smoothed global snapshot. It is an actionable reading of the field, detailed enough to trigger decisions tailored to each context.
The most striking case in the EXEL Industries program illustrates this clearly. In a struggling subsidiary, the barometer did not raise awareness on its own. It did, however, objectify the situation and make the managerial dysfunctions undeniable. The manager in question was eventually replaced, and the unit improved by 60 points the following year.
In this case, it is no longer about perception. It is about a management and decision-support tool.
Zest’s analyses confirm that not all levers are equal. Motivation (0.79 correlation with employer recommendation) and alignment with the company (0.65) are among the most decisive. The difference is made less at the point of measurement than at the point where the company decides, sets priorities and genuinely acts on the feedback collected.
When employees see that their feedback truly helps change a situation, trust in the organization naturally grows.
The results: what the executive committee can read
EXEL Industries did not build a “nice” listening program. The group built an operational management tool.
Participation is rising sharply, including among blue-collar workers, historically the hardest population to engage. The group’s human strengths are clearly identified and measured: quality of relationships, meaningful work and team cohesion on the ground. The priority areas are just as visible: career prospects, digital tools and confidence in the future.
And in the markets where speaking up is hardest, EXEL Industries outperforms the benchmark.
But the barometer is only the starting point. What really makes the difference is what happens next.
A barometer is not a communication exercise. It is a management tool. What matters is not the group score but the ability of each entity to define a few clear actions and stick to them over time.
Each entity sets its own action priorities, limited in number but strongly championed by local leadership. There is no generic plan rolled out uniformly from headquarters. Instead, each unit makes deliberate choices adapted to its cultural, managerial and operational realities.
Quarterly follow-up then embeds these commitments over time and keeps priorities from fading between two campaigns.
Another strong sign of maturity is the decision to run the barometer every year, at the same time, regardless of the business climate. Good year or tough year, the thermometer stays in place.
This is precisely what builds its credibility over time. A program that is suspended whenever the news might be bad is not a management tool. It is a communication tool.
What Zest delivered here is very concrete. It turned intuition into an objective diagnosis, then turned that diagnosis into operational decisions that are genuinely followed through over time. The program helped unblock certain managerial situations, turn around struggling units and gradually rebuild trust between teams, managers and leadership.
With Zest, you’re not just buying a platform. You gain a partner who helps us read weak signals, prioritize issues and turn complex results into very concrete action plans for our managers.
This is where listening creates real value: when it goes beyond measurement to drive decisions, mobilize teams and become a lasting part of how the organization is managed.
