Working the field

CXO. Today in your role as VP of global diversity and accountability what are your main duties and responsibilities? I’m also interested that your job title includes the word “accountability” and what that means.
CF. The root of everything we do is reporting. We are in charge of all the social and CSR reporting tools, which means that we try to see everywhere in the world where we recruit people or we educate them or we take care of their health, things like that. This monitoring is key because it allows us to develop global HR policies, to monitor the implementation of these policies and to understand what works and what doesn’t, and when things don’t work it helps us understand that.

If we don’t have these reporting tools we cannot communicate internally or externally. We cannot take show and document commitment to the stakeholders, which is key of what we do in social reporting.

Our second responsibility lies in diversity. At Total, we have decided that diversity complements our business issues. One aim is to promote women and non-French people in the management chain. The second is secure global opportunities for all the employees in the world. So these are the two challenges. For each challenge we try to have key policies, key statements, key reporting and measuring tools, and then some operational links with the HR departments and with the branches and affiliates to make sure that everybody progresses.

The key risk in diversity is over-promising. We give global statements, we have clear policies and indicated objectives, but at the same time we know that when we speak about diversity we deliver messages where everybody has something individually to find. The risk is that people expect too much when you over-promise. You must match the progress and the messages and hopes you raise with good policies. That is difficult. The best way to manage that is to reduce communication and never over-expose yourself; instead, give priority to action instead of communication.

You need to work to balance hard and soft issues. You need hard tools; career management tools, indicators, procedure, things like that. But at the same time diversity is about accepting and valuing difference and is about being conscious of your own stereotypes. We have to conduct hard issues and soft issues in parallel.

Another field where Total is active is health. Total has decided to give human resources an important role in health. We co-ordinate all the actions that are taken by branches and divisions in the field of occupational health, environmental health, safety and health. We try to have complete co-ordination by building steering committees and prioritising the challenges.

We are also directly involved in the management of public health issues. For example, pandemics in Africa or in Asia, for example stress management, addiction, things like that. Personally this is very challenging as well as being very important. We devote a lot of time to that.

Education is also something that Total is pushing. We have educational programs in place that we use to give young leaders or good students in producing countries the opportunity to have an educational record in France. At the moment in Paris we have about 80 young students who are either young executives of national oil companies or third cycle students. They receive a scholarship in France for a year, and by that time they have improved their knowledge as well as building a network between international young people. It’s fascinating. We give them the opportunity to better know Total, France, and even Europe. They have a trip to the European Institution in Brussels, for example, to better understand Europe. With all of this we hope to make them ambassadors for Total when they go home.

We are also in charge of a specific part of benevolent actions, that covers education, health, and also what we call solidarity. The idea of this specific division is to have global visibility on HR and CSR commitment. It’s a new way of seeing classical fields like health or education, and then trying to build new transverse partnerships internally and externally. In all the fields we explore, we try internally to put together people from different branches, different nationalities, backgrounds. Externally, we try to share our experience of projects with different bodies, with government, NGOs, other companies, educational bodies both in France and in the other countries in order to see where our added value is in the social projects we develop.

CXO. In regards to education, is succession planning important and something that you look to do?
CF. Succession planning is key to diversity management. Now after four years of extensive work on diversity we understand its core: if we do not give specific attention to international people or women we will never progress significantly in diversity of our top management. We know that some things in diversity are easy to do; for example, correcting or adapting the HR processes, mobility management, career management.

But we know that if we want to improve diversity in the medium and long term, we have to improve our recruitment process to recruit more high-potential non-French people or to recruit more high-potential women. This is something we can do, but the problem is that now we don’t have the pipeline of high fliers with good potential, we just don’t have enough “diverse” people to feed our top management objectives. This is because 10 years ago we didn’t recruit enough of the good women and the good international talent with the capacity to be top management after 15 years. Now we have to see how to correct the fact that our pipeline is not sufficient.

We have to bring some succession plans in to give possibility of faster paths to some people from other countries or young employees, or women. This is not really positive action, but at the same time it looks like it is.

At the same time, what is very important is that we don’t destroy the hope of the classical French engineers who were recruited 15 years ago with very good potential, and who are eligible for top positions. This kind of vision is important for us, it’s key to our success, and we have to develop tailor-made succession plant and career management plans. Each case is specific.

CXO. Talking more about women in business, you’ve attended lots of conferences about the subject. Do you feel that the role of women in business has changed over the past few years?
In the last few years at Total we have seen a deep-seated cultural change in this area; not for reasons of political correctness, but for operational need. Everybody knows that we need women and that gender issues are key. But today we don’t find the talent we need in the classical profile of young French males coming from French engineer schools. We need the talents of women in these schools and everywhere in the world because men don’t offer us enough possibilities.

Women have specific talents, which it is important to develop. For example, in Africa we see that women are very good at finance, quality and financial management and control. So in a lot of African subsidiaries there are women at the top in finance management, in human resources and also in law. In Africa women are very important in all kinds of financial management, domestically too but more globally. They are recognized as having those skills so it is important to have women at these key positions.

So there are many operational reasons on top of the socio- political reasons to promote women. Everybody now is conscious of that. The problem is that there is always a gap between what your mind knows and what your heart decides. We are now in that context, where it’s still difficult for men to trust a woman in challenging operational positions.

Increasingly we have women who are successful on platforms, managing platforms and so on. They perform very well, for example, in safety management. Of course, I know I am addressing stereotypes. There is another challenge to balance stereotypes which are bad for women and to see into the stereotypes which what is really culturally rooted.

CXO. As Total becomes more global, are these cultural issues difficult to address depending on what country you’re in?
CF. Yes, but this is issue can be very different from what we expect. For example, in the Middle East you usually think that there are no opportunities for women, but that’s not really the case. In countries where the nationals are a minority – as, for example, in the Emirates – we see that the local people want to keep the control of operations. But in this region the boys are less successful than the girls at school, as the boys are trying to join private start-ups or private companies instead of national companies, you see that the national companies more and more hire young national women engineers.

So in the Emirates – or in this part of the world in general – we have these national oil companies sending young female students to France for our scholarship programs, because they will need these students for engineer positions and more leading positions.

Another good example of this is in Algeria, where we see that for the women, a professional life and professional career is a way to gain freedom and autonomy. You have some companies like Sonatrach –the state oil and gas company in Algeria – that have extensive policies on gender and promoting women in all the top management positions. They do this because they see that young women have a deeper desire to succeed in their career than many men.

But the problem is that when a woman in these countries chooses a career she is supposed to miss out on some family opportunities; most notably, becoming a mother. They don’t have the choices that most women in the West enjoy.

It is fascinating that in diversity you can have a global picture and approach, key leading principles and realities but at the same time you can see very different things happening.

CXO. How is diversity approached at Total? Is this something that has changed since you’ve taken up your position?
CF. Last October in Paris we organised a global day on diversity, which was called Diversity in All its Diversities. We invited 200 people – internal managers, external guests, other companies, government bodies and so on. We had some key people: Suzanne Berger from MIT, Christine Ockrent who is a leading French journalist, the HR VP of Microsoft and more. Speakers addressed issues linked to gender diversity, internationalisation, and also integration of minorities.

This event was a catalyst for us, because it showed that we were able to communicate and share our internal actions with other internal members and the external public. We addressed some key issues. It was a way to show that we were culturally ready to address difficult questions. Of course, it doesn’t mean that the work is done. If you don’t constantly address the issue through measures or through symbolic actions, you will never succeed.

CXO. Okay, so do you think that at senior level women and say ethnic minorities have to work harder than more traditional counterparts to prove themselves?
CF. The pressure on talent and on success is global now. But I think that yes, a woman, when she starts she has maybe to work more to show that she’s competent. But her competency’s not questioned thereafter.

As far as Total is concerned, in the numbers we have progressed. For example, both in the percentage of females in the high-potential population we have progressed from 12 percent in 2003 to 18 percent in 2007. That is some progress. But at the same time we only have one woman in the global managing committee of Total. For two years now, we have made it a requirement that there must be at least one woman in each branch managing committee. That is quite new. The majority of them are still in the human resources. But it’s a first step. Symbolically we must change the culture.

CXO. To finish off, what are the main challenges that you face today in the oil and gas industry?
CF. Firstly with regard to diversity, we want to progress in internationalisation and gender diversity in order to be a good partner for the governments and for our employees. Second, health issues are going to continue to be key to us. We have to take all the opportunities we can to help governments, NGOs, doctors to build programs which help them to cope with pandemics. As a company, we can give money, of course. We can give contact with key agents and we can give our experience in project management, which can lead to a better management by local authorities.

We have a lot of programs. We try to develop together with local partners key programs to promote the local capacities to prevent, to detect, and to correct pandemics and infectious diseases. These are two things we take very seriously.

Catherine Ferrant
VP, Global Diversity and Accountability, Total

With degrees in economics and communications from the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium, Catherine Ferrant began her professional career as a journalist at Le Soir, where she held a number of positions, including Editor of the Politics, Employment and Business section. In 1989, she joined PetroFina as Vice President, Corporate Communications. After the mergers of Total, PetroFina and Elf, she was Head of the Group’s Internal Communications Department and later Vice President, Corporate Communications at Atofina, the Chemicals business. In 2003, she was appointed Vice President, Global Diversity and Accountability, heading a new department created as part of Total’s Human Resources and Corporate Communications Division.

About Total
Total is a leading multinational energy company with 95, 000 employees and operations in more than 130 countries. Together with its subsidiaries and affiliates, Total is the fourth largest publicly-traded integrated oil and gas company in the world.

Total engages in all aspects of the petroleum industry, including Upstream operations (oil and gas exploration, development and production, LNG) and Downstream operations (refining, marketing and the trading and shipping of crude oil and petroleum products).

Total also produces base chemicals (petrochemicals and fertilizers) and specialty chemicals for the industrial and consumer markets. In addition, Total has interests in the coal mining and power generation sector.

Total's worldwide operations are conducted through three business segments:

Upstream includes oil and gas Exploration and Production, Gas and Power and other energy sources.

Downstream covers Trading and Shipping, Refining and the Marketing of TOTAL and Elf brand petroleum products, automotive and other fuels, and specialties such as LPG, aviation fuel and lubricants, through both the retail network and other outlets worldwide.

Chemicals comprises various activities including Base chemicals (Petrochemicals and Fertilisers) and Specialties for industry and the consumer market.