Professional development and well-being at work

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bioMérieux firmly believes in the potential of its human capital, upholding its responsibility towards the teams who are behind its success.

Internal mobility

Key for successful future development, internal mobility is encouraged to adapt to a changing work environment in the short term and to address the Company’s development needs from a more long-term perspective.

Nearly 50% of permanent-contract positions are filled through internal mobility.

Gender equality

The first triennial agreement concerning gender equality in the workplace was signed in 2003. It is renewed every three years, providing an opportunity for the social partners to move forward on this issue. In 2017, a new agreement was signed for three years covering the period 2018-2020.

Measures to correct pay gaps, improve gender balance within the organizations and increase the percentage of women in management positions are also taken. Professional equality is essentially evaluated on the basis of 3 indicators: diversity, compensation and promotion. For the social partners, the information provided by this data allows corrective actions to be taken.

  • At bioMérieux, the Women Ready for Leadership Diversity (WoRLD) internal network works to promote greater gender diversity within management positions.   
  • On May 30, 2017, the General Meeting of Shareholders of bioMérieux approved the appointment of 2 independent directors: Fanny Letier and Marie-Paule Kieny. The bioMérieux Board of Directors now comprises 10 directors, including 4 women.
  • In October 2018, the Montcelard Estate, near Lyon (France), hosted the third edition of the JUMP Forum in Lyon, in partnership with JUMP association. It was open to all companies in the region.

  • A professional equality index between men and women has been set up following new legislations. In 2019, bioMérieux scored 88 out of 100, well beyond the minimum required by law. According to the calculation methods of this index, the overall pay gap for men is 1.3% and the gap in rate of increase is favorable to women for 3.5%. In collaboration with its social partners, bioMérieux is committed to continue to progress in this direction and to confirm this good performance. 

Work-life balance

Quality of life in the workplace is a major focus of bioMérieux’s human resources policy. In 2015, a Work-Life Balance program was introduced in France to improve the balance between employees’ professional and personal lives. The program was extended to cover additional countries in the EMEA region in 2016. The implementation of a teleworking policy met with remarkable success. 

In France a concierge service opened on 2 sites in November 2017.

“Best Place to Work” approach

In late 2016, the EMEA “Best Place to Work” program was launched to ensure a favorable environment to the professional development and quality of life in the workplace for bioMérieux’s employees.

Disability initiatives

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Since 2008, the Company has carried out initiatives within the framework of the Company agreement concerning employees with disabilities: actions to hire, integrate and train people with disabilities, to raise awareness and train employees involved in integrating disabled workers, and support job retention by adapting workstations. This agreement was renewed in late 2017 for a period of 4 years.

Workplace health and safety

bioMérieux teams are targeting a reduction in the rate of occupational accidents by 2020 to reach a rate of 1.6 or less, which is especially low for the industrial sector internationally. The Health, Safety and Environmental policy, initially developed for production facilities, has gradually been expanded to include commercial subsidiaries as well.
Our US subsidiary launched a road safety training program in 2016 for all employees who use their vehicle for professional purposes.

 Signature of Quality of Life at Work Agreement

bioMérieux pays a particular attention to fostering well-being at work for all its employees around the world. In France, the first agreement on quality of life at work was signed unanimously at the beginning of 2019 by the unions present in the Company. This agreement reflects bioMérieux's willingness to continue to develop favorable conditions for the commitment, the motivation of the teams and the individual and collective well-being of its employees. It comes in addition to many measures already in place in the Company. Several priority themes have been defined, including:

  • Empower and give meaning to the job;
  • Promote a better balance between professional and personal life (telework, support for family careers, travel, meeting management ...);
  • Limit the negative impact of a change of position or job, as part of the job and skills management planning;
  • Improve the working environment on each of our sites (modernization of existing buildings, creation of new spaces favoring exchanges and teamwork, ...);
  • Develop managers to help them federate and animate their teams in an open and dynamic way so that everyone finds his place and can flourish in his work; 
  • reventing psychosocial risks among employees is a major focus of the Human Resources policy. The internal training program in Europe was enriched with a day-long training module targeting managers on “How to prevent exhaustion and take (better) care of your employees.

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