26 February 2024
For over one hundred years, the L’Oréal Groupe has focused on the empowerment, self-identity and self-expression of women. Our purpose is to create the beauty that moves the world, and as the world’s leading beauty company we understand that everything we do can have a meaningful impact. The topic of gender equality has long been a focus for us and over the past decade here in Australia we have seen significant changes within our business. Our strategy centers on four pillars – flexibility, equal parental leave, career pathways for women, and pay equity.
For over one hundred years, the L’Oréal Groupe has focused on the empowerment, self-identity and self-expression of women. Our purpose is to create the beauty that moves the world, and as the world’s leading beauty company we understand that everything we do can have a meaningful impact. The topic of gender equality has long been a focus for us and over the past decade here in Australia we have seen significant changes within our business.
Our strategy centers on four pillars – flexibility, equal parental leave, career pathways for women, and pay equity.
Our work on providing greater flexibility for employees started prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, which allowed us to quickly support our employees during that time, particularly working parents.
Our aim is to create a work environment where we deliver excellent business outcomes and everyone is able to thrive. We are committed to working together with our employees to provide flexibility based on cooperation, trust, empowerment, fairness, transparency, and respect.
At the L’Oréal Groupe in Australia, we have two distinct elements of our flexible work culture, informal and formal flexible working arrangements.
Informal arrangements – allow our employees greater choice around how, when and where their work is done, with the support of a global policy and their manager. Examples of informal working arrangements include:
Formal arrangements – provide employees who require a more structured work arrangement, the opportunity to change their employment contract to suit their individual circumstance. Examples of formal flexible work arrangements include:
In 2018, the L'Oréal Groupe in Australia removed the classification of primary and secondary carers from our policy, and offered 14 weeks of paid parental leave to all permanent full and part time L'Oréal employees from the time they commence with the company, regardless of their gender or relationship to the child, whether by birth or adoption.
We also understand the devastating impact of stillbirth on families and employees. To provide support in such circumstances, we support any employee who suffers this loss.
We recognise that equal parental leave is a critical aspect of our gender equality commitment. Our policies reflect our dedication to supporting our employees and their families during important life events, and we will continue to prioritise the well-being of our employees in all of our initiatives.
We are also focused on supporting our male employees to take up the full allocation of time for parental leave, as there are benefits for all working parents. The flow on effects for women are significant when the social norm of the primary carer moves away from being female focused.
At L'Oréal, we know that that gender equality at all levels of our business adds immense value and powers innovation. Ensuring representation of women at senior levels starts within our talent pipeline and recruitment process for all roles.
Having held the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) Employer of Choice accreditation since 2019, we have demonstrated that we have strong systems and processes for performance appraisal and promotion that consider factors that might act adversely upon women. These systems include objective and gender-neutral performance criteria, clear progression pathways, accounting for bias and proactive succession plans. We also have policies that address equality of opportunities that contribute to accelerating career progression.
High female representation within our Executive committee has been an ongoing focus for us for many years and in 2024, nine of the sixteen executive roles are held by women. This is well above the average of 32.5% (WGEA, 2023).
Pay equity with like for like roles, has been a key part of our gender equality strategy for a number of years. L’Oréal uses a gender pay equity tool developed by EDGE (Economic Dividends for Gender Equality) a leading global standard for DE&I that allows businesses to measure how they’re tracking. The tool considers elements such as an individual’s gender, tenure, responsibility of role, and function within the business, to measure pay equity and whether it is statistically significant or insignificant.
The L'Oréal Groupe in Australia has pay parity across like for like roles as certified by EDGE. We have held EDGE certification since 2015, and use their gender pay equity tool to verify our data.
We will continue to measure pay equity using the EDGE tool, identify and address any gaps, and publish this information each year for our employees.
As an WGEA employer of choice, we are supportive of transparency on gender pay gaps within Australian businesses.
For the WGEA reporting period of 2022-2023, the median pay gap for L’Oréal on total remuneration is 9.9%.
| L’Oréal Groupe Australia | Industry Comparison | |
| Median total remuneration | 9.9% | 19.7% |
| Median base salary | 8.6% | 17.9% |
At L’Oréal the gender pay gap exists due to a combination of factors. Firstly, women tend to be overrepresented in lower-level and part time positions, where salaries are typically lower. As women progress to mid management roles, some choose to leave the business often driven by caregiving responsibilities, contributing to fewer females represented in upper management. The disproportion in parental leave uptake and the length of tenure are also drivers we are aware of and focus on in our strategies.
Continuous efforts are underway to address these structural drivers, with initiatives aimed at promoting equal opportunities for career advancement and leveling the playing field across all levels of our workforce. Through ongoing advocacy and proactive measures, L’Oréal is actively working on closing the gender pay gap and fostering greater gender equality across our business.
We will continue to conduct yearly gender pay gap assessments which cover base salaries, bonuses and other employment benefits by using a regression analysis. We systematically remediate any identified unexplained gender pay equity gaps and communicate openly on the organisation's proactive management of gender pay equity across all levels of responsibility.
We will continue to ensure that all candidates for management positions (from junior to top management) are interviewed by both male and female managers.
The business will enhance the current no tolerance policy on prohibiting and preventing sexual harassment and all forms of discrimination at the workplace by ensuring that all employees are required to complete sexual harassment and discrimination prevention training at least once a year and that non-disclosure agreements and private arbitration are prohibited. We will continue to ensure that a majority of employees agree that information on the procedure to report a concern regarding sexual harassment and discrimination is easily accessible to them, that they would not be retaliated against for reporting a concern and that the leadership would take appropriate actions in response to incidents of harassment and discrimination.
L’Oréal will continue to build and deliver strategies to provide equal access, opportunities and rewards regardless of gender.