L’Oréal USA: “We thrive on togetherness”

Laurie Leibach, SVP HR, L’Oréal USA’s consumer products division.

Some stand-out examples of living and breathing workplace inclusion is L’Oréal USA’s focus on pay parity across “all dimensions of diversity”, including women, people of color, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+, and veterans.

The beauty brand’s commitment saw it receive the EDGEplus certification, “which was a very big moment of pride for us”, notes Leibach.

The LGBTQ+ community is a priority for L’Oréal USA – its policies include “equal employment opportunity across sexual orientation and gender identity, same-sex spousal benefits and transgender-inclusive healthcare coverage”.

“A very big focus of ours is caring about parents”, adds Leibach. “So we provide worldwide fully paid parental leave – a minimum of 14 weeks for women and six for men”, L’Oréal has also “added more enhancements around bonding, adoption, and surrogacy”

Health and wellbeing are also priorities for L’Oréal USA. “We look at wellness holistically; its physical, it’s mental, it’s social, and it’s financial”. The employer makes sure “we have programs in place that support our employees in the ways they need most”.

This includes ensuring “psychological safety” is a priority; L’Oréal USA wants to ensure “employees feel comfortable [talking] about what’s going on” in their personal lives – and then “seek help and support from their managers and their teams”.

Being a sustainable business and employer

Since L’Oréal was founded by a chemist, “science is at the core of what we do”. “And science tells us that we have an urgency to do what’s right for the planet now, and in the future”, Leibach tells UNLEASH.

This explains why – alongside uniqueness and innovation – sustainability is another central tenet of the company’s culture and purpose. The beauty giant’s commitments for 2030 are known as L’Oréal for the Future.

There are three big pillars – the first is “transforming ourselves, and respecting planetary boundaries” – this means L’Oréal is conscious about how and where it creates its products.

Leibach gives two US examples: Maybelline New York’s first-ever sustainable make-up line Green Edition (“it includes a minimum of 70% natural ingredients, and [has] consciously designed packaging that’s made from recyclable materials), as well as Garnier’s new shampoo bars, which are free of plastic and made with 94% plant ingredients.

Leibach adds: “We have goals around facilities being carbon neutral, saving water” – L’Oréal USA also looks at its packaging “and the way that we manufacture to make sure that we’re respecting…the limits of the planet that we live on”, explains Leibach.

L’Oréal is secondly “empowering our business ecosystem” to be sustainable. “We have a responsibility to help involve our customers, our supplies, and our consumers” in creating “a more sustainable world”.

Thirdly, L’Oréal’s commitment goes beyond sustainability, and toward social responsibility. It involves “going beyond our business model to really address some of today’s most pressing issues”, according to Leibach.

This feeds into L’Oréal’s commitment to being not just an environmentally conscious business, but also weaving sustainability into its HR priorities.

Leibach explains that L’Oréal USA offices don’t have single-use water bottles, they prioritize recycling and eliminating waste. The aim of this is to “foster [employees] sustainable habits whenever we meet” and in “how we work and how we travel”.

Also, all the beauty brand’s employees have “sustainability embedded in their goals and objectives”.

Leibach states that this means “rewarding and recognizing employees” financially for their input in L’Oréal USA achieving its objectives around sustainability.

For supply chain workers, their part its in terms of how they create and package products, while for sales and marketing teams, this may be around the relationships they build with sustainable and eco-friendly customers and suppliers. 

Leibach explains that for her HR team it is around education around sustainability, as well as hosting events that link up employees with their broader community.

Staying united during the pandemic

Given how important belonging and collaboration is to L’Oréal USA, UNLEASH was curious about what impact COVID-19 – and the need for employees to be physically separated to stay safe – had on the world of work at the beauty giant.

“It’s been quite a challenging few years for all organizations [and their people] in so many different ways”, notes Leibach.

A big priority was ensuring “we remained united even though we were physical disconnected”; “at the core of our culture are the tight relationships we have across the organization, and how we thrive on…togetherness”

Therefore, L’Oréal USA upped its employee listening – with the help of pulse surveys and HR sharing circles – this made employee feel “seen, heard and supported”, and that HR teams were accessible”.

As well as putting “mechanisms in place… [to help] employees to feel that connectedness”, L’Oréal USA focused on “protecting the jobs of our employees”.

Leibach comments: “We had to do our part to make sure that, even though our salons were closed, many of our stores were closed, [and] many of retail partners were shifting, we protected the jobs and livelihoods of our employees”.

Therefore, the beauty brand ensured there was pay and benefits continuation for workers. Leibach is particularly proud that L’Oréal USA committed to doing this during the pandemic.

Credit: L’Oréal.

The future is hybrid

Since togetherness is so essential to L’Oréal USA, the company knew it had to “prepare people…to come back to the office at some point”.

Leibach explains that as act of “solidarity” with employees who couldn’t work from home, “it was very important for us to not create two different groups of employees”.

Clearly, proximity bias or ‘out of sight of mind’ has no place at L’Oréal USA.

“So very early on, we came back to the office” “to just keep that cohesion together”. This hybrid approach is overseen by L’Oréal’s #Safetogether plan, which was announced in May 2020, as well as the ‘Best of Both Worlds’ policy launched in October 2021.

The idea is to provide “that flexibility, while also protecting and fostering that sense of togetherness and the power of our in-person connection”, according to Leibach. The model is three days in the office, two days at home – and employees decide the day based on their schedule.

“We created the ‘Best of Both Worlds’ training program, including resources for managers and for employees. It is not just transforming the hours we work, but also providing the technology [to make sure] that the experience is the same whether you’re in the office or at home”.

“It gives people that feeling in this new world of work that they can have that flexibility without giving up…that feeling [of] togetherness”.

Thriving during the ‘Great Resignation’

Unsurprisingly, L’Oréal USA’s culture of belonging, and the importance of togetherness, is central to why the company is not struggling with the ‘Great Resignation’, Leibach tells UNLEASH.

The beauty giant has made sure to communicate “our purpose, who we are and what kind of career and culture we have”. Linked to this, Leibach is clear that L’Oréal USA’s sustainability initiatives have a role to play here, particularly in attracting and retaining younger generations.

Gen Z is especially “keen on making a difference in everything that they do”. So in order to retain and attract this demographic, “we are putting resources behind the initiatives that we’re doing so we can go further [and] we can make sure we’re ahead” and always future-focused, according to Leibach.

In addition, L’Oréal USA “continues to build our talent pipeline”, as well as looking at “career-building” and talent mobility “in a very holistic way”.

As part of this, L’Oréal USA remains in touch with employees who leave the company “in case there is an opportunity that makes sense in the future”.

Leibach concludes: “There’s a big reshuffle out there. The more that we can connect employees to our sense of purpose, our values” the better.

Want to find out more about why purpose-driven companies will thrive in the future? Laurie Leibach will be speaking at UNLEASH America (25-26 May) in Las Vegas. See you there.