Hélène Chinal, Capgemini: “I’m committed to equality”.

Femmes du Numérique: What have you implemented, extended or enriched in terms of gender equality since the end of 2012? Remind us where you were at that date?

Hélène CHINAL:Capgemini is open about its ambition to ensure equality between men and women.

Convinced that mixed teams are a source of richness and greater mutual respect, and thus help to reduce stereotypes, management has committed to actions aimed at increasing the proportion of women and ensuring gender equality within Capgemini, via a three-year agreement signed on November 21, 2011.

A new three-year agreement was signed on March 13, 2015.The aim of this agreement is to give concrete expression to the ongoing commitment to measures linked to equal treatment for women and men from the moment they are hired and throughout their professional careers.

Over the past three years, the proportion of women at Capgemini in France has remained stable at around 25% of the total workforce. We have decided to pursue and strengthen specific actions to increase the share of women in the company and at all levels, actions without which this stability would in fact persist.This new agreement includes commitments for the 2015-2017 financial year along three distinct axes:

• recruitment
• career path
• parenthood and life-time balance

These three complementary components are designed to act on different levers over the long term.

FDN:Could you give us a few concrete examples of your latest actions in favor of professional equality?

On recruitment

Over and above the shared observation that the proportion of young female graduates from engineering schools or universities corresponding to our target profiles is insufficient, the Group hereby reiterates its determination to pursue actions both internally, vis-à-vis our partners in higher education, and also upstream of the career orientation of future students, so that these actions have an impact in the short, medium and long term.

We have entered into partnerships with associations and universities to raise awareness among young people, from secondary school onwards, of the gender diversity of our professions. We have three flagship programs: mentoring for female studentsat the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, tutoring for young women seeking employment in the digital sector with SocialBuilder, anda 3-year partnership with IMSEntreprendre pour la Cité, on theInnov’Aveniraproject, withthe aim of reaching a minimum of 23,000 young people.

On your career path

In terms of career development, the gap between the number of women and men is widest at the highest grades, to the benefit of men. In addition to this agreement, theWomen@CapgeminiFranceprogram was created in 2012.

The aim of this program is to propose concrete actions to increase the presence and visibility of women at all levels of the company. In a personal capacity, I contributed to the creation of this program at Capgemini Group level and am responsible for its deployment in France.

The 2016 priorities are:

• Changing corporate culture and combating stereotypes
• Leadership training
• Cross-mentoring
• Creation of or participation in internal and external events in Paris and the regions

Changing corporate culture and combating stereotypes

Contribute to improving the representation of women within the company and advancing professional equality both internally and externally.

A guide to stereotypes has been produced to instill a greater culture of equality. This is an essential step towards changing mentalities. And this change can only take place by combating the persistence of gender stereotypes.

Training

Women need to learn not to underestimate their skills and not to censor themselves when faced with opportunities. Training and awareness-raising sessions are offered to our female employees to improve their self-confidence, leadership, visibility and network. By the end of 2016, 357 female employees will have been trained in three modules:

“Declic”: speaking out to boost your career. Designed to help women overcome the often unconscious obstacles that prevent them from advancing in their professional careers, DECLIC training gives them the keys to better asserting themselves through clear, confident and accurate speaking, using media-training techniques.By the end of 2016, 268 female employees will have taken this training course since it was launched in 2014.

“Leadership for Women

A 3-day training course that enables employees to discover themselves, assert their leadershipskills from a different angle and forge strong links with other female managers. 50 female employees will have benefited by the end of 2016 since its launch in 2015.

“Knowing how to dare

Courageous conversation is one of the essential components of leadership: daring to confront real issues and initiate a conversation to make a request sometimes requires courage and also a certain know-how. It’s about being assertive. A pilot was carried out in 2015 with twelve women. On the strength of its success, this training is beingadded to the catalog in 2016 and 39 female employees will be taking it in 2016.

Cross-mentoring

A mentoring program aims to support the professional development of women at Capgemini. The aim is for female mentees to have regular exchanges with a male VP manager, with freedom, openness and without interference from “day-to-day life”. A pilot was deployed in 2013 on a Group entity. In 2016, the program was extended to two other entities: in total, around a hundred female employees have benefited to date.

Events

We create or take part in events to bring women together, here are a few examples for 2016:

In Paris:

• “Forum de la mixité” in March: conference in an auditorium privatized by Capgemini, with around 100 female employees,
• “Digital Women’s Day” in March,
• Conference on “La Féminisation de la fonction commerciale dans le secteur numérique” with EuridisBusiness School inMay,

In Bordeaux:

• Women and Digital Day in April

Our actions are mainly based in Paris, but our aim for 2016 and 2017 is to extend to the provinces.

On parenthood and balancing life’s rhythms

An entire section of the new agreement is devoted to parenthood, detailing measures designed to support employees during decisive periods in their personal and family lives.

We want to change the way people think about parenthood. Creating a favorable working environment for employees who are parents means reminding them of their rights in terms of parental leave; offering them the possibility of arranging 90% part-time work around school vacations; assisting them in finding childcare solutions for children not attending school, and enabling them to benefit from 3 days of emergency childcare per child per year; or developing a range of personal services “CESU Naissance” for all births or adoptions between 2015 and 2017, or “CESU” training enabling them to contribute to additional childcare costs.

FDN:What qualitative and quantitative results have your actions brought?

HC: Employees are sensitive to these initiatives. It’s essential to put concrete measures in place to promote a balance between life’s different stages. We want to change the way people think about parenthood, so that they no longer have to choose between a career and starting a family.

All these measures benefit both women and men. What has changed is managerial attention to the gender balance in promotions to higher grades or in dedicated high-potential programs.

In addition, beyond the catch-up programs, there is a firm commitment to ensuring that women receive the same pay rises as men. In terms of quantitative results, the percentage of women in the workforce has not budged, but the movement has begun and will produce effects over time. We are also limited by our recruitment pool, but we hope to see an increase in the number of women interested in joining the digital professions.

FDN:What have you learned from these experiences? Successes, difficulties, areas for improvement…

HC:If I take a look back at theWomen@CapgeminiFrance program, which I’ve been piloting for France since 2012:

• Valorize the small successes and bring them to the fore: “small streams make big rivers”. Don’t expect immediate change in the short term. Our initiatives are much appreciated and are spreading like wildfire. For example, the training courses we have proposed are now part of the training catalog and are victims of their own success. The benefits will be visible in time.
• Get involved: the teamWomen@CapgeminiFrance team is highly mobilized and connected to an international network. These exchanges enable cross-fertilization of initiatives and visibility of actions.
• Initiating cultural change: management is now committed to seeing the situation evolve, and there’s no stopping it.Women@Capgeminihas contributed to this evolution and will continue to do so.

FDN:Based on the experience you’ve gained with your professional equality project or plan, what advice (steps, organization, best practice, simple and effective idea…) would you give to a structure embarking on such a project to help it build it effectively and avoid the pitfalls?

HC :The first very important point is to get buy-in and support from management at the highest level of the company. It’s essential to demonstrate the benefits of gender diversity for the company: to be representative of the diversity of society. We live in a world of rapid change, and digital technology is accelerating this phenomenon.

I also advise you to capitalize on the initiatives of other companies: retaining good practices means you can move faster and benefit from new approaches.

My final point is that this is not a battle with immediate effects, but a cultural change in the company that needs to take place at all levels, among men and women alike. It’s not a program dedicated solely to women, but to gender diversity. It’s a long-term project. The results are not immediate, and it requires perseverance in the continuity of actions.

Interview conducted by:Morgan AUDOUIN, Head of Social Innovation, Diversity and Mixity, Capgemini.