At the head of the Institute of Business, Pierre-André de Chalendar believes that the pact between the company and the employee must be renewed.

At the head of the Institute of Enterprise, the former CEO and then Chairman of the Board of Directors of Saint-Gobain is calling for a return to career plans to reestablish the pact between employees and companies.

Is social mobility in the workplace over?

So, I would say that it exists less than it used to. And one of the reasons is the fact that industry, which is an important vector of this upward social mobility, occupies a less important place today. Because professional mobility in industry is easier. And the evolution of industrial professions has made it increasingly important and, I was going to say, necessary.

Through training?

Historically, there has been more training in industry and an evolution of tasks that has taken place over time. And if you want an extreme opposite, for example, the subject of personal services, which are professions that are growing a lot, but in which the evolution of tasks is less obvious, and the companies that work in this sector also historically have a weaker appetite for developing their employees.

Does this decline in the company as a means of social mobility have an impact on the economy?

The less skilled workers are, the more likely they are to have a job that isn't full-time. The proportion of involuntary part-time work is much higher among the unskilled. The proportion of unskilled workers who are unemployed is higher than average. And it's at least as much a cost to the economy as it is a source of wealth. So, this is a major issue.

Is the revival of learning a way to overcome this deficit?

Vocational pathways, which alternate between training and starting work, better prepare for advancement and mobility. I think that apprenticeships are indeed a good thing, and I regret a little that the reform of vocational high schools, which was a good idea, has fallen by the wayside. I believe that the professionalization of training is indeed a remedy for this phenomenon, which is not good for the economy.

This also translates into a distrust of the social pact in general?

This is the phenomenon of low-wage traps. This is the issue of reduced charges, which means that today, if you increase salaries that are relatively low on the scale, with reduced charges, you have to pay four times more than what the employee will receive. We can summarize by saying that work no longer pays at that level. And so, that is also a brake on evolution, because evolution is also a salary evolution. When I spoke about industry, everyone knows that in industry, salaries are also higher than average.

Is the cost of labor too high?

There's a huge gap in France today between what companies pay and what employees see on their pay slips. In France, the issue is even more about employer contributions than employee contributions.

What solution is there to reduce this gap?

I think our social security system, which dates back to the Liberation, is now at its wit's end. To simplify, we have four major cost items in the costs that weigh on labor. We have retirement, unemployment, family, and health. And I think that the link between retirement and unemployment on the one hand and the work of companies on the other is fairly easy to make. As for health and family, it's not normal that they weigh on the cost of labor. That should be the responsibility of other national solidarity mechanisms.

But isn't it also HR policy that has slowed down social mobility?

I think that if employees see that they have career prospects in the company they first joined, they'll be less likely to look elsewhere. It used to be an unspoken contract between companies and employees that has been somewhat damaged. At Saint-Gobain, it hasn't changed that much. I simply think that companies need to make more of an effort if they want to achieve that. But if it's less natural, it's because they've sometimes fulfilled their role less, because there have been restructurings. And so it's logical that when we do that, it also leads to a feeling on the part of employees who wonder, can I be trusted, will I be taken care of in the medium and long term?

How to rebuild trust?

Given the recruitment difficulties, which are unlikely to end anytime soon because demographics are not going to help in this regard, I think the balance of power will evolve. And I think companies will be forced to pay more attention to these issues than they have in recent years.

Is this one of the proposals being pushed by the Institute of Enterprise?

Yes. On labor costs, absolutely. We push a lot of those ideas. And we're involved in vocational high schools, just as we were in apprenticeships and all training issues. The main mission of the Institute of Business is to try to bring the French closer to business. If we want the French to get closer to business, business must convey a positive image. Today, we're rather in a world of mistrust, where more than 60% of French people trust business. But they expect them to play a positive role on a societal level, to be good citizens in their environment, in their local roots, and also to be interested in ecological issues. And so we're also working on the evolution of business to make it attractive.

How?

It means giving meaning. And so when we give meaning, we necessarily look beyond the end of the month. Having value-sharing policies is something we do a lot in large groups but not yet in smaller companies. These are profit-sharing and participation systems. And beyond that, I'm very much in favor of developing employee shareholding.