4.7.2 Information on working conditions
4.7.2.1 Policies
4.7.2.1.1 HR policy in the area of social dialogue, freedom of association and collective bargaining
L'Oréal is committed to respecting its employees' human rights in line with international standards, drawing inspiration from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ILO conventions, OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. As a signatory of the United Nations Global Compact since 2003, the Group places these commitments at the heart of its HR policy.
L'Oréal is careful to ensure that social dialogue, freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining are respected across the Group. The Executive Director of Labour Relations and Social Innovation, who reports directly to the Chief Human Relations Officer, oversees this policy by ensuring:
- elections to employee representation bodies are organised without interference;
- workers’ representatives have access to work premises and employees, subject to confidentiality and safety; and
- alternative forums for dialogue are available in countries where freedom of association is restricted, since L'Oréal prohibits any discrimination(1) related to union activities.
The Group organises events such as the annual Ethics Day alongside regular town halls to encourage discussion, experience sharing and feedback. In addition, an annual PULSE survey is carried out, collecting feedback from employees on their experience working for the Group so that it can be improved.
L'Oréal ensures that workers’ representatives can operate effectively in all of its host countries, even where union rights are limited. The Group maintains dialogue with workers’representative bodies in the majority of its subsidiaries in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas.
Since 1996, a collective bargaining agreement has been in place between L'Oréal and the European trade unions. This led to the creation of the European Works Council, which has 30 members representing 26 countries. This body provides a platform for ongoing dialogue with General Management regarding the Group's challenges.
4.7.2.1.2 Living wage policy
L'Oréal guarantees that all employees are paid a minimum wage in accordance with local laws and collective bargaining agreements. It also ensures that salaries are living wages and cover basic needs linked to housing, healthcare, food and education. This commitment was made within the framework of the Employee Human Rights policy in 2020, and reiterated in the Share & Care programme.
4.7.2.1.3 Health and safety policy
L'Oréal's environment, health and safety policy is an integral part of its EHS strategy (see section 4.3.2). L'Oréal aims to develop a culture of safety throughout its value chain, making the health, safety and well-being of employees and suppliers non-negotiable priorities.
Managers and employees all play an instrumental role in devising and implementing action plans to manage risks and continuously improve results. Responsibility for implementing the policy lies with the Group's subsidiaries and sites, which helps to ensure that risks are effectively prevented for employees. Further information on the policy's governance is presented in section 4.3.2.
4.7.2.2 Action plans
4.7.2.2.1 Respecting social dialogue, freedom of association and collective bargaining
L'Oréal takes care to ensure that employees' rights to social dialogue, freedom of association and collective bargaining are respected. Each year, collective bargaining agreements are signed with workers’ representatives. In addition, L'Oréal carries out audits and verifications to ensure that working conditions respect these fundamental rights. In 2024, 30 industrial sites underwent a human rights (including freedom of association) audit by expert external auditors. In the event of non-compliance, a remediation plan is put in place and the site is audited again in the following weeks or months by the same specialist independent external auditor.
4.7.2.2.2 Living wages for employees
L'Oréal regularly conducts an in-depth review of its wage policy to ensure that its employees' salaries are living wages. In 2024, for the second year in a row, the Group was certified globally by the NGO Fair Wage Network(2) as a “Living Wage Employer”, demonstrating that its employees are paid more than the living wage defined for each country. This commitment includes an annual inflation review and, where necessary, an adjustment is applied to align wages with the local cost of living. The certification is valid until 16 December 2025 inclusive.
4.7.2.2.3 Ensuring occupational health and safety
L'Oréal’s vision aims for a zero-accident environment, as the Company firmly believes that all accidents can be avoided. Its goal for 2030 is to have an Enlarged Total Incident Rate (eTIR) of less than 0.6 at its operated sites. To achieve this ambitious target, L'Oréal is focusing on the following priorities:
- transparent reporting on accidents, ensuring psychological security: this enables L'Oréal to learn continuously from all incidents and near misses, to monitor injuries and illnesses, and to involve its teams at all levels of the organisation in proactively improving safety;
- regular updates to risk assessments through audits (see section 3.5.5.2) and implementing the most demanding standards and best practices. L'Oréal strives to reduce risks and minimise the potential impact of any incident, focusing particularly on risks with the most serious consequences. Risk analysis is carried out using tools such as the Global Hazard Assessment Procedure (GHAP) and the Safety Hazards Assessment Procedure (SHAP);
- definition and annual adjustment of specific action plans to keep the rate of recordable work-related accidents below 0.6 by 2030. If every accident is one too many, this objective will lead the Group to reduce its number of accidents by almost 50%. This remains an ambitious target, given the efforts already made in this area in recent decades, but also avoids the pitfall of a possible lack of transparency in the context of a zero-accident objective;
- visible involvement of management at all levels (see section 4.3.2) through steering committees and reviews of safety improvement opportunities (SIO), which are a chance for employees to inform their direct managers of situations considered to be at risk so that remedial measures can be taken, or the use of the MESUR (Measuring Effectively Safety Using Recognition) tool, a programme based on systematic and structured meetings between line managers and employees to develop employees' ability to identify risks in the course of their daily activities along with their capacity to act on those risks. The programme is based on regular visits by two managers, one responsible for the sector and the other for the person visited. The site manager is responsible for implementing the MESUR programme, while the EHS manager is responsible for monitoring the programme and certifying the managers making the visits. Managers at all levels and in all departments can carry out MESUR visits. Application of the programme is assessed during L'Oréal's risk culture audits and forms the basis of a continuous improvement cycle;
- targeted programmes to reduce frequent incidents, including, among others, the LIFE programme (Life changing Incidents or Fatality Events), which targets activities which, if not controlled, could lead to a potentially serious accident, Safe@Work-Safe@Home, which aims to export L'Oréal's health and safety culture outside the Group, and Road Safety, which applies a strategy and assessment system that provides a holistic approach to road risks;
- compliance with Group standards and local regulations;
- specific training programmes for managers, EHS managers, operators and employees;
- continuous improvement of Health and Safety management systems, which are permanently updated by an intricate combination of feedback from governance audits,
- certification audits and IT audits, experience of accidents and near misses, and discussions with EHS teams, all at Group, Zone and site level. In 2024, a new EHS culture roadmap was put in place to assess the safety culture at each operated site and research centre against L'Oréal's guidelines and objectives. The roadmap consists of a sixpillar approach covering elements such as employee participation and management involvement in EHS. At the same time, the LIFE programme has been updated to keep pace with changes in the Group's guidelines and management systems. This programme is designed to manage the most material health and safety risks associated with L'Oréal's activities. Finally, as part of thecontinuous improvement cycle, the LIM (L'Oréal Incident Management) tool was launched, consolidating reports and lessons learned from accidents and near misses at all Group sites;
- active employee involvement in risk prevention;
- sharing of feedback and best practices between sites; and
- ISO 45001 certification covering 97% of manufacturing facilities, with a recommendation to have all sites certified.Certification demonstrates the ability of the Group's plants to implement a robust Health and Safety management system throughout their operations. Beyond the numbers, L'Oréal works to maintain a genuine safety-first culture built on proactive risk management, a commitment to excellence and best practice sharing, both inside and outside the Group. In-depth incident analysis of incidents using the Root Cause Analysis (RCA) method is a key pillar of this commitment, with a detailed investigation carried out into every accident and serious incident. A Safety Awareness Communication alert is subsequently shared at Group level to ensure that such incidents do not occur again.L'Oréal applies stringent control standards tailored to the type of risk at hand, and ensures that the appropriateprevention tools are used to guarantee its employees' safety.To maintain its high-performance culture, L'Oréal uses an internal global reporting tool to monitor various metrics. The tool centralises all EHS data, including accidents as well as environmental and quality metrics. The tool is updated eachmonth and the metrics rigorously monitored through an audit programme covering health and safety risk and culture, whichis described in section 4.3.2.1.
