A leading company focused on virtual transformation.
While some L’Oréal USA workers express their resentment at being forced to return to offices amid a pandemic, the company’s internal messages show the philosophy of the makeup giant’s questionable decision.
L’Oréal USA, which employs approximately 11,000 other people and whose brands come with Garnier, Lanc-me and Urban Decay, began asking staff to return to the workplace in a staggered procedure with reduced capacity in early July, with some employees backing up as early June. Meanwhile, internal communications and interviews with staff reveal a sense of concern and frustration over the return mandate.
According to internal documents, L’Oréal’s resolve to bring back its workers stems from a corporate philosophy that values collaboration in person and time on site.
In a memorandum to workers on May 28 entitled “Together Insurance: Why It’s Important to Be In Place,” L’Oréal USA President and CEO Stéphane Rinderknech explained why the company had to take its workers before many other similar companies. Estée Lauder Companies, owner of the Clinique and Bobbi Brown brands, does not expect a provisional reopening until October, which is still a matter of change.
“Our courtyards are a house away from the house: the places where we are, we meet, connect, exchange, reflect, register and challenge each other,” Rinderknech said in the memorandum, which was seen through Business Insider. “They are the unforeseen interactions between us, even if they are small gestures like a hello, a nod, a greeting, which are very vital to forge bonds.”
Rinderknech added that he believed that “there is no better time to return to the structure sites” and that the company is beginning to take steps to adapt to a “new normal” in the office. It also stresses the importance of social interactions for “progression and professional growth,” as well as for employees’ “mental fitness and emotional well-being.”
With s in thirteen states, L’Oréal has adjusted its return to plans based on local guidelines. The corporate demonstrated that the capacity will not exceed 50% and that return workers will be admitted to the s in rotating hours alternating with homework.
“The life of this company is based on the sensory enrichment of the delight of good looks in person,” Rinderknech wrote in the memo, and then added, “The globality of good looks is neither remote nor virtual.”
Despite positive back-to-work messages from the company, interviews with workers and internal communications noted through Business Insider recommend a general sense of concern and frustration over the return mandate.
“They are left saying how positive others are and it’s a lie because no one has to back down,” said one L’Oréal worker who works in California at Business Insider. “It’s natural gas.”
Aher, a west coast employee of L’Oréal, stated that even before the pandemic, she felt that the company did tolerate remote paintings in most cases.
These workers, anyone who has been anonymous to talk candidly about their experiences, are just two of L’Oréal’s many workers who have expressed their frustration with the company’s resolve to bring their workers back to the office.
“Being in combination is a key element in our culture and a necessity for the good fortune of our business in an arts industry,” L’Oréal told Business Insider in a statement. “As such, we have returned workers to offices around the world as part of a comprehensive security plan only when local governments allow it.
Employees who wish to continue running from home should indicate a form that provides their medical form to the company so that the company can do so if they are eligible for accommodation.
A representative of L’Oréal noted that the company “does not request actual medical records of painters or main points of a medical diagnosis. Any painter who requests a medical exemption from returning to paintings in the must provide a medical check. In maximum cases, a doctor’s score is a sufficient control.”
May 28, 2020
Dear L’Oreal USA Community,
Starting next week, we will welcome the first administrative organization at our painting sites in Florida and some of our box-selling workplaces in other parts of the country. In the coming weeks, we anticipate that more local governments will lift apartment restrictions and begin allowing workplace advertising activity.
With our Safe Together plan, we’re in a position to return. As announced in the past, our technique will be prudent and progressive, starting with a maximum of 25% of workers on site at any given time and gradually expanding over time. The measures we take to protect your protection exceed many of the rules established through government, government, and public health experts.
I know that many of you have confidence in our protection technique and appreciate the many precautions we take. I am convinced that all of you are willing to be informed and stick to new hygiene practices, barrier gestures and social estrangement behaviours to ensure your protection and that of others on the ground. The only question left is: if we can paint well from home, why do we pass there?
I need to take a few moments to answer this valid and vital question. I think it goes to the center of who we are as an organization and what our culture is and will be. Even in times of crisis, we will have to act according to our cultural values, which means that we revel in the following qualities and characteristics that make running in L’Oréal so special.
We adapt well to all situations
There is no better time to return to the structure sites. The fact is, we will live with this virus for the foreseeable future. It’s our new normal, at home, in the workplace and in the middle, and all we can do is gradually get used to it as our new way of life. We have all significantly adapted our implementation strategies over the last few months and are now entering the next phase of this situation. We have to be waiting for many more stages to which we want to respond and adapt. L’Oréal will evolve step by step because we are a flexible and agile organization.
We prioritize fitness and safety
As many of you know about this pandemic, we have had on-site staff in our factories, distribution centers and study laboratories. The additional safety precautions we have taken to ensure these services have been effective. The learnings we will apply in other markets that have begun to return to the administrative offices will make our return to the structure sites even more fluid. We have demonstrated during this pandemic that we can maintain a safe environment to run in place and we will continue to prioritize your physical condition and protection above all, as we have done.
We act in solidarity with others
The Operations and International Relations groups that worked on the floor during this pandemic have literally kept us active. We have been allowed to continue to serve our consumers and consumers who count on us. While the government has eliminated orders from local homes across the country, our box sales groups, retail outlets and good-looking experts are back in their workplaces. Our collective return to all structure sites, which happens in L’Oréal’s subsidiaries around the world, is a matter of basic equity and solidarity with our colleagues. We are more powerful when we are united in our goals and in practice as One L’Oréal.
We thrive in solidarity
The strength of L’Oréal’s culture comes from the close relationships we build with others within our organization. Our structure sites are a house away from the house: the places where we are, we meet, connect, exchange, reflect, register and challenge others. They are the unforeseen interactions between us, even if they are small gestures such as a hello, a nod, a greeting, which are very vital to forge bonds.
Many of us have controlled to stay very close to our fast groups while running remotely, however, some of you have commented that you feel we have lost some of the connectivity, collaboration and spirit between teams, between services and between divisions. netpaintings which is a painting logo in L’Oréal. We were also able to serve remotely thanks to the strong face-to-face relationships we formed before this crisis, but after a while, disconnection is inevitable. The slow return to all projects allows us to locate our colleagues and gives us the opportunity to deepen our relationships, our team spirit and advance our company.
Many of us thrive through face-to-face interactions and isolation from remote work. Social interaction and interpersonal relationships are vitally important and not only for progress and professional growth. Research shows us that it is also essential for the intellectual aptitude and emotional well-being of our employees, which in the end is the collective aptitude of our workplace.
We bring our most productive art to beauty
Beauty is an intimate and deeply private matter. The life of this corporate is based on the sensory enrichment of the delight of beauty in person. Beauty products are made to be used, silent and fun. They are a visual and tactile expression of identity, connection and emotion. Like the world’s leading beauty brands and agitators, we too will have to be strongly connected with this delight in our daily lives. The global of good looks is neither remote nor virtual.
While we might have gained in productivity with teleworking, I fear we might have lost some of the creative exploration that is inherent in our business. We are living on what we have already learned, but are we really working with the mindset of exploration right now? Creative exploration is not formal, organized, planned, transactional. It requires the informal, the unexpected, and the collective — and it leads to innovation.
It also takes a lot of non-public power to bring the most productive and artistic maximum to our production and marketing paintings of good looking products. This pandemic has seriously challenged the way our other people restore, recharge, and repair the balance of their own non-public power. To balance paintings and non-public life, it is imperative that we “stir” the barriers between them and repair some balance in other people’s lives.
In recent months, we have demonstrated an ability to serve under new pressures and realities. This crisis has not only shown us the true spirit of L’Oréal, but also gives us the opportunity to take a look at the cultural characteristics that make L’Oréal an exclusive and dynamic position to work.
The slow passage back to all the sites for our groups is a voluntary and collective delight in which we will go through the combined security route. You are committed to being informed and adapted to our new general, and the next general after that, as One L’Oréal.
Take care and take care of others.
Cordial greetings
Stephane Rinderknech
President and CEO of L’Oréal USA
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