EDF is convinced that it will perform better if its employees feel respected, including respect for their personal beliefs, as this will allow them to fully commit to their work teams. The EDF group has been committed to respecting religion in the workplace since 2008, and published a first set of guidelines in 2010 (updated in 2016), setting out guidelines for managers and HR officers to help them understand, analyse and act in compliance with the law. All of these guidelines are designed to prevent discrimination and facilitate the creation of a respectful working environment, that improves team cohesion and the Group’s performance. The guidelines produced now refer to and are directly inspired by situations in the workplace (case studies).
To support and implement these policies of inclusion and equal opportunity, EDF has gradually produced educational and training materials for its entire workforce, whilst still providing managers and HR staff with more targeted materials. For example, in 2018, Enedis (distribution network manager) published a set of guidelines called “Deciding without discrimination” aimed at its managers and HR staff. To raise employee awareness of diversity and encourage new inclusive practices and methods of organisation, the Group has launched a digital training programme called “Together in Diversity” based on a serious game mechanism. EDF aims to use that programme to train all its managers between 2017 and 2020. It also trains everyone involved in its recruitment process, using a digital training course that includes a specific module on how to “recruit without discrimination”. EDF also provides awareness-raising materials in short, fun formats to allow employees to take action to create a caring, respectful and inclusive environment. For example: “Sexism, not our thing” anti-sexism kits to be used as part of the systematic Health and Safety ritual at the beginning of each team meeting; three Serious Games, developed in partnership with the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers Pays de la Loire covering intergenerational issues, gender equality in the workplace and cultural diversity.
Total compensation is a key component in recognising the contribution of every staff member to the Group’s performance. It contributes to employee engagement, increases the loyalty of talent and adds to the Group’s attractiveness. Accordingly, the Group is committed to offering its employees fair and competitive compensation, while paying great attention to the quality and level of social welfare it proposes, particularly in terms of cover against the major risks of life. The Group accordingly formally introduced a total compensation and fringe benefits policy. It covers all employees of the main companies controlled by the Group.
The Group’s main foreign companies’ compensation and social welfare systems have been reviewed based on this policy. The total compensation policy is based on four main principles: competitiveness in the external market; internal consistency and fairness; financial sustainability; and communication.
It is based on fixed compensation and individual and/or collective variable compensation which serves to recognise the achievement of objectives, connected to the companies’ economic results. There is a direct and visible link between the employee’s contribution and the related compensation. The Group’s companies guarantee the meeting of the minimum legal or professional requirements in each country and the absence of discrimination. Since 2018, EDF has used the Transforming Recognition project to reaffirm its priorities in terms of recognition and update its policies by improving the integration of recognition into its managerial practices and processes, strengthening the link between personal contribution (performance, ability to adapt and take the initiative) and financial recognition and developing variable compensation schemes, linked to the Company’s financial performance, to recognise through differentiation. Lastly, to meet the challenges of employee and manager recognition, a project was launched in 2019 to modernise the pay classification system for the Electricity and Gas Industries branch.
Within the Group, most employees have individual or collective performance-based variable compensation. The terms and conditions of this variable compensation differ from one Group company to another, based on historical agreements and the applicable regulations.
At EDF, all employees may receive performance-related variable compensation. For managers, the variable share is based on both individual and collective targets whose weighting increases with the position within the Company.
EDF and Enedis pay special attention to the professional training of their managers on issues of compensation. In France, EDF and Enedis employees benefit from a profit-sharing scheme, introduced more than 20 years ago in the case of EDF and for Enedis when it became a subsidiary. Most of the Group’s European subsidiaries have similar schemes. EDF and Enedis employees can choose either to receive payment and/or to invest it into either the Group Corporate Savings Plan or the Group Collective Retirement Saving Plan. In a restrictive economic environment, the policy of an employer contribution for sums invested has been maintained
The EDF and Enedis profit-sharing agreements are three-yearly and require the profit-sharing amount payable to be set based on the meeting of national objectives reflecting the different components of the companies’ performances (economic, business lines, social and environmental).
It is open to employees of EDF and of the Group’s French companies in which EDF owns directly or indirectly at least 40% of the share capital and which have signed up for the Group Corporate Savings Plan.
A full range of diversified mutual funds is available for subscription, including conservative funds mainly invested in bonds and money market investments, balanced funds and dynamic funds, mainly invested in shares, including shareholding funds invested in EDF shares. The EDF group’s corporate savings plan totalled €5 billion at the end of 2019. Profit-sharing, as well as individual payments and transfers from the Time Savings Accounts, are matched by the Company under conditions negotiated within each company.
The EDF group’s Collective Retirement Savings Plan is made up of two FCPE (Employee Mutual Investment Funds) profit-sharing funds with a total of eight investment vehicles: one solidarity fund and one set-maturity fund. The plan maybe managed independently, in which case it may be invested in any sub-fund regardless of the retirement date, or by the fund manager, in which case the level of risk will be automatically reduced as the maturity date approaches (retirement, projects etc.). Profit-sharing, as well as individual payments and transfers from the Time Savings Accounts, are matched by the Company under conditions negotiated within each company.
The EDF group’s Collective Retirement Savings Plan totalled approximately €927 million at the end of 2019.
In 2019, a share ownership transaction reserved for employees (ORS) was carried out: 7.7 million shares were proposed to 220,000 eligible employees through a transfer of shares held by the French state. The reference price was €12.26 and the price offered to employees (including a 20% discount) was set at €9.81. The transaction was a success, as employees reserved almost six times the number of available shares.
Through an organisational decision of the Group HRD “Overseeing collective bargaining at EDF SA” of 1 October 2018, an oversight procedure was introduced for the implementation of collective bargaining agreements to assess the effects of the negotiated agreements along with a consolidated agenda for the committees monitoring the collective bargaining agreements (including the Global Framework Agreement on the EDF group’s Corporate Social Responsibility). This oversight is now presented once a year at the Group HRD Management Committee.
All of the items listed in the 2019 social agenda were successfully negotiated. The collective negotiations were particularly productive at EDF in 2019 as 12 agreements and supplemental agreements were signed.
