Aarontad

Hello everybody, today raphael and I will talk about the group Decathlon that has been voted best place to work in France in 2018.

So, First, we will present the company, then spoke about the recruitment methods, the working conditions, how the company rewards the workers and all important points which have made the company as successful and attractive for employees.

Decathlon quelques chiffres:

As you may know the Decathlon group is a French sporting goods retailer. It is the largest in the world with over 1500 stores in 49 countries. It employs more than 87.000 staff from 80 different nationalities. The group owns over 20 brands, with research and development facilities all over France to develop the latest innovative designs, registering up to 40 patents per year.

Decathlon stocks a wide range of sporting goods usually in large superstores which are sized at an average of 4000m2 and split into different departments for each sport.

La politique de recrutement: (Organigramme)

For the recruitment procedure each manager is responsible for the recruitment of its own employees. It gives an autonomy for each store.

To hire staff the company relies more on passion and motivation than on degrees.

For the salesperson’s position which is the position with the most applicants, managers are looking for sporty persons (football, scuba diving, ski or any other) so they suit to a sport section in store and be able to advise customers.

A suitable profile would be that of a student between 20 and 30 years old that practice a sport in competition or very often.

Then the new employee is directly trained on the field to the various management methods that are essential for carrying out the activity.

In addition to that, Decathlon offers real opportunities for employees to reach managerial positions.

As an example, Patrice Landais Decathlon’s Ex Human Resources Director began as a simple salesperson and then climb the scale ( going through department manager, management controller)

Working conditions:

As we said, Decathlon has been elected the best place to work in 2018.

Great Place To Work is a firm that establishes a ranking of companies with the best working conditions.

To be included in the ranking, a company must pay an average fee of 6000euros that explain why all companies aren’t ranked so unfortunately we couldn’t compare Decathlon with its biggest competitor which is Go Sport. 

According to this firm a company where it is good to work is one where people:

• Feel valued and trusted (This is the most important criterion for Decathlon, just after being hired the employee will be able to make decisions to improve his department and increase the sales. The director is fully responsible for the sales results and is not subject to external pressure. This is the position assumed by the company in order to minimize the cost of executive salaries and more importantly to develop this self-confidence for the workers.

• Have a sense of purpose - that what they do is not 'just a job'

• Are proud of what they do and who they work for (former employees reported a lack of leadership skills even if they’re proud to work for Decathlon as an entity, . Globally workers are proud of what they do at work since it is related to their passion…

• Have opportunities to develop personally and professionally (86% of employees think working there is useful for personal development)

• Are encouraged to balance their work and their personal lives - they feel able to put their needs ahead of those of the business (thanks to flexible timetables for example)

• Are committed to doing their best and enjoy working with their colleagues to deliver the organisation's goals (At Decathlon, all employees are passionate about sport, so it facilitates exchanges between colleagues and allows them to socialize)

 According to the test 90% employees said that they’re proud and happy to work there.

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