Concentrix. ‘Every year, 15 out of 500 employees alert the media’.

Marc le Coënt, Director of the Etrelles site, and Romain Plé Nemo, Concentrix Director for France, answers questions in an interview on Friday 28 March. Over the past few weeks, the local press (Ouest France and the Journal de Vitré) have been talking about a ‘social malaise’, with the loss of a major contract (with Stellantis?) leading to strike action and concern.

Background
No journalist was able to speak to the site manager, who is a professional in his field: Marc Le Coënt started out as a teleconsultant twenty-five years ago. Christine Le Nabour, Member of Parliament, alerted the sub-prefecture. The labour inspectorate visited the site on Wednesday 26 March. For at least the last ten years, the same social tension seems to have existed in this call-centre belonging to the world’s number 2 (ex-Webhelp), at the same time of year. After we had tried unsuccessfully to contact the Vitré site through the normal channels (by calling its switchboard), Concentrix management agreed, in a reactive manner, to organise this telephone interview. Coincidentally, on that same Friday, Concentrix’s share price had risen spectacularly the previous day on the NASDAQ, the market on which it is listed: +34%, following much better-than-expected quarterly results.

‘15 out of 500 employees report feeling unwell. And this happens every year at the time of the NAO’.

The terms ‘toxic management’ and ‘worrying working conditions’ have been used in the press about the Vitré site, and even relayed by a Member of Parliament. How do you explain this?
Marc le Coënt: They don’t correspond to the reality of the situation, and the vast majority of employees at the site are frustrated that they are being used. Every year for the past ten years or so, they have been used by certain people at a specific time, during the NAO (compulsory annual negotiations), with an appeal to the media, who relay them. And it works, so why deprive ourselves of something that works? We have four trade union organisations on site, including two with whom collaboration and dialogue are more difficult.
Romain Plé Nemo: Incidentally, the press covered the movement of around fifteen people, even though the site employs 500.

Have you ever invited journalists from Ouest France, the leading daily newspaper in the PQR in terms of readership, or the Journal de Vitré, to visit the site and talk informally with you or the employees?
RPN: No, and you’re right, we should. In the same way, we have contacted the Member of Parliament who relayed this movement, but so far we haven’t heard anything back from her (contacted by us on several occasions, the Member of Parliament Christine Le Nabour and her team have never called En-Contact back to give details of the serious events that were brought to her attention).

Maxime Turberville, the journalist from the Journal de Vitré ( Actus.fr) also wanted to meet the site manager. He was asked to send in his questions, which were answered in writing. Do you think that all this does not give a feeling of transparency and simplicity? Personally, I didn’t want to use a quick way of contacting the company’s head office, so I tried to contact the site via its switchboard, like an average person wanting to contact a local company. As I had done in Compiègne. I got a recorded message. For a company that specialises in communication and the art of conversation, it’s amusing.
RPN: You’re right. But it should also be pointed out that, when it comes to all the requests we receive from the media, we never know who is making them, for what purpose or what the agenda of the person requesting them is. The site’s employees are affected by this ‘muckraking’, which is the word I heard when I was last here. Once again, we need to improve our relationship with local players, while remembering that we are a discreet profession, at the service of brands. We are working hard to reconcile these two issues. And we know each other, you know my mobile.

Are supervisors petty bosses?

There’s a long-standing and persistent complaint in the call centre world: supervisors are, or would be, petty bosses. And one of them, who worked at Concentrix for ten years, speaks of a management style that is more adept at communication than human relations. In a customer/employee review that he left on Google, and to which you still haven’t replied, he talks about managers who are quicker and more skilful at ‘cooking merguez and chipolatas’ than at talking to or congratulating their loyal N-1s (…)
Why leave an opinion of this type unanswered, when it seems that the company is responding to the opinions expressed on the dismissal of Loan Léton?
MLC: First of all, I have to say that I’m not a big fan of the media, social networks or external communication. I want to protect the employees and the company. However, despite good intentions, what we say can be transformed and used. I have observed this. I and we have work to do on this subject in a profession that, in any case, is and must remain discreet.

On the question of management, we have devised and implemented an ambitious training programme for supervisors, within the Qualiopi-certified CNX University, over two six-month periods, alternating practical and theoretical subjects. We regularly update the content and methods of this training. But you can’t learn a job in a day, and even less so can you learn how to manage close relationships. So sometimes, perhaps, small mistakes can occur, which we try to compensate for. I’d also like to point out that the majority of those promoted to supervisor are former advisers. The case of Cyril Urien, the author of the opinion, is representative: he worked for four years as a TC, then became a supervisor, then wanted to sign a contractual termination agreement, withdrew and finally resigned. I think he had done all he could as a manager and wanted to move into a teaching-related job.

He organised a farewell party with his managers and colleagues. I wasn’t there, although we had quite a strong bond. I’m sorry about that. But it happens because I can’t always be there. I often go to farewell parties, just as I sometimes go to funerals. The meeting room is always open and we often have these informal moments there. With the exception of the Covid period, during which social relations suffered, these relationships and exchanges exist. Finally, I’d like to point out that 50% of our employees have been at the Vitré site for more than five years.

‘I’m not a fan of social networks’.

On the last part of your question, this is another good example of why I’m not a fan of social networks and the responses that can be made to them. Last week, an employee came to our defence on Facebook, following the article that appeared on Actus.fr. This provoked a lot of reactions, particularly from people who aren’t even in the company and don’t know her, and in the end I had to reassure her. One name often comes up in our locality, that of Gilles Renault, who was for a time a candidate for LFI, who often talks about us in terms of ‘an American, conspiracy-minded company.’ I’ve suggested to him on numerous occasions that he should come and meet us, that he should come and see this company he’s talking about. He never followed up.

RPN: I’d like to add one last thing. Our profession and our business as a major player in BPO is to serve brands. We are service providers. We have to stay in our place. That was one of the first things I was told and reminded of when I joined Concentrix.

‘I started as a customer advisor in 1998, at the helmet’.