The public health and economic crisis has helped
focus our attention on the health and well-being
of employees in organizations. We need not
recall certain benefits: increased job satisfaction,
enhanced sense of belonging, higher rate of
engagement, increased productivity, decreased
absenteeism, reduced insurance costs, work
accidents, and occupational illness. Over the next
few years, boards of directors will face many talent
management and development challenges.
Over the last few years, boards have felt compelled
to increase the quality of their decision-making
by relying on different experiences and skills
and hiring talent of all genders, ages, origins and
faiths as much as possible. Although our boards
are mainly composed of independent directors,
they lack the employee’s view, which could offer
a different perspective on the organization’s
operational and strategic issues, better oversight
of senior management decisions and more
balanced decision-making around short-and
long-term perspectives, since employees tend
to place more importance on the long term.(1)
The most recent version (2018) of the UK
Corporate Governance Code(2) proposes
consideration of different initiatives to increase
employee participation in the highly strategic
decision-making of organizations, such as: creating
a statutory workforce consultation committee,
appointing a Board member to liaise with
employees or appointing at least one employee
other than the CEO to the Board of Directors.
Fully convinced of the great merit of direct
and formal employee contribution to strategic
decision-making, including decisions with
significant talent management and development
components, we are tabling this proposal,
confident that the company will be able to
offer, at the next general meeting in 2023, the
means to ensure employee insight and input