My career thus far has seen me working across different countries, continents, cultures and roles, enabling me to experience many new challenges and perspectives.

After living in several European countries and gaining experiences in the Middle East, Turkey and Brazil, my career journey has taken me to China. Many ask what my main impressions are of working in China. The response that immediately comes to mind is ‘scale’, ‘speed’, ‘iterative innovation’ and ‘change’, but if I could use one more word, it would be ‘youth’. That said, I have seen many commonalities and even future trends in China that we are now seeing in Europe and the US.

During my three years in China I’ve learned many new words and concepts – not just through my Chinese lessons but also through business experiences. It feels like a view to the possible future of other countries, filled almost exclusively with digital payments, live-stream ‘merchandising’ and virtual online meetings with thousands of employees or customers – experiences that I had never had in other countries.  When I showed my two teenage daughters a live-streaming filter to enhance visual effects that I bought on Taobao – a leading Chinese merchandise channel where one can find practically everything – they were incredibly amused that their dad had become so ‘young and trendy’.

When I first came to China, I was amazed that the average age of employees was a mere 28 years old and that there were a significant number of post-90s professionals in mid-level management with more senior responsibilities. Another unique aspect of China’s labour market is that the healthcare industry has a much higher employee turnover rate, of about 25-30%, compared to Europe, where it is close to 1%. The result is that most of the company’s workforce consists of people with new, fresh ideas and lots of enthusiasm, who are often unconventional and innovative and do not hesitate to move on when the next best opportunity pops up.  The vast majority are extremely digitally savvy and are highly attuned to convenient mobile digital experiences.

Our goals of achieving ambitious business targets go hand-in-hand with a focus on helping people achieve their career and life aspirations. So, how do you motivate such a young and dynamic group of people in conjunction with other age groups in the company? One clear answer is to see things from their perspective. We need to think and do things in a ‘young and trendy’ way, independent of the age group we are addressing.

We want to interact and connect with our employees across every company touchpoint – from recruitment, management and development – in the same way they might interact with their friends and peers. We don’t do this because it’s fashionable, but because – from a talent perspective – these initiatives meet the needs of our associates in a more engaging and efficient way.

‘Cross-team collaboration has also become more accessible, allowing more agile projects to emerge’

Sanofi was one of the first companies to apply artificial intelligence (AI) to the recruitment process by introducing our digital recruitment bot. With the help of AI technologies, the company can send accurate and tailored recruitment information to interested and potential candidates. This technology minimises the likelihood of sending unwanted spam messages to potential recruits and increases the efficiency of the initial steps of the recruitment process. Throughout the process, we found that we have a higher rate of successfully onboarding talent recruited through AI than through traditional channels, that are often swayed with subjectivity.

However, digital recruiting and fully online on-boarding is just one small part of our digital-driven talent strategy. Once recruits are on board, they can take advantage of a more authentic, digitally driven and agile company culture.

I recently told my team that ‘breaking down the barriers of the mind starts with breaking down the office walls’. You can imagine this idea was not immediately popular with my senior team. I started by giving up my office and sitting in an open space with my colleagues. Now the entire management sits in an open area. We share desks which has dramatically improved communication and accelerated decision-making within the organisation. Team members can easily walk up and ask their questions, instead of having to coordinate with assistants to arrange a meeting.

Cross-team collaboration has also become more accessible, allowing more agile projects to emerge. By removing departmental barriers and reporting lines, essential tasks are easier to achieve, and this is strengthened through cross-department cooperation, led by our product leaders. Temporary co-location and co-creation make things faster, where needed. This is the kind of efficient and agile work environment our younger workforce prefers, as it gives them a sense of effectiveness and achievement.

Our way of working has become more flexible, with a stronger online focus. Since the beginning of 2019, we have advocated a mobile-first digital way of working, creating a corporate WeCom (Instant Message-based) work platform and a series of projects to foster a more efficient work experience for employees. For example, staff communications are no longer via email but through WeCom, a platform that is easily accessed on a mobile phone.

Employees are free to work from home two days a week. Much of the work-related internal processes and services can be done on WeCom, like on- and off-boarding, reimbursements, acquiring official legal stamps/seals, calling corporate-funded taxis, etc. Accessed at any location with just one click, these actions have become far more effortless as evidenced by a colleague, who said: “I hadn’t even stepped out of the hospital door and my medical reimbursement was already on my phone!” Clearly, this transformation has directly impacted employee satisfaction.

We have also focused on upgrading our capabilities at the business level in terms of interactions with healthcare professionals and customers. Our new go-to-market hybrid model enables field employees to connect with our customers both physically and remotely with tailored content. Powered by new technologies and data analysis, we strive to provide high-value service and personalised experiences through omnichannel collaboration to meet the needs of different customers.
  
After embarking on this journey of digital transformation approximately one year before the COVID-19 outbreak, this digitisation helped us during the pandemic to make it a standard way of working for the future.

With the high attrition rate of China’s healthcare market, our response was to move from a focus on retention to a focus on being a company that existing and prospective staff are excited about being a part of. We didn’t always get it right the first time and there were lessons to learn along the way. We try to empower the people we hire, create exciting career growth opportunities across functions and potentially global roles and do our best to recognise employee achievements. Although the number of managers in each department is limited, our recipe for development is steady internal advancement.

‘The opportunity for employees to change positions without changing companies is an attractive proposition for both the individual and the employer’

Our internal recruitment rate shows that up to 70% of senior management are internal placements. The company simultaneously provides employees with an online platform that is rich in learning and development resources. We invite all employees to create a personal development plan after their probationary period, mapping their development over the next two to three years so that the company can understand where their aspirations lie. According to their development plans, we encourage them to enhance their existing skills through continuous self-learning. These plans offer our employees more possibilities for development and help them to develop skills for future roles.

The opportunity for employees to change positions without changing companies is an attractive proposition for both the individual and the employer and our employees are free to apply for other internal jobs without needing prior approval from their managers. We have seen this generate fantastic motivation and a shift in thinking among managers. As a result, our attrition rate is now falling slightly, even as China’s economic recovery pushes the market level higher in healthcare.

Our success here is evident when we look at our internal numbers and has been recognised externally, with Sanofi ranking as the No1 ‘Top Employer’ in China for two years in a row, in 2021 and 2022, having been in the lowest third in 2019

For me, the key to leading these highly diverse age groups is to adopt the ‘youth mindset’ of constantly learning and developing – this has been both my personal experience and my experience within the company. As I’ve interacted with young professionals and learned new digital tools, I’ve gained new skills and perspectives. We have applied this philosophy to talent recruitment and development for our team, fostering an open and energising working environment. In this sense, the team is more like a ‘Freewomen and Freemen’s League’, providing a place where people support and empower each other to rise and step up to meet new challenges. Our goal is to enrich every employee’s career through learning and growth at Sanofi, even for those employees who later decide to leave the company. Remaining focused on helping our employees find their best career path, develop their abilities and realise their ambitions is key to Sanofi’s success.