Research On Loreal As One Of The World’s Most Ethical Companies
Introduction
L’Oréal Paris was founded in 1909 by Eugene Schuller, a young chemist who began this company by producing hair dyes that he formulated and manufactured for hair salons through out Paris. His company then expanded through the development of new products and introducing innovating new ingredients to hair products. During his brand expenditure during the 1900’s, he introduced several other lines of beauty such as, makeup, haircare products, anti-ageing creams and men’s beauty products. Each line of products has succeeded and now are managed by CEO Jean Paul Agon. He began his role as CEO in 2011 and introduced a more ethical approach to L’Oréal’s production, ingrediency, sourcing and work environment, which has now lead to L’Oréal becoming a part of one of the world’s most ethical companies. This Personal endeavour will explore how Loreal has become one of the world’s most ethical companies, as well as issues that arise whilst trying to maintain ethical workplaces and products. This investigation will then have a better understanding of corporate liability, ethical understanding and awareness, as well as the effect an ethical company has on its workers and the environment.
L’Oréal Production and Produce
L’Oréal is a company that has developed immensely through its time, from the beginning of the 19’00s to now. L’Oréal consistently updated their products by experimenting and adapting their ingrediency and materials in order to design a product up to Loreal standards. One of the most important mantras for L’Oréal, is their willingness to improve the quality of a product to create a satisfied byer. L’Oréal has a team of researches that help to achieve excellence in each product. Loreal contributes large quantities of funding to the research and product development team so that their research achieves the results Loreal strives to achieve. Due to the company’s focus on research and product development, they have developed 130 different molecules in the past 40 years and hope to create more. By creating different molecules, they are improving products by inventing different chemical formulas that improve products and substantiate better results. This research is a main key to the development of ethical formulas to use for Loreal’s products which is Loreal’s key reasoning as to why their production developmental processing is their main focus. This brand also ensures that each country and region selling loreal products are taken into consideration when deeming what is most popular based on each country’s preference. Countries and regions that are part of Loreals research and innovation are Europe, The US, Japan China and India, these polls integrate to discuss what marketing form is more valuable to which country and which of their products to make available to each country based on reginal preferences.
Since Loreal is such a highly regarded brand withheld in a vast majority of cosmetic stores; Loreal manufactures must produce up to seven billion of their cosmetic products and distribute them around the world. To Achieve numbers such as these, as well as maintaining their high-quality products, they have certain procedures adopted by the manufactures. These are instead of having only up to 10 quality control checks (which is the average for a business to commence), Loreal commences 100 quality controls for each cosmetic product line. This includes the beginning of the production to the packaging and delivery; so, this means that from the chemical mixture to the boxing, it has all been reviewed various times so that Loreal can withhold its highly regarded and trusted name. Loreal uses modern innovative new technologies to create their products and use robotic to help package and make their products. Loreal now uses smart technology to help make their products due to the high quantity of products needed regionally, as well as to have its manufacturing employees focus on improving/developing products, quality control rather than giving a majority of their attention to the already developed product. Loreal manufactures 85. 9% of their own products in their own plants. This is so that Loreal may be responsible for as many of its products and manufacturing as possible to ensure the quality of a product to customers. How do L’Oréal treat their employees?
Loreal believes in having reliable and consistent employees that have a belief in customer satisfaction and creating a memorable experience. Loreal promotes constructive feedback from customers and employees to in order to improve the environment and work standards for customers and employees. Many of these suggestions have also led to Loreal adapting to create more ecofriendly products that support the wellbeing of their consumers and the environment. Loreal are highly regarded for their staff return rate which stands at a high 91%. Loreal has such a high success rate due to their considerations of staff wellbeing. Employees that are full time have the benefits to healthcare coverage in each country as staff wellbeing and health is a main priority. An example of the company placing a high amount of trust and care into their employees is when Loreal organise wellbeing program for employees to attend. This program has been in place every ‘Citizens Week’ to encourage the growth and wellbeing of staff to create a more satisfying work environment for the customer and the employee. Employee programs are also offered so that an employee has the ability to donate their time to the community and environmental institutions. However, there have been comments from previous employees that stated that they were overworked and also were consistently made to have an overbearingly cheerful domineer. Yet there were only a few negative comments in comparison to the positive feedback that was given from previous and current employees who loved the work environment. Many positive comments were attained that placed a main highlight on the excellent training that was thorough and easy to follow.
Another positive about being an employee at Loreal is their 20% off discount that also applies to Myer and David Johns when a Loreal store is located in one of the two premises. By 2017, Loreal had employed 82, 600 people with Loreal promising its employees that they will increase their training session value and create at 78% increase in employee satisfaction by 2020. The training portal that is used by Loreal employees is called” My learning” which helps employees understand the products they are selling and the individual ingredients that make that product. By having employees have an understanding of what goes into the products and how they were made, they are also then able to make clearer decisions on what they are able to suggest to customers. Due to employees having the ability to either donate some of their salary to charity or to donate their time, a program was introduced to employees in 2013 which was “The Loreal share and care” program which had ambitions that staff would be offered to achieve. This program was offered to each country that Loreal had subsidiaries and proved to be very popular. Loreal are not only and ethical company, but that promote ethical behaviour to their staff by having these programs available.
L’Oréal’s impact in the environment and use of resources
L’Oréal’s selection of materials to create products are dictated by the CSR qualification system, this is a system that allows the raw materials to be evaluated according to a sustainability aspect. Loreal has stated that it take much of its inspiration from “The Body shop” as L’Oréal had adopted the same principles. Loreal believe in fair trade processes as well as supporting local suppliers which is why they place so much time in researching the most sustainable and local suppliers to purchase raw organic materials. Loreal also work with the “Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), in order to reduce greenhouse gasses. This project is relevant to loreals impact on the environment as they will only work with suppliers that have eliminated a majority of their factories carbon emissions. L’Oréal has previously tested on Animals and are apart of the PETA list of animal testing companies. They unfortunately are still listed as their China department is run separately to every other country with L’Oréal. This has cause conflict in recent times as Loreal is seen as a sustainable and environmentally friendly company, yet there is still China who does not adopt these rules. Many people criticise L’Oréal about why they then still have a branch in China if they are not adopting the values of the company, to which L’Oréal’s CEO replied with a comment along the lines of how a vast majority of profit and growth are due to their popularity in China and that they risk losing billions if they do not include a branch there. This comment was quite controversial as many people agreed that L’Oréal had to maintain its revenue, yet others believe that no matter the money, values must be met. However, excluding China, Animal testing has been banned and each country has adopted the same sustainable mantra.
Personal and Social Capability
This assessment is on about a company’s corporate and social responsibility, I chose to evaluate the action of L’Oréal and their contributions towards an ethical future. Through this assessment I have learnt various contributions that this company has attained in order to become sustainable as well as having a deeper understanding of the implications that arise when becoming a sustainable company. After analysing videos and Web sources I was able to gain knowledge of the ethical considerations of L’Oréal and issue they have overcome to become a sustainable company. I have gained knowledge of the financial sacrifices that companies must undergo to become sustainable and ethical in regard to their products ingrediencies. A majority of companies that do no adopt the ethical way of production and ingrediencies tend to be more inclined to produce revenue instead of stating values that are inherent to the improvement of the environment.
This investigation has advised me that there is still hope for the environment as companies that are not adopting the view of sustainability are now being called out and many people are refusing to buy their products. I developed my personal and social capability by being enlightened by the progress that L’Oréal has made in order to have a sustainable business. They had to make many changes in order to become the company they are today, as they used to proceed in unethical practices such as testing on animals. My capability developed through out this as I learnt that no matter how unethical you may be, there is always hope that you are able to develop into an ethical person who stands by their values. However, it was strange to me that L’Oréal has been voted as being one of the worlds most ethical companies, yet their branch in China still has not fully adopted the values of L’Oréal in each other country. The fact that they do not remove themselves from China does sate that they are putting their revenue first and are not putting their apparent values first in that situation.
