Engaged decision-makers, the TV show of the hemicycle that reveals decision-makers and allows us to understand what each day gives them the desire to fight and succeed. Welcome to 'On dit tout', the show of engaged decision-makers on hemicycle TV, and we have the pleasure today of being welcomed by Tony Gomez, here in this magnificent restaurant at Laurent's in the heart of Paris. Instead of political and economic decision-makers, we'll see them obviously, a new setting doesn't necessarily mean a change of objective, since we will always tell you about inspiring journeys, impactful analyses to understand the world of today and tomorrow. And for that, I welcome Laurent Guillot. Hello.
Thank you very much for being with us on 'On se dit tout'. You are the CEO of EMEIS, which provides services for the elderly, nursing homes, etc. We'll talk about it: 78,000 employees in France and internationally. The principle of the show is that we'll first talk about you, Laurent Guillot, without necessarily going into details because I know you don't like that, the details of your training, since that doesn't necessarily define a person. What are your passions in life? What drives you in life?
Well, my first passion, I would say, is my work. That takes up a huge amount of my time, and especially when you are a leader, you have the opportunity to transform teams, to transform the society around us. So yes, that's my main passion. After that, I have secondary passions, I would say, in my free time, like Burgundy wines, hiking, science. I'm not talking about my training, but I have a scientific background. I remain very attached to everything related to science, so I continue to inform myself. But my main passion is my work and the transformation and the way we can change things from where we are.
Absolutely. You started at the Ministry of Economy, I specify, before joining the cabinet of the Minister of Equipment. Nearly 20 years at Saint-Gobain in management positions. So, what do you like about these management positions? What is your way of managing these teams?
Well, what I like is really seeing them evolve, making them grow, and in fact giving them the responsibility to transform their activity for the better. At Saint-Gobain, it's very industrial, very engineering-oriented, so how to provide the best service to customers with a lot of R&D, innovation, many industrial processes to constantly improve. And the reality, the most interesting thing, is to see the teams transform and evolve and progress by handling increasingly complex data. Today it's digital, yesterday, I'd say yesterday, it's still today, ecology, and incorporating that into their business model. That's what's interesting: making them grow.
Absolutely. Let's talk about the company, EMEIS. I said 78,000 employees in France and internationally. These are psychiatric clinics, medical rehabilitation clinics, nursing homes, home care services, and service residences. What made you try the adventure at EMEIS?
So, I arrived at EMEIS at an extremely particular moment. This company, when I arrived 3 years ago, was called Orpa.
And so everyone knows Orpa. Exactly. Everyone knows Orpa because of the book and the story that happened. So I came to take over this company just after the book was released. What's interesting is the capacity. First, you have to bounce back. It's an extraordinary mission. The mission of taking care of others, whether in nursing homes or clinics, is an essential, fundamental mission. There's no need to ask why you go to work in the morning. That's obvious. So there's an extremely attractive side to doing this mission. And then there are 78,000 people at the time that need to be saved because when I arrive in this company, when I arrived in 2022, I didn't have enough to pay the salaries 2 months later. So we had to save the company, get the teams back to work. But they were already working, they were there every day. It's actually them who saved the company mainly by continuing to provide service despite the suffering caused by the book. Of course, of course.
After that, we had to change the image too, because there was this story of Orpa, but the image in general, even I'm talking about nursing homes in particular, there is always a slightly negative side that we have to overcome, even though we can't escape it when there are no other solutions for them, and moreover the population is aging.
So how do we do it? How did you re-engage the teams in the first place to motivate them, and then how do you go towards an improved image, since the population will need it more and more?
No, those are two very different questions. How to re-engage the teams? The teams are very engaged. In fact, we now regularly conduct engagement studies, as we do in large groups. We do it at EMEIS, and I've never seen such high engagement scores. Why? Because we don't need to explain to them why they go to work in the morning. The meaning is natural. It's not like when you build a car, sometimes you have to motivate yourself by saying 'I'm going to build the car.' Here, you have elderly people, people with mental illnesses, people who need rehabilitation and re-education, who need you and ask you to help them. So there was no problem of engagement. After that, obviously, we had to re-explain, put ethics back into the company at the highest level, so change the management teams, re-explain and rebuild the trust between the field teams and the headquarters and management teams, which had obviously been completely broken. And that goes through communication, transparency, truth, dialogue, very simple and very human values. But I believe that's fundamental for also creating a company.
