Speaker 1: Hi, This is Malayan Vervier and this is Kim Azarelli.
Speaker 1: We are co authors of the book Fast Forward, How
Speaker 1: Women Can Achieve Power and Purpose. And you're listening to
Speaker 1: Seneca Women Conversations on Power and Purpose, brought to you
Speaker 1: by the Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Jean Pascal Triquis is chairman and CEO of Schneider Electric,
Speaker 1: a Fortune Global five hundred company with operations in a
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty countries with more than a hundred and
Speaker 1: forty thousand employees worldwide. Schneider Electric operates in the energy industry,
Speaker 1: which traditionally has been dominated by men. So how does
Speaker 1: a company like Schneider Electric achieve its goal of advancing
Speaker 1: gender equality? I sat down with Jean Pascal at the
Speaker 1: Seneca Women Forum at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Listen
Speaker 1: to our discussion and learn his practical approach to achieving
Speaker 1: gender equality in the workplace, why advancing women is a
Speaker 1: smart business strategy, and how the future of work will
Speaker 1: affect women, and stick around after the conversation to hear
Speaker 1: our top takeaways. Hi, everyone, I am delighted to be
Speaker 1: here with Jean Pascal, chairman and CEO of this incredible company,
Speaker 1: very cool company, and we'll talk a lot about what
Speaker 1: you're doing in this industry that is not necessarily always
Speaker 1: been very friendly to women. UM. But as we discussed earlier,
Speaker 1: twenty is a very big year, including the twenty anniversary
Speaker 1: of the Beijing conference. And I was kind of excited
Speaker 1: when I heard that you were there. So did you
Speaker 1: tell us about that? Yeah? So I don't know how
Speaker 1: many people in this room we're in Beijing in but
Speaker 1: I happened to be there at the women conference and
Speaker 1: I was here to serve you. So it's very he
Speaker 1: means literally, very simply. We're we're kickstarting Schneider in China,
Speaker 1: which has become now also go on larger's business. That
Speaker 1: was very different China, very different Beijing on sudden new
Speaker 1: comes this idea of a big women conference. On my
Speaker 1: partner committed to that. Um. She dragged me along and
Speaker 1: we spent ten days bringing water every day, food every day,
Speaker 1: making transportation on having as those two of you, I
Speaker 1: don't know who they are. I don't remember exactly on
Speaker 1: the towise it towards the beginning of it. So Milan
Speaker 1: was there. I think she would, you know, she would
Speaker 1: maybe recognize you in the crowd. But it's been twenty
Speaker 1: five years, as we just said, and we've made a
Speaker 1: lot of progress, especially some progress for women at work,
Speaker 1: although we're not there yet. So we want to talk
Speaker 1: to you a little bit about the future of work,
Speaker 1: but also about the state of the union at Schneider Electric.
Speaker 1: You're kind of from to and your journey. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: we are coming from very far. When you work in
Speaker 1: the field of energy automation, well are becoming digital solution
Speaker 1: for sustainability, which is a little bit more opinion, but
Speaker 1: fundamentally we come from a very male industry. I've been
Speaker 1: working for thirty years in the company thirty two years,
Speaker 1: have been the CEO for fifteen years. Remember fifteen years
Speaker 1: ago when I opened my first leadership meeting, there were
Speaker 1: three percent women in the room. Awful, right, And of
Speaker 1: course there is all the well known reasons why you
Speaker 1: want a diverse company in many of our customers are women.
Speaker 1: And if you don't have women in the room, you
Speaker 1: don't understand, certainly you should not to understand, you won't
Speaker 1: want diversity for innovation. On the most important thing, as
Speaker 1: I spent fifteen years in a company that was mostly
Speaker 1: male I don't know what it is to work only
Speaker 1: with women, but working with men is extremely boring. This
Speaker 1: I can certify. So we embarked on a on a journey.
Speaker 1: Collectively we to was ready to diversify the company. So
Speaker 1: where are we today. We're almost fifty percent of my
Speaker 1: board are women forty six percent um And don't applaud me.
Speaker 1: It's absolutely normal. Just the evolving at the executive level
Speaker 1: has been has been taking more time because one women
Speaker 1: who are promoted at the top of the company to
Speaker 1: be there because they are the best. So I've got
Speaker 1: four women in my executive team. They managed fifty percent
Speaker 1: of the company, fifty percent of of the p MR.
Speaker 1: On today, one third of the executives in the company
Speaker 1: are women. That's where we are. When I look at
Speaker 1: three at the top one saturn of the company. We
Speaker 1: are to the twenty five percent or so. We had
Speaker 1: committed to be at thirty percent next year. As things
Speaker 1: going to be difficult, that we keep fighting on going.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure we're going to speak about that, Yes
Speaker 1: for sure. Well, I mean you've said and it's kind
Speaker 1: of relates what you were just saying. You've been quoted
Speaker 1: as saying, uh, not having diniversity is a crime to innovation.
Speaker 1: And you're in the business of innovation. So what do
Speaker 1: you mean by that. I mean that innovation is about
Speaker 1: diversity of thinking, sinking different, and there are very little
Speaker 1: chances that you can think different is if everybody is
Speaker 1: looking alike in in in the company. So we have
Speaker 1: I think in our industry, but I would say in
Speaker 1: all industries. One of the most global companies in the world.
Speaker 1: Think about it. We do roughly same business in North America,
Speaker 1: Western Europe, a GPEC, rest of the world. All very balanced,
Speaker 1: and we've been attached from the beginning that it wouldn't
Speaker 1: be a centralized structure, but people would be living in
Speaker 1: the country's crossed with our market, so pretty much as
Speaker 1: many people again in North America and Asia, in Europe
Speaker 1: and so, which means that every time we address an
Speaker 1: issue at CHNIDO, you've got people coming from all our
Speaker 1: regins confronting the same issue and not risingly, which is
Speaker 1: them completely differently on that the way to innovate. So
Speaker 1: there are plenty of diversities. We have very diverse in
Speaker 1: terms of nationalities. My accent. I think it's a good
Speaker 1: testimony to that. But uh, well, the most natural diversity,
Speaker 1: which is a gender diversity, is surprisingly one of the
Speaker 1: most difficult to mitigate and to change all the time.
Speaker 1: And this is where we are so focused on changing that. Well,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about this because this is where
Speaker 1: I get really excited about what you're doing. And what
Speaker 1: I want to get into is, you know, you talk
Speaker 1: also about how anybody can have good intentions, and not
Speaker 1: everybody has good intentions, but you have to move beyond
Speaker 1: good intentions if you want to affect change. And for me,
Speaker 1: coming from the private sector, it's interesting to hear your
Speaker 1: thoughts on change management and how do we use change
Speaker 1: management principles in a concrete way. But companies in this
Speaker 1: room and all of the live stream everyone who's watching,
Speaker 1: what can companies do to effectuate change management so we
Speaker 1: complete the journey to equality? Yeah, well, many people or
Speaker 1: all of us have very good intentions, but we all
Speaker 1: have biases, and we all tend to replicate ourselves. Uh. Normally,
Speaker 1: human beings tend to congregate with people who look like
Speaker 1: So when you want to go from three percent to
Speaker 1: fifty of gender diversity, you'd better go with a very
Speaker 1: strong project management. I'm saying that we are also industrialist
Speaker 1: on technology. So it's pretty simple. It's like we have
Speaker 1: a problem diagnosis action plan on that. The way it works.
Speaker 1: It seems a bit dry, but it works. So I
Speaker 1: would say we've done several things. The first thing is
Speaker 1: very strong program management and show our program manager for
Speaker 1: diversities in the room. She's she's somewhere here in the
Speaker 1: room account so much, but she's managing the all action plan.
Speaker 1: She's coordinating all the plans for diversity inside the company.
Speaker 1: But where we started, we went through a systematic plan mentoring.
Speaker 1: We trained men inside the company and all men to
Speaker 1: diversities seem strange, but realizing that we are not the same,
Speaker 1: that there are some particularities in being a woman. On
Speaker 1: being a woman in a men's company today in this room,
Speaker 1: I am a minority. In most of the meetings women
Speaker 1: are the minority. Or do you manage that or do
Speaker 1: you include those minorities better in what you do? So
Speaker 1: being very systematic putting into place processes where systematically we
Speaker 1: propose women for the positions. We make sure that we
Speaker 1: analyze our biases in against changes. So that's number one.
Speaker 1: The second point is about policies and we put into
Speaker 1: place policies to allow women with specific constraints. Very often
Speaker 1: women are in charge of families. That's absolutely terrible what
Speaker 1: I just said, but realities that in many places that
Speaker 1: are considered as more in charge of the families than men.
Speaker 1: So we did a global family leave policy and in
Speaker 1: within the capacity to take the leaves when, of course
Speaker 1: you have babies, but also when you have to take
Speaker 1: care of your parents. More annoy it's the case you
Speaker 1: need to take care of your parents when you go
Speaker 1: to Asia, parents are living together, and you need to
Speaker 1: be able to do that. UNTI harassment. Of course, pay equity,
Speaker 1: and I think we're gonna be um not done. It's
Speaker 1: going to be a never ending John here. But nine
Speaker 1: percent of the company will be covered at the end
Speaker 1: of next year. We're already in good shape, but we're
Speaker 1: going to be there. That's a big one. Can I
Speaker 1: just stop on that for a second? Is a big number.
Speaker 1: And I think personally, I am obviously involved a lot
Speaker 1: of what companies are doing, and I think that's pretty
Speaker 1: leading in the industry and leading frankly across industry. So
Speaker 1: I think we should recognize what they're doing on and
Speaker 1: we should learn from you what you've done to achieve that,
Speaker 1: because that's not small. I'm gonna thank here on there Again,
Speaker 1: it's pretty natural. I would say it should be the
Speaker 1: case everywhere. And I'm going to speak on on a
Speaker 1: very critical thing to to to achieve to achieve that,
Speaker 1: So those policies on the interesting thing is that we
Speaker 1: started with gender diversity, with the objective of gender diversity.
Speaker 1: But those policies are very good for men to write,
Speaker 1: flexible work, good for everybody in the company. That makes
Speaker 1: a company much better, especially in the twenties twenties here
Speaker 1: of the twenty first century. Then it's about leadership. I
Speaker 1: mean you have to be committed on the where that
Speaker 1: this is one of the reasons we embarked on eforec
Speaker 1: she at the beginning, and we are men signed on
Speaker 1: take initiatives locally and not top down but bottom up
Speaker 1: people engaging locally to to make it happen. And then
Speaker 1: one thing I would like to insist on it is
Speaker 1: about data. We've got fantastic asset today which is a
Speaker 1: capacity to have a lot of data. On pointstant you
Speaker 1: are speaking about pay equity. You can't do pay equity
Speaker 1: if you've not graded the jobs and if you don't
Speaker 1: know where people are on the teams in the company
Speaker 1: of one forty thousand people, which should have everything. But
Speaker 1: we have also a tradition of decentralization on empowerment. So
Speaker 1: making sure that things are consistent across the board took
Speaker 1: us some time. But today you can really get a
Speaker 1: lot from the data on people engagement, people voice, how
Speaker 1: people feel about gender diversity in this part of the company.
Speaker 1: H they feed here and then you can correct situations
Speaker 1: who you can go from emotions or opinions to something
Speaker 1: which is much more fact based on database. You know,
Speaker 1: we talk a lot about design flaws and how things
Speaker 1: are designed when they're designed from one perspective, and as
Speaker 1: an engineering company, when things are designed from one perspective,
Speaker 1: you have systemic design flaws built in. So why would
Speaker 1: the for example, work day be from nine to five
Speaker 1: in the school day from nine to three. That's a
Speaker 1: design flaw that doesn't benefit anybody. So the idea of
Speaker 1: bringing science, um and measurement and data to complete this
Speaker 1: journey of equality, I think is a really important lesson
Speaker 1: that you can bring. And obviously you do it in
Speaker 1: all the work that you do around energy, but to
Speaker 1: apply it and to have that kind of lens on
Speaker 1: gender for us, it's really meaningful and and I we
Speaker 1: see more possibilities opening around data, like opening the job market,
Speaker 1: on using analytics, on artificial intelligence to match people together
Speaker 1: with jobs, and to get to double grading not on
Speaker 1: your employees but sorts of managers. That's really exciting. Well,
Speaker 1: I actually would love to tell without that much time,
Speaker 1: but I would love to talk to you just for
Speaker 1: a minute about the future of work, because you really
Speaker 1: speak incredibly on the future of work, and I think
Speaker 1: what you just talked about kind of plays into that.
Speaker 1: I mean, the a revolution that's happening that is going
Speaker 1: to change literally everything we do. I mean, can we
Speaker 1: apply that and how do you think women will fare
Speaker 1: in that? Okay, I think we're going into a full
Speaker 1: transformation of the space of work. When I see sometimes
Speaker 1: some of the discussion we have about social relationships and
Speaker 1: operating in one of the countries in European routs, we
Speaker 1: have kind of a new story on the tradition there
Speaker 1: to have that very strong social data. I'm speaking to
Speaker 1: the unions in front of us and saying how and
Speaker 1: were talking about the past, I'm not preparing the future today.
Speaker 1: You see the use youngsters going into independent work uberized work. Uh.
Speaker 1: It used to be a time where your main competitor
Speaker 1: on the job market. Where your competitors today it's most startups.
Speaker 1: You have to offer a job environment which is more
Speaker 1: exciting than the startup. If you want to attract the
Speaker 1: best talents, you have to fight against local companies in
Speaker 1: all spaces of the world. So I we want our
Speaker 1: our space to be to have the most meaningful mission
Speaker 1: and in all case it's pretty simple. It's of a
Speaker 1: digital solution for sustainability, which I see as a big
Speaker 1: challenge of our generation. It's to be the most inclusive generation,
Speaker 1: the most inclusive environment and being really present in one
Speaker 1: of the countries. We can offer much more than many
Speaker 1: other other companies. You want to discover the world compaction
Speaker 1: either but not the world from one place, the world
Speaker 1: from all the places. And then we want people to
Speaker 1: be truly empowered. I think if you want to be
Speaker 1: able to to to compete with a garage, with a
Speaker 1: startup with a small structure, which is a very attractive
Speaker 1: value proposition for for for a young employee or an
Speaker 1: employee today, you have to make sure that people can
Speaker 1: make decisions locally and they can make an impact on
Speaker 1: The big difference that we can propose that NIA is
Speaker 1: that they can have an impact from wherever in the world,
Speaker 1: but they can make it on the scale of thirty
Speaker 1: billion dollars on counting on one forties and other people
Speaker 1: in the rest of the world. And this is what
Speaker 1: you have to compete for us a lot of technology,
Speaker 1: allowing the people to be nomadic, allowing the people to
Speaker 1: work from home when they want, allowing flexible hours of work,
Speaker 1: but also allowing a lot of initiative locally on where
Speaker 1: they operate. But I have to say that I learned
Speaker 1: a lot in the last couple years about tonio electric,
Speaker 1: and I do consider myself someone who knows a lot
Speaker 1: about what's going on in the space, and I think
Speaker 1: maybe the scientific community. But there's a lot of humility
Speaker 1: and what you are talking about and what you've actually accomplished.
Speaker 1: And so we're very happy that you're here today. And
Speaker 1: also we would encourage you to be on more platforms
Speaker 1: like this because I think others can really learn from you.
Speaker 1: And you are part of the Heat for Sheet platform
Speaker 1: at the u N And maybe just in a few
Speaker 1: moments you could just tell us a little bit about that. Well,
Speaker 1: we consider also that when you do those transformation it's
Speaker 1: really important to be working with others because you can bench,
Speaker 1: you can exchange, you can learn from each other. So
Speaker 1: we are one of the first companies to embark on
Speaker 1: efore She, which is a fantastic initiative. I think it
Speaker 1: is a bit uh mail is in the room here
Speaker 1: and I want to sell you to an excellent job
Speaker 1: accident work. I'm also at the board of the Global Compact.
Speaker 1: We are one of the first companies to embark on
Speaker 1: the Global Compact. Have been the President of the Global
Speaker 1: Compact in France for two and dates. Because this if
Speaker 1: you want to change your society, you can't do it alone.
Speaker 1: I mean take a company account. We work with thousands
Speaker 1: of suppliers, thousands of integrators, so it's really important if
Speaker 1: we want to progress, we can do that with an
Speaker 1: ecosystem of companies and we can do that collectively if
Speaker 1: we share the same referential on the same objectives. So
Speaker 1: really important to be part of your group and really
Speaker 1: looking forward to the next opportunities on more platforms where
Speaker 1: we can help each other to change your society. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you, Jan Pascal Stay tuned for our takeaways after
Speaker 1: this break. What a great conversation with Jean Pascal. Check
Speaker 1: out the incredible work he and Snider Electric are doing
Speaker 1: with the UN Women's Here for Sheep program. You can
Speaker 1: learn more Heat for Sheet dot org. My top takeaways. First,
Speaker 1: to quote Jean Pascal, not having diversity is a crime
Speaker 1: to innovation in today's environment, Innovation is key and demands
Speaker 1: diversity of thinking. Companies that lack diversity will find themselves
Speaker 1: at a competitive disadvantage. Second, the full participation of women
Speaker 1: requires more than good intentions. It requires action. Companies need
Speaker 1: to employ the same project management techniques that they would
Speaker 1: for any other business imperative. That means putting into place
Speaker 1: strong processes and policies and leveraging data to drive real change. Finally,
Speaker 1: alliances are critical. It's important to be part of an
Speaker 1: ecosystem of companies and other organizations that are working towards
Speaker 1: the same goal. Schneider Electric, for example, participates in the
Speaker 1: UN Women's Heat for she campaign. At Seneca Women, we
Speaker 1: found that collaboration allows companies to quickly share best practices,
Speaker 1: new ideas, and ultimately move fast and forward. You're listening
Speaker 1: to Seneca Women Conversations on power and purpose brought to
Speaker 1: you by the Seneca Women podcast Network and I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio with support from founding partner p G. Listen to
Speaker 1: Seneca Women Conversations on Power and Purpose on the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,
Speaker 1: and please support this podcast by telling your friends, subscribing,
Speaker 1: and rating us. For more information on Seneca Women, follow
Speaker 1: us on social media, visit our website Seneca Women dot com,
Speaker 1: and check out the Seneca Women app free in the
Speaker 1: app Store. Have a great day.