BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions is made of 3,600 people in 20 countries all over the world: committed women and men who have made the company a major player of the professional equipment finance sector. To mark 70 years of our existence this year, we look back at the values and commitments that have guided us during this time, and look ahead at the challenges in the future.
Good Place to Work since 1950
Since our creation, we’ve worked tirelessly to be a good place to work, as described by a former employee in an interview for our internal magazine in 1978: “What struck me particularly was the warmth among colleagues. We were all on the same page, were well taken care of, said hello, it was really like one big family!”
“I am proud of this legacy and am committed to ensuring that this notion of “Good Place to Work” is present in all the countries where we are based,” says Béatrice Le Terrec, our Director of Human Resources since September 2019.
The role of Human Resources is to ensure that the company has the resources it needs, at the right place and at the right time to implement its strategy and to ensure its growth. Our mission is to attract and retain the talents we need. This mission goes hand in hand with understanding the needs and aspirations of the teams and analysing how the company evolves over time.
Our business, being at the heart of the real economy and moving everyday towards the circular economy, aims to give a true sense of meaning to what we do. This philosophy extends to the company culture we create. Therefore, for us, building a unifying and inclusive value system is crucial to be able to foster commitment across teams and to ensure that they embrace and embody these values every day.
Diversity and equal opportunity: enablers for collective success
We want that within BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions, professional opportunities be defined by skills and merit alone. “I hold this very dear to me and have been mentoring young women for several years now, both through the MixCity association and through a mentoring programme launched within BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions to push for greater representation of women in the top management,” comments Charlotte Dennery, CEO of BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions. But what we aim to achieve goes beyond gender equality, it covers all forms of discrimination, whether related to age, ethnicity, health conditions, sexual orientation, … As a company that works with all types of businesses and sectors of activity, it is our duty to represent the society in which we live, in all its diversity.
Supporting change through training, mobility and new ways of working
Being a Good Place to Work involves many other initiatives.
It starts with the integration of our new recruits who have been participating in onboarding programmes since 1974.
It also means complementing that with continuous learning opportunities to boost one’s knowledge and technical skills, through training. Investing in training our people is a tradition as old as we ourselves are because to be able to best support our clients and partners, we need to be at the forefront of the latest trends and technologies and know-how.
For example, we have set up an upskilling programme to enable employees to acquire new business skills. “I took up a web development course in parallel to my work in the Digital Factory team. Being trained in new technologies has enabled me to take a fresh look at my daily work, discover new working methods and gain a better understanding of the challenges of the future, which is very important because the future of the company is prepared for today“, explains Vincent Roger, who works in the IT department.
We have always accompanied our staff through major technological changes: in 1997 we organised trainings relating to Internet, while it was still new. In 2016, we implemented a digitalisation programme to familiarise them with the new tools and working methods.
“This programme allowed them to participate in digital workshops and mentoring programmes, enabling the most experienced employees to train those less comfortable with the new digital tools. We also invested in brainstorming and co-working spaces, conducive to the development of collaborative methods and innovation,” explains François-Régis Martin, our Chief Digital Officer.
But accompanying our teams goes beyond that. It also involves encouraging internal promotions and geographical mobility. “I am the perfect example of the opportunities offered by BNP Paribas”, insists Béatrice Le Terrec, “In my career spanning more than 20 years, I have had the opportunity to work in very different roles across many entities of the BNP Paribas Group.” To facilitate these processes, we’ve developed, for example, mentoring programmes, internal mobility tools, and “Short Term Assignments” that allow employees to do short-term missions of 1-6 months in another country.
“The Short Term Assignment gave me the opportunity to join a new team for a few months. This helped me rediscover the company by expanding my horizons, and enabled me to broaden my professional network. If I get the opportunity, I’d do it again!” says Lynn Moerenhout, a Belgium-based employee who participated in a 2-month Short Term Assignment in France.
A global vision for the challenges ahead
Our presence in 20 countries, mainly in Europe but also in China and North America, gives us an international vision of our business. “One HR” is the HR version of that vision. It aims to diffuse the same culture of commitment across different countries through a unified HR community, while taking into account local specificities.
We want to encourage our teams to work more in project mode, promote coaching-based positive management, continuous training and mobility and diversity in all its forms. “One HR” will help us to address all of these challenges in a coherent and organised manner.
This vision is part of a broader strategy of the BNP Paribas Group to be a sustainable global leader and an inclusive place to learn, grow and innovate. The Group was awarded Top Employers Europe certification for the seventh consecutive year in 2020, with certification in eight countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Ukraine and Turkey. The certification especially highlights the Group’s strong corporate culture, excellent employee career management and succession planning, performance management strategy and strong leadership development.
Join our teams at headquarters or in one of our 20 countries in Europe, Asia
or North America.
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