HR Policy
A commited Group
FDJ runs the lottery in France. With 23 million players, we are a benchmark of the entertainment industry. We offer our employees a fabulous playground: a work environment that stimulates collective intelligence, 2,500 professionals driven to entertain our customers and change their lives (a new millionaire every 2 days), innovation approaches and state-of-the-art technologies poised to conquer new markets.
Recognizing that employee engagement is the key component of its performance, FDJ Group is committed to implementing an ambitious and innovative human resources policy centred on the employee experience.
FDJ observes and enforces the ILO’s Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work at all Group entities: freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining, elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labour, effective abolition of child labour, and elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation, as reiterated in the preamble to the agreement governing the appointment of Group union delegates.
The human resources policy is based on strategic workforce planning aimed at achieving the Group’s strategy, developing managerial, collective and individual performance, maintaining a high level of social dialogue to build a strong foundation for management/labour relations promoting the employability of all by developing business skills, behavioural skills and proficiency in cross-business digital tools.
Hiring
In 2020, in order to acquire the skills necessary to achieve its strategic objectives, the Group hired 200 new employees under long term contracts (excl. Sporting division) and 77 under short term contracts (excl. Sporting division), despite the health crisis.
These recruitments focused in particular on business lines and areas of expertise inherent in the company’s digital projects (customer experience managers, data analysts, web engineers and developers, project managers, traders for sports betting, logistics experts, sales representatives, etc.) in a bid to meet the challenge of winning over new customers and expanding the Group’s business, and to address the strategic adjustments made by the Group in response to the changing circumstances and impact of the health crisis on its business.
Despite the health crisis, FDJ Group thus continued hiring staff under all types of contracts (long term, short term) in 2020, while also taking on work-study participants to contribute to the employability of young professionals, who have been hit especially hard by the current crisis.
Skills, Management, Employability & Training
To deploy its strategy, FDJ Group plans ahead for the skills sets it needs to recruit and/or develop internally, such as business line experts, cross-business project managers and line managers.
The training policy is aimed at bringing about the Group transformation, as a means of implementing strategic priorities and as a key factor in improving employee skills and capabilities.
Each year, the Group allocates a significant share of its budget to employee training, and as of 2020 has worked to adapt its training programme to telework conditions. The percentage of FDJ SA’s payroll earmarked for training held steady at 3% in 2020 (vs. approximately 4% in previous years).
The training programme covers five key areas:
- Skills directly focused on the business (e.g. cloud architecture, development languages, cybersecurity, digital marketing, UX design, etc.);
- Digital media and data management;
- Soft skills and management;
- Operational efficiency and project management;
- Languages: a significant effort was made to improve English-language skills in 2020 by providing all employees with open access to a training platform.
In order to take individual situations into consideration and target its initiatives, the skills development plan combines multiple approaches:
- an individual training plan for employees being transferred, where they are changing roles and/or assignments.
- a special course for employees taking on managerial positions;
- access to a skills assessment and/or training courses aimed at helping employees build their career plan, and a special programme designed to encourage staff members in their 50s to remain proactive towards the end of their career;
- special development programmes for women: transitioning into management, returning to work after maternity leave, etc.;
- language courses, based on required proficiency levels;
- an online training platform including hundreds of training modules on a variety of up-to-date professional topics.
Social dialogue & Group social foundation
Management is committed, in the medium term, to harmonising devices, practices, representative trade union agreements at Group level (FDJ Group trade unions: FO, CFE-CGC and CFDT).
The high level of social dialogue is reflected in:
- the very large number of staff representative meetings (including ad hoc meetings with all FDJ Group staff representatives where necessary, such as during the health crisis)
- the fundamental belief in the importance of presenting major projects to staff representatives (see Preamble to the agreement on the Group and the Group Committee). It is also reflected in the signing and implementation of multiple agreements underpinning the Group's necessary transformations.
Negotiations with the main FDJ entities (FDJ SA and FDP) are held twice a month. Major agreements were thus negotiated on the right to disconnect, working time and telework which provided, well before many other companies and even before the health crisis erupted, the option of teleworking two days per week, donating days of leave and taking part in employee savings plans (see attachments for list of most recent agreements).
Similarly, in the interest of respecting and promoting the role of staff representatives and trade unions, FDJ has entered into an agreement on connected social dialogue, under which representative trade unions put out a website and newsletter to communicate and promote their initiatives even more easily to employees. Since 2018 and a preliminary framework profit-sharing agreement, the Group has been hard at work building a strong foundation for management/labour relations, and in October 2019 established a Group savings plan under the Offer Reserved for Employees (“ORS”) submitted at the time the company was privatised. In 2020, Group-level negotiations were stepped up despite the health crisis, with Management continuing to set up the Group foundation for sound management/labour relations, with a focus on:
- Employee savings,
- Mutual health insurance and personal protection insurance,
- Strategic Workforce Planning (“GPEC”),
- Professional equality, diversity and quality of life at work.
Multiple Group-wide agreements (or covering the Group’s scope of operations) were entered into in 2020, strengthening the sense of pride in belonging to the Group and further building the foundation for sound management/labour relations. Three major agreements were signed at Group level, with supralegal status:
- Agreement on requesting and donating leave and days off during the COVID-19 epidemic, entered into on April 7, 2020
- “Group and Group Committee” agreement, entered into on April 22, 2020
- Agreement on the appointment of Group trade union delegates, entered into on April 22, 2020.
Remuneration
Group remuneration and employee benefit policies reflect benchmark practices in its markets of operation, with the constant objective of treating all employees fairly and maintaining the Group’s competitiveness.
The starting salaries of new employees are compared against a market benchmark and the internal remuneration benchmark. They are subsequently reviewed once a year when setting the wage policy and conducting employee reviews. Part of the wage policy budget is set aside each year for closing the gender pay gap.
Furthermore, a performance-based variable pay system has been gradually rolled out at FDJ over the last four years for all white collars (cadres) on long term contracts, i.e. 80% of the workforce. Given the activity of FDP and FDJ Gaming Solutions France, 100% of employees already have a variable share system.
Remuneration also includes employee profit-sharing and incentives, aimed at sharing the rewards of the Group’s performance and sustaining employee engagement. A Group-level profit-sharing agreement was signed in 2018. The company can make top-up contributions under incentive programmes, in accordance with the terms and conditions of the various agreements entered into by Group entities.
Employee shareholding
Before privatisation, FDJ SA employees were entitled to take part in an employee shareholder mutual fund. As of the IPO, all Group employees have access to the fund, granted for the first time under the Pacte Act and the Offer Reserved for Employees (“ORS”). In 2020, employees were given the opportunity to invest the profit-sharing and incentives vested in 2019 in the Group shareholding fund under the Group Savings Plan (“PEG”). Starting in June 2021, in addition to profit-sharing and incentive payments on this fund, employees will be able to make voluntary payments to the Group shareholding fund at their discretion. At the start of 2021, Group employees owned roughly 4% of FDJ’s share capital via the Group shareholding fund!
Employee engagement rate
90% of employees are proud to work for FDJ and over 85% are satisfied with their job and the work environment. More than 90% of employees are FDJ shareholders.
FDJ Group employees are free to take part in social initiatives organised by the FDJ Foundation. More than one-fourth are involved in associations working to promote integration and education. They can, for example, coach young people completing civic service programmes with the association “Unis-Cité”, or give presentations in middle school classes with the association “Energie Jeunes”.
During the health crisis in 2020, Group employees showed solidarity by donating days of leave, thus raising €350,000 for the nation’s healthcare workers, research and the underprivileged.
