Tags: Employees
Ahead of the launch of IBE’s Ethics at Work: 2018 survey of Employees: France, Katherine Bradshaw caught up with Emmanuel Lulin, Senior Vice-President and Chief Ethics Officer at L’ORÉAL, silver supporters of the Ethics at Work survey.
Ahead of the launch of IBE’s Ethics at Work - 2018 survey of Employees: France, Katherine Bradshaw caught up with Emmanuel Lulin, Senior Vice-President and Chief Ethics Officer at L’ORÉAL, silver supporters of the Ethics at Work survey.
The results of the survey suggest that French employees have a lower perception of the honesty of their organisations than the average European employee (71% vs. 78%). We asked Emmanuel for his reflections on the survey and ethics at L’ORÉAL.
"The difference between an ethical organisation, and a less ethical one,” says Emmanuel "is the sincerity with which it walks the talk.
"All companies have ethical issues. To have issues is normal; to pretend there is none is a red flag. But what makes an organisation stand out is that it addresses its issues with sincerity.”
The responses from employees showcases the benefits of an ethics programme, but Emmanuel cautions against simply establishing a compliance programme which ticks all the right boxes. "It’s not about the programme,” he says, "it’s what you do with it.”
This chimes with the results of the survey, which identifies three elements of a supportive environment for ethics which go beyond an ethics programme, and have a greater impact on employees – tone at the top; stakeholder engagement; and addressing misconduct.
At L’ORÉAL, tone at the top is highlighted by their annual Ethics Day, an opportunity for employees to speak up and for management to listen actively. The central event is the CEO answering questions from employees around the world in two one-hour and a half live sessions. It is replicated at country level in 70 countries to enable business unit managers to also show ethical leadership. "We encourage people to talk about ethical issues, so we can look directly at the problem and address it,” says Emmanuel.
This survey shows that employees in France who work in organisations with an environment that is perceived as supportive to ethics demonstrate that:
- Honesty is practiced more frequently (88% vs 45%)
- They are less likely to have been aware of misconduct at work (27% vs 66%)
- They felt less pressure to compromise ethics. (80% vs 57%)
- They are more willing to speak up if they have witnessed misconduct (72% vs 44%)
This comes as no surprise to Emmanuel. "Trust is the currency of ethics,” he says. "When you have a culture of integrity, you generate trust. The ability of an organisation to generate and maintain trust is an indicator of its sustainability. Although there is no line in the accounts – a culture of integrity is an organisation’s most valuable asset – it adds value to a company." The opinion survey that was recently carried out worldwide at L’Oréal showed that over 92% staff think that overall L’Oréal is an ethical company and that 85% staff have taken ethics into consideration in their work at during the last 30 days.
"Without that culture, an organisation is unable to generate and maintain trust with its consumers, employees, suppliers, clients. It will fail sooner or later. Employees will leave; consumers will stop buying your products; it becomes difficult to find suppliers – it’s true of every stakeholder.”
While the survey’s findings seem to indicate a positive trend towards a corporate culture that is more supportive of ethical values in business, and more open to employees asking questions and raising concerns about ethical behaviour, French employees appear to have a lower than the European average perception of how their company treats stakeholders – 58% think their organisation acts responsibly in all its business dealings (compared with 70%); and only 51% believe their organisation lives up to its social responsibility (compared with 63%).
"If we want change to happen, we need to change the rules of the game," says Emmanuel. "At the moment, there is too much on generating money – but financial currency is not enough any longer to measure the performance and sustainability of an organisation. The measure of its ethical culture, its culture of integrity, should complement the statutory accounts, and trust is the currency of ethics. I firmly believe that.”
Author
Emmanuel Lulin
Chief Ethics Officer, L'Oreal
Emmanuel overseas all of L’Oréal ethics strategy and operation and reports directly to the Chairman and CEO. He is also in charge of Human Rights for the Group.
Emmanuel directs outreach efforts to policy makers and to the General Public to promote Business Ethics. He regularly visits all of the group’s operations worldwide (65 countries since 2015), presides the Group Human Rights Committee and represents L’ORÉAL in a number of international organisations such as UN Global Compact, UN Women and the Institute of Business Ethics (London).
Under Emmanuel’s leadership, L'Oreal’s achievements in ethics are internationally recognised: Since 2007, the company has been recognised 10 times as a "World’s Most Ethical Company" by Ethisphere.
In 2019, the ethical reputation rating firm Covalence gave the highest Aa+ grade to L’Oreal and ranks it as N°1 in the world in all sectors of activity out of 6.600 companies. In 2017 and in 2018, L’Oreal received the Transparency Grand Prix. In 2018, the Group received both the first Award of Excellence for Leadership in Ethics and the first Award of Excellence for Ethical Governance by the Chair-Master of Law and Business Ethics of the University of Cergy-Pontoise.
Admitted to the Paris Bar in 1988, Emmanuel practiced as a corporate and tax attorney at Debevoise & Plimpton. He worked in Paris and New York. In 1999, he joined L’Oreal to become the Group General Counsel for Human Resources. In 2007, he created the Office of the Group Chief Ethics Officer.
Emmanuel holds a Master of Laws from the U. of Chicago Law School and Law degrees from Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne) and Paris II (Assas). In 1988, he was Lavoisier Laureate of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Emmanuel is a Director on the Board of the Ethics and Compliance Initiative-Ethics Resource Center (Washington DC), the leading oldest US association dedicated to Business Ethics. Since 2018, he is a UN Global Compact Expert. He is Counsellor to One Young World (Ottawa, Bogota, The Hague) and member of Deloitte’s Think-Tank Trust & Governance (Paris). Since 2019, Emmanuel is member of the Corporate Governance Committee of MEDEF.
Emmanuel was Chair of the Global Business Conduct Council (The Conference Board - New York), member of the Ethics Committees of the French Agency for Development, of the Institut Français des Administrateurs and of the MEDEF. He was member of the Boards of Cercle Montesquieu, of the Ethics & Compliance Officer Association in the United States (2007-2012) and of the Cercle Ethique des Affaires in France (2011-2017).
Initiator of the 1st Master in Law and Business Ethics in the world at the University of Cergy-Pontoise in 2007, Emmanuel is member of Scientific/ Advisory Committees of universities, periodicals or bodies dedicated to business ethics.
Since 2013, Emmanuel gave more than 100 Master Classes at major academic or business institutions including Stanford, NYU, U. of Illlinois, Sciences-Po Paris, CEDEP, INSEAD, ESCP, U. of Indonesia, Louvain, Pontifical U. in Bogota and in Rio de Janeiro, American U. of Beyrouth and of Sharjah (UAE), Monash U.(Kuala Lumpur), Alba U. (Greece), U. of Victoria (NZ), Strathmore BS (Nairobi), Fondaçao Getulio Vargas (Rio), NOVA (Lisbon), Exeter U., Stockholm School of Economics, Norwegian Business School, BS of Aalto (Helsinki), U. of Amsterdam, U. de Montréal, McGill U., Sofia Faculty of Economics, etc.
In 2012, Emmanuel created the Professional Club of the Cercle Éthique des Affaires. In 2016, he inspired ThinkH+, a Think-Tank on Transhumanism within the Legal Clinic of Sciences-Po Paris. In 2017, he chaired the ORSE – the leading French Observatory of Corporate Social Responsibility – working group, "Ethics, Responsibility and Corporate Strategy".
Since 2011, Emmanuel has been interviewed or featured more than 100 times by leading business newspapers and magazines such as The Wall Street Journal, Nikkei, Nikkei Business, China Daily, the South China Morning Post, Hong-Kong Economic times, Commercial Times, Business Insider, The Edge, Koran Sindo, The Business Times, The Philippines Daily Enquirer, The Economic Times, Die Presse, Der Standard, Cinco Dias, Borsen, Les Echos, De Telegraaf, Ekonomica Media, Dario Economico, La Libre Belgique, To Vima, Figyelo, Sozcu, Reforma, La Republica, El Espectador, La Nacion, Noticias, Pulso Chile, Exane, El Empressario, Gulf Business Magazine, The National, Financial Guardian, The Standard, NZ Listener, Les Affaires, l’Economiste, etc.
Emmanuel’s achievements in ethics are internationally recognised. In 2012, 2014 and 2017, Emmanuel was on the Attorney Who Matter Ethisphere List as a “Top Ethics & Compliance Officer”.
In 2015, he is the first non-american to receive the prestigious Carol R. Marshall Award for Innovation in Corporate Ethics from the Ethics & Compliance Initiative (Washington DC).
In 2018, Emmanuel is the first individual to be recognised by the United Nations as a UN Global Compact SDG Pioneer for Advancing Business Ethics. He received the first Award of Honours for Influence in Ethics by the University of Cergy-Pontoise. In 2018, Emmanuel is also the first non-american to be honoured with the Bill Daniels Being A Difference Award from the Center for Public Trust of the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy.