L'Oréal : monitoring recruitment discrimination

L'Oréal is determined to pursue a policy to promote a wide variety of staff and ensure that there is no discrimination. This policy is based on measures which follow changes of practice. However, measuring the diversity of staff is very difficult due to legal problems, and because of the social sensitivity of questions asked. As this approach was not considered desirable, Jean-François Amadieu put forward a different approach which involved using various means to assess the differences in handling recruitment according to the true or supposed origins of the candidates. He monitored the recruitment process at L'Oréal. His study covered more than 100,000 applications, 11,000 interviews and 1,500 appointments. The results were striking : in 2006, candidates whose first name was likely to be discriminated against were 10 % more likely to be recruited than those who had a French-sounding first name. This is due to the awareness of everyone in the company of political correctness, the spread of new work methods, and the impact of this measure on social behaviour.