Valuing People
Helping people grow, creating a sense of belonging, building loyaltyWell-being and professional growth happen through internal professional development prospects and educational actions taken by the cooperative to enable employees to grow within Savéol
THE WEALTH OF COOPERATIVE JOBS
The fruit and vegetable growing sector is a particularly significant source of jobs and is open to very diverse and complementary skills. Savéol currently employs 324 people - permanent and seasonal - at its headquarters, in its packaging stations, at Savéol Nature and Savéol Horizons. At the headquarters, engineers and technicians are familiar with cultivation practices and quality. They advise and provide ongoing oversight to maintain best practices. Sales representatives, IT specialists, administrative agents and all service workers respond to customers directly and indirectly. Their efforts make it possible to deliver fresh products to supermarkets in France and Europe every day, to manufacturers, wholesalers and restaurants. At the packaging stations, logistics specialists receive the harvest, approve, package and ship the day’s products.
The 110 producers are real self-sufficient small businesses while remaining fruit and vegetable growers, that is to say experts in greenhouse cultivation. They employ 2,500 people directly.
A LOOK AT HUMAN CAPITAL
Cohesion, solidarity, passion and recognition of work are strong values that we uphold every day. Savéol management, supported by the human resources team, has 5 key objectives:
Unify the operation:
The cooperative is a whole. The personnel management policy aims to harmonise the conditions and status of permanent and seasonal workers, and to ensure complete consistency between the life of the farms and the life of the cooperative.
Supporting Growth:
Well-being and professional development require prospects for professional development in-house and training events managed by the cooperative to enable the employee to grow within Savéol: The ability to use automated machinery, on-the-job first-aid, accreditation, training in machine operation, adapting to new working tools and technological developments, etc.
Creating a sense of belonging:
The challenge for the HR team is to create a sense of belonging among all Savéol professionals, particularly among seasonal employees. This requires participatory management in regular working groups.
Recognizing skills:
Recognition at work is a key factor in developing everyone and giving them their own place within the cooperative, particularly greenhouses work.
Retaining seasonal workers:
Seasonal workers constitute a significant part of the jobs generated by the cooperative because of the very nature of its activity. 80% of them come back year after year. In-depth work is carried out by the Human Resources Department:
Networking with Breton companies who operate in our off-seasons
training activities,
loyalty bonuses beginning in the 3rd season, etc.
Paid holiday for seasonal workers
Our responsibility as an employer is to develop the internal and external employability of seasonal workers by highlighting their skills. That is why we invest in training. This is a gamble that we make; that of believing in the evolution of the career path of seasonal workers.
SOCIAL PERFORMANCE
Management attaches particular importance to working conditions, whether at packaging plants or greenhouses sites.
The opening of the new head office in April 2016 was the beginning a new dynamic in terms of quality of life at work:
Establishment of focus groups on workstation ergonomics.
Establishment of sporting challenges.
Well-being and workout room, particularly for cohesion between employees and producers.
Opening of a common living space to strengthen cohesion between services
PREVENTION-SAFETY APPROACH
Goal: To improve employee safety, working conditions and organisational performance
As part of this approach, we have created the “preventer” position in order to coordinate the safety management system across the cooperative and to deploy prevention and health actions at work on the ground.
We tell the employees about Savéol’s story to inspire them to join us on the adventure. Our goal is for employees to be proud of belonging to the cooperative.
At the management's initiative, an employee association was established in 2016 called #TimeOff. Its purpose is to promote well-being at work by regularly offering sporting, cultural or artistic activities. The association is 80% funded by the cooperative and is run voluntary by a team of employees.
