[HR challenges – mid-sized company]

Managing internationalization at Stago

Stago is a mid-sized company with 2,600 employees, headquartered in Asnières-sur-Seine. The company designs, manufactures and sells biological reagents and test instruments to private and hospital medical laboratories for blood tests. It has 17 subsidiaries and is present in 110 countries across all continents. Half its workforce is based outside France and its global market share is 31% in hemostatic diagnosis. It is a private and financially independent company; it takes a long-term view and has positioned itself in a growth market. The company combines a strong culture, advanced expertise and an undeniable spirit of entrepreneurship.

Interview with Odile Pellier, Senior manager, HR development

Odile Pellier is senior manager, HR development and reports to the group’s HR director. She is in charge of managing talents and organizational design in collaboration with HRBPs based in France and in subsidiaries in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North America. Her scope includes performance & skills management, employee identification and development, training policies and schemes, recruitment, internal and international mobility, change management, organizational coaching and HR communication, and negotiation of company-wide agreements related to Stago’s policy (professional equality, employment and expertise plans).
 

Odile, you have been supporting Stago’s development for almost 20 years now, can you tell us about the key stages in your company’s growth - notably its internationalization - and about your role? 

Stago has R&D and production sites in Germany, China, Ireland, the Netherlands and the US. The company set up its first subsidiary in the US in 1985. The pace of our internationalization picked up in the 2000s with the opening of subsidiaries in China and the UK in 2005, then subsidiaries in Dubai in 2007, Australia and New Zealand in 2008 and Hong Kong in 2011.
2012 marked a new push to go international with the simultaneous opening of 8 distribution subsidiaries in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Switzerland. India followed in 2014, then Brazil in 2016 and Turkey in 2017.
Of these subsidiaries, 8 were set up in the space of 12 months. The HR function played a lead role in helping each one to be operational as of 1 January 2012. To define the organization of these subsidiaries, the size of which varied based on each market’s size, with the number and type of employees to be recruited stemming from that, we started from the drawing board.
The first challenge was to learn about the local specifics of each subsidiary: employment legislation, compensation system, social protection and job market, before even starting recruitment. Given the tight timeframe, the project was run in parallel in the various countries.
Beyond legal rules, information gathering also related to companies’ practices. For each country, we had to identify the best partners for recruitment, setting up compensation systems and employee benefits, and operating payroll. We also had to take a position to ensure that our group HR policy was consistent while complying with local rules. We learned to combine differentiation and integration!
The technical nature of our products also required deployment of a training program lasting several weeks, which we implemented as we recruited new staff and depending on their profiles.
In parallel, we also had to offer skills development for companies based in France that, overnight, became points of contact for the new entities. Beyond designing operational processes with subsidiaries, we deployed a training plan including an English refresher course for teams and training on understanding cultural differences. A real change management process took place!

What HR support do you offer these subsidiaries now?

Based on their sizes and needs, we provide both operational support for HR management and strategic support through the structure of a group-wide HR policy. We also make HR tools and processes available to all for performance and skills management, comp & ben, internal and international mobility, etc. 
Further, we run an HR community based on the guidelines that we set, practice sharing, deployment of initiatives to transmit our culture and to nurture the feeling of belonging in the company. As such, we organize international days for our staff several times a year. 
 

As an HR department in a mid-sized company, what are the main challenges that you face?

Given our growth and our highly expert work, our challenges center around:

• the promotion of our company culture, which is a major differentiating factor on the labor market, in all the countries in which we are based; 
• professional development of our staff to maximize their development opportunities in their function, to simplify moves between jobs and subsidiaries; 
• supporting our managers in managing change and teams in line with our culture;
• defining HR solutions to respond to operational needs in terms of organization and skills. 
   

What exactly have you implemented to support managers?

Since the lockdown, managerial practice has been revolutionized by remote working, new expectations from staff, recruitment difficulties due to labor markets experiencing shortages in all countries, the desire to give a greater value, through managerial practice, to the company’s culture and values.
Specifically, we have set up a Teams group to bring together the community of managers around the world, to facilitate exchange of practices and to provide content on management. We also organized webinars about major managerial issues (such as change management or engagement) for managers in all subsidiaries, and we implemented a training pathway for all those taking on a role as a manager in the company.
The convergence of managerial practice and their alignment with company culture has allowed us to build a shared employee experience and unique employer brand, the positive impact of which on our teams’ loyalty we are measuring. 
 

What differs about a role as HR director in a mid-sized company compared to the same role in a large enterprise?

Like in large enterprises, our role is to set HR policy in line with the company’s strategic challenges, to communicate on it and to ensure its operational implementation. 
The difference lies without a doubt in how close we are to both company management and to operational realities. This closeness acts as excellent leverage to act and allows us to offer a real continuum between the two. We are also multitaskers: we can be contacted about and prepare answers on any HR issue by easily pooling our expertise, e.g. on compensation, development, etc.
Our means are likely more limited than those of a large enterprise, but this just stimulates our creativity. For example, the implementation of webinars for all managers, as mentioned above.

A last question: when you leave your current job, what recommendations will you make to your successor?

Inspired by Michel Crozier’s expression, “the company that listens”, rather than seeking to copy and paste best practice, I would advise taking the time to listen, to understand how the company works, its DNA. Demonstrating situational and organizational intelligence seems key to managing change while respecting culture.